an assemblage of events or circumstances, occurring in an affair, and perplexing the persons concerned in it. In this sense, it is used to signify the nodus or plot of a play or romance; or that point wherein the principal characters are most embarrassed through the artifice and opposition of certain persons, or the unfortunate falling out of certain accidents and circumstances.

In tragedy, comedy, or an epic poem, there are always two designs. The first and principal is that of the hero of the piece: the second contains the designs of all those who oppose him. These opposite causes produce opposite effects, to wit, the efforts of the hero for the execution of his design, and the efforts of those who thwart it. As those causes and designs are the beginning of the action, so these efforts are the middle, and there form a knot or difficulty which we call the intrigue, that makes the greatest part of the poem. It lasts as long as the mind of the reader or hearer is suspended about the event of those opposite efforts: the solution or catastrophe commences when the knot begins to unravel and the difficulties and doubts begin to clear up.

The intrigue of the Iliad is twofold. The first comprehends three days fighting in Achilles's absence, and consists on the one side in the resistance of Agamemnon and the Greeks, and on the other in the inexorable temper of Achilles. The death of Patroclus unravels this intrigue, and makes the beginning of a second. Achilles resolves to be revenged, but Hector opposes his design; and this forms the second intrigue, which is the last day's battle.

In the Æneid there are also two intrigues. The first is taken up in the voyage and landing of Æneas in Italy; the second is his establishment there: the opposition he met with from Juno in both these undertakings, forms the intrigue.

As to the choice of the intrigue, and the manner of unravelling it, it is certain they ought both to spring naturally from the ground and subject of the poem. Bodin gives us three manners of forming the intrigue of a poem: the first is that already mentioned; the second is taken from the fable and design of the poet; in the third the intrigue is so laid, as that the solution follows from it of course.