The specific emphasis and character of tragedy has changed in different periods. In classical tragedy, the protagonist usually suffers through fate interwoven with human interests and passions (as in Sophocles' Oedipus the King [ca. 428 B.C.]). (See Catharsis and Hamartia, which follow, from Aristotle's theory of tragedy.) The earliest tragedies were part of the Attic religious festival held in honor of the god DIONYSUS (5th cent. B.C.). The most famous ancient tragedies are probably the Oresteia of AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES' Oedipus Rex, and EURIPIDES' Trojan Women. ARISTOTLE pointed out tragedy's ritual function: the spectators are purged of their own emotions of pity and fear through their vicarious participation in the drama. The dramas of the Roman tragedian SENECA were based on certain conventions-unity of time and place, violence, bombast, revenge, and the appearance of ghosts.
In the Middle Ages, tragedy was associated with the downfall of eminent people through the inevitable turning of Fortune's wheel; their fall exemplifies the inconstancy of Fortune and the folly of placing trust in worldly goods rather than God's will (Chaucer's "The Monk's Tale" [ca. 1387] lists several such exempla).
Later, Seneca's plays served as models for such RENAISSANCE tragedies as Christopher MARLOWE's Tamburlaine (1587) and Thomas KYD's Spanish Tragedy (1594). These in turn prefigured the towering tragedies of the period: Marlowe's Dr. Faustus (1588); SHAKESPEARE's Othello, MACBETH, Hamlet and King Lear (1600-1607), and John WEBSTER's Duchess of Malfi (1614). All of these plays dramatize the conflicts of kings, conquerors, or, at the very least, geniuses.
Renaissance tragedy in England was flexible both in its willingness to combine tragic and comic modes, and in the attributes of the tragic protagonist. Thus it was criticized by Aristotelian critics such as Sir Philip Sidney for "mingling kings and clowns" and arousing laughter at "sinful things" (An Apology for Poetry [1583]); for instance, the fallen King Lear has a Fool for his companion, and the sinister Iago invites laughter at the ease with which he deceives Othello. English dramatists and their audiences were fascinated by sympathetic or admirable villains (contrary to Aristotelian principles of tragedy), and one of the most popular dramatic forms was the revenge tragedy, such as Hamlet (1600).
The tradition of the tragic hero continued for the next 300 years in the work of the Spaniards LOPE DE VEGA and CALDERóN DE LA BARCA; the Frenchmen Pierre CORNEILLE and Jean RACINE; and the Germans G.E. LESSING, GOETHE, and SCHILLER.
Since the eighteenth century, most tragedy has dealt with characters from the middle or lower classes ("domestic" or "bourgeois tragedy"). This refinement, again rooted in religious drama--springs from the mystery plays and morality plays of medieval France and England, of which EVERYMAN is the best known--emphasize the accountability and suffering of ordinary, common people. The tragic lot of the common people is explored in such dramas as George Lillo's domestic tragedy The London Merchant (1731) and Georg BüCHNER's political tragedy Danton's Death (1835). In Henrik IBSEN's A Doll's House (1879) and An Enemy of the People (1882), ordinary people behave heroically, acknowledging their faith in the validity of the tragic vision.
The cataclysmic events of the 20th cent. have produced a radical diminution of that vision. In
Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1939), the characters are all social failures consoling
themselves with whisky in Harry Hope's bar. They illustrate the need for illusions to make life
bearable when one cannot succeed by the competitive and materialistic values of capitalist
society. In such plays as another of O'NEILL's tragedies, Mourning Becomes Electra (1931),
Bertolt BRECHT's Mother Courage (1941), Arthur MILLER's Death of a Salesman (1949),
and Samuel BECKETT's Waiting for Godot (1953), life is depicted as so horrible and absurd that
heroic behavior is not only impossible, it is irrelevant. In other dramatic works, like the Italian
composer Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus (1980), protagonists suffer from commonplace
misfortunes or their own inescapable mediocrity.
