Shakespeare and Tragedy

1. Shakespeare and Tragedy

2. A brief definition of Tragedy Tragedy is a branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual.

3. Origins/History of Tragedy • Original Greek: tragodia (“goat song”) from Dionysian festivals • Tragedy from its beginning has dealt in universal themes of death and disaster connected with seasonal rhythms • Original Greek tragedies were performed by a chorus; later the tragic hero developed • Aeschylus was the first playwright to use dialogue

4. Tragic Theory • All Greek tragedy drew from familiar myths of gods and men; therefore the story was already known • The point of tragedy was not (and is not) to find out what happens, but rather to discover and learn from the changing awareness and responses of the characters involved – often resulting in irony • Many, if not most, major tragic events happened off-stage and were then commented upon

5. Qualities of Tragedy • The plot follows the hero’s involvement in an intolerable yet inescapable situation, the result of will, circumstance, ignorance or obligation • Hero eventually battles the inexorable fate that ensures an unhappy outcome • The experience is not entirely negative: it exposes human grandeur and dignity in extreme circumstances • Audience feels both ennobled and chastened – and achieves katharsis through tears

6. Development of Tragedy • Romans (esp. Seneca) essentially stole Greek tragedy and made it more sensational (and often more violent) • Elizabethan playwrights (Kyd, Marlowe) followed in this tradition • British adventurism (New World, etc.) influenced the Elizabethans, especially Shakespeare, to include a new topic: the rewards and perils of the over-ambitious hero’s individual achievement and discovery (pride derived from Greek hubris)

7. Shakespeare’s Great Tragedies • Shakespeare went beyond the drama of his time to present an imaginative vision of evil and of the resources with which man confronts evil in his extremity • Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are prominent but imperfect (Hamlet, Lear) and therefore serve as both compelling individual and symbol of society • Shakespeare’s trajectory as a writer took him from the social individual (comedy) to the burdened individual (history) to the overburdened individual (tragedy)

8. Shakespearean Tragedy:An Outline • A noble hero • Begins in a state of happiness & good fortune • Ends in a state of misery • Through both fate and his own fault (tragic flaw) • The outcome is inevitable once the hero sets off on his path to destruction • Order is re-established by a minor but noble character