![]() ![]() Part Four includes further developments leading inevitably to Part Five, in which the final crisis of action or revelation and resolution are explained. In this part, a change of direction occurs or understanding is precipitated. ![]() Part Three, the crisis (or climax), brings everything to a head. Part Two, the development, continues the action and introduces complications. Shakespearean tragedy usually works on a five-part structure, corresponding to the five acts: Part One, the exposition, outlines the situation, introduces the main characters, and begins the action. Iago hinted at these ideas, and Othello rushed to accept them, because they echoed his deepest fears and insecurities. Her love must be a pretense, or a flawed and corrupted emotion. Thinking this, he could not believe that Desdemona could truly love him for himself. In his heart he had come to believe what they believed: that a black man is an unattractive creature, not quite human, unworthy of love. A more modern interpretation would say that Othello's tragic flaw was that he had internalized, that is taken into himself, the prejudices of those who surrounded him. Some say that Othello's tragic flaw was jealousy which flared at suspicion and rushed into action unchecked by calm common sense. His downfall becomes his own doing, and he is no longer, as in classical tragedy, the helpless victim of fate. Bradley saw Shakespearean tragedy characterized by the "tragic flaw," the internal imperfection in the hero that brings him down. Othello is about as near as Shakespeare gets to classical tragedy.Ī. ![]() ![]() The plot is fairly unified, focusing on Othello and his fate, and dealing with other people and events only in so far as they are relevant to this focus. This is not to say that everything happens in the same day it obviously cannot, but the impression is of an abstract day unfolding. Although logically the play covers an unspecified time lapse of, we presume, two or three weeks, it proceeds, more or less, by major scenes through the hours of the day, starting in Venice with the elopement after midnight, the Senate meeting at dawn, then at Cyprus with the morning storm and afternoon landings and developments, the fateful drinking party in the early evening and the murder at bed time. Othello, apart from Act I in Venice, is located entirely within the fortress at Cyprus. A tragedy evoked pity and terror in the audience it was a catharsis, or washing clean of the soul, which left the spectator trembling but purified.Īristotle proposed the tragic unities of Place, Time, and Action, that is, the whole tragedy would take place in a single location, for example a house or a city square (this included messengers who came in from elsewhere), it would happen during the course of one day (including speeches about events which had happened in the past), and it would be a single story, without sub- plots.Ĭompared with these strict rules, Shakespeare's tragedy is a more relaxed genre, but Othello much more than, for example, the sprawling Hamlet, observes the spirit of Aristotle. The hero would struggle against overwhelming fate, and his defeat would be so noble that he wins the moral victory over the forces that destroy him. The plays which provide the strongest fundamental examples of the genre of Shakespearean tragedy are Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbethand Antony and Cleopatra.The dramatic form of classical tragedy derives from the tragic plays of ancient Athens, which depicted the downfall of a hero or famous character of Greek legend. There are 10 Shakespeare plays which are always classified as tragedies and several others which are disputed there are also Shakespeare plays which fall into the classifications of comedy, history, or romance/tragicomedy that share fundamental attributes of a Shakespeare tragedy but do not wholly fit in to the category. Shakespeare wrote several different classifications of plays throughout his career and the labeling of his plays into categories is disputed amongst different sources and scholars. We may put it thus: What is the substance of a Shakespearean tragedy, taken. The plots of Shakespearean tragedy focus on the reversal of fortune of the central characters which leads to their ruin and ultimately, death. The question we are to consider in this lecture may be stated in a variety of ways. Shakespearean tragedy is the classification of drama written by William Shakespeare which has a noble protagonist, who is flawed in some way, placed in a stressful heightened situation and ends with a fatal conclusion. ![]()
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