Elements of Tragedy: Fatal Flaw (hamartia), Pride (hubris), Catharsis)
According to Aristotle, the tragic hero must fall through his or her own error, or hamartia. This term is also interpreted as "tragic flaw" and usually applied to overweening pride, or hubris , which causes fatal error.
The classic example of Aristotelian principles is Sophocles' Oedipus the King (ca. 428 B.C.); Shakespeare's Othello (1603-04) follows a similar pattern of pride, error, and self-destruction (though Oedipus merely mutilates himself on discovering his crimes, whereas Othello commits suicide).
Recent scholarship has suggested that the interpretation of hamartia as a fatal flaw is itself
flawed, and that the word more properly means any disproportion in the character's makeup that
leads to downfall; thus an excess of a valuable or virtuous quality can in some circumstances be
seen as hamartia.
Catharsis ("Purgation" Or "Purification")
In response to Plato's attack on Greek epic and tragedy for encouraging a shameful indulgence in sorrowful emotion, Aristotle argues in his Poetics (fourth century B.C.) that tragedy allows a healthy release or purifying of emotions. This tragic catharsis is achieved through the emotions of pity and fear (forms of sympathy or empathy), which are aroused in the audience by the tragedy of a protagonist who suffers unjustly but is not wholly innocent.
Pity and fear are inspired in the audience by the suffering of someone who is morally typical: he
or she is not overwhelmingly good or evil, but susceptible to error (as when acting unjustly
through ignorance or passion). The protagonist's misfortune therefore inspires pity because it is
worse than he or she deserves, and fear because the audience sees in it their own potential errors
and suffering.
Plot
The plot is the organization of character and action in a work of narrative or drama in order to achieve particular effects. Plot is distinguished from story, which is the summary of the plot's incidents without considering how they are interrelated.
Although Aristotle, in his Poetics, gives priority to "the structure of incidents" over character, he notes that character and plot are interdependent, since action arises from character, and character is expressed through action
A plot may be said to have "unity of action" if all its parts contribute to the whole with nothing superfluous. Renaissance critics disapproved of the mingling of tragedy and comedy because it seemed to violate this sacred unity, but they only showed a narrower sense of unity than the writers of the time.
The main character in a literary work is the protagonist , and her or his adversary (if there is one) is the antagonist (as Iago is to Othello). Most plots center upon a conflict, or multiple conflicts: the protagonists are set against other people or society; against fate, circumstance or the environment; or against their own desires or values; or any combination of these. If characters scheme against someone else, exploiting their ignorance or credulity, they are said to intrigue.
One common model for plot structure consists of the rising action (or complication), in which the main conflict is developed; the crisis or turning point, when the tragic hero is at the height of fortune or the comic hero at a nadir; and the catastrophe, or denouement ("unknotting"), when the action is resolved unsuccessfully or successfully for the main character.
The denouement often involves a peripety, or reversal of intention, whereby the protagonist's intended outcome is reversed for better or worse; and this reversal often depends upon a recognition , or discovery, which radically changes the protagonist's understanding of her or his circumstances. In double plots, a secondary story (the subplot) parallels the main one, either as an analogy (the story of Gloucester in King Lear) or as a contrast with the main story (the comic subplot of Henry IV, Part 1).
A plot can create suspense by arousing sympathy for a character whose fortunes are uncertain,
leaving the audience or reader anxious for the sake of the protagonist. On the other hand, the plot
can also generate suspense when the reader is allowed to know the final outcome and is then
shown the protagonist's step by step approach to an end he or she does not expect (see dramatic
irony). For some of the plot patterns used to achieve particular overall effects of tragedy, see the
entries on comedy, romance, or satire.
Character and Characterization
Characters are the persons presented in works of narrative or drama who convey their personal qualities through dialogue and action by which the reader or audience understands their thoughts, feelings, intentions and motives. Characters are stable in their attitudes throughout a work (static characters) or undergo personal development and change, whether through a gradual process or a crisis (dynamic characters); but in any case they usually remain consistent in their basic nature.
A flat character (also known as a type , or a two-dimensional character) is defined by a single quality without much individualizing detail. A round character is a complex individual incapable of being easily defined. The degree to which characters are given roundness and individual complexity depends upon their function in the plot--some only need to be seen at a distance, like strangers or acquaintances, rather than known intimately. Even fully rounded characters can often be seen as developments of types, like Shakespeare's Falstaff, who derives in part from the Vice of the medieval morality play and in part from the miles gloriosus or boastful soldier of Roman comedy (see Stock Characters ). The distinction between flat and rounded characters, while useful, should not obscure the fact that there is a continuum of levels of character development; many characters will fall between the two poles, lightly sketched, or even caricatured.
Two methods of characterization often distinguished are those in which the author shows without
comment a characters' words and actions, implying rather than describing their traits; or tells the
reader directly about the characters--explicitly, even intrusively guiding the audience's
understanding of characters through commentary and evaluation. Modern narrative tends to
develop character indirectly, whereas many nineteenth century novelists chose to explain their
characters directly--but there are brilliant exceptions in each period. (See also Point of View .)
Irony
The term irony is derived from the Greek eiron (dissembler), and denotes that the appearance of things differs from their reality, whether in terms of meaning, situation, or action. That is, it is ironical when there is a difference between what is spoken and what is meant (see verbal irony ). what is thought about a situation and what is actually the case; or what is intended by actions and what is their actual outcome (see dramatic irony.)
In stable irony there is a constant perspective from which to perceive the underlying meaning; whereas in unstable irony there is no perspective that is not itself undercut ironically. (See allegory, satire, point of view .)
Dramatic Irony is a situation in which the reader or audience knows more about the immediate circumstances or future events of a story than a character within it; thus the audience is able to see a discrepancy between characters' perceptions and the reality they face. Characters' beliefs become ironic because they are very different or opposite from the reality of their immediate situation, and their intentions are likewise different from the outcome their actions will have.
Audiences familiar--like the original Greek spectators--with the legend of Oedipus know that the hero of Sophocles' tragedy is guilty of the evil he seeks to punish, and they can therefore fully appreciate Oedipus' blindness as he self-righteously hunts down the murderer of Laius--not only blind that he is the murderer, but that Laius is his father and that he is presently married to his own mother.
Similarly, Othello's hatred of Desdemona for cuckolding him is more horrible and tragic because the audience knows he is deceived by Iago and can watch every step of his error. Dramatic irony can produce comic effects when the ignorance of characters merely makes them appear ridiculous, or when the unintended results of their actions are humorous.
Structural irony occurs when a double level of meaning is continued throughout a work by means of some inherent feature such as a hero, narrator, or persona who is either naive or fallible (a participant in the story whose judgment is impaired by prejudice, personal interests or limited knowledge).
In Swift's Gulliver's Travel's (1726), the narrator who recounts his own travels is both naive and fallible: he credulously idealizes some of the peoples he encounters despite their follies; and his judgments are biased by conservative morality and personal pride. Narrow conventional morality also biases Nelly Dean, the narrator of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1847); and in Shakespeare's As You Like It, the continuing disguise of Rosalind as the young man Ganymede leads to multiple levels of dramatic and structural irony.
Verbal irony occurs when the words of a character or narrator have an implicit meaning as well as an ostensible one. The surface meaning may be false, or it may be a level of meaning that is just very different from the underlying one (which is usually more significant). One can guess when words should not be taken at face value by the context in which they occur--which includes the speaker's character, the situation, particular word associations, and a common ground of assumptions shared by the speaker and the reader.
Hamlet's character as a brooding intellectual produces language that is loaded with ironic
witticisms, as when he tells his hated stepfather "I am too much in the sun" (punning on "son").
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