shakespeare and how he uses tragedy in his writing

p Shakespeare and how he uses tragedy in his writing Shakespeare and How He Uses Tragedy In His Writing Tragedy in Elizabethan drama evolved from the morality plays of the Middle Ages , wherein Biblical and religious dogmas were translated into ritualized stories . These morality plays often proposed that the hand of God directly intervened in human affairs and meted out justice to the wicked and the good : '93the purposes of such writings were "to show the mutability of fortune and the just punishment of God in revenge of a vicious and

evil life ( The Art of English Poesie , 1589 . However unsatisfactory these statements may be , even if taken together , as a of Elizabethan tragedy , they are as near as the age came to a formal definition (Holzknecht , 322

For Shakespeare , the evolution of his particular tragic idiom in darama also took as a cue certain written histories of Britain , particularly as recounted in '93Lydgate , The Mirror for Magistrates which '93became an inexhaustible quarry of historical tragedy . The book rapidly grew by accretion . The nineteen legends which are contained in the first edition[ .] included the reign of Richard II , including , among others Thomas of Woodstock , Duke of Gloucester Lord Mowbray King Richard II [ .] King Henry VI George Plantagenet , Duke of Clarence and King Edward IV . All of these persons became subjects of Shakespearean drama '94 (Holzknecht ,

. 326

In producing dramas for the stage , Shakespeare maintained discernable links to the historical works described above . His plays , while not strictly morality plays , still reveal the '93hand of fortune '94 and the impact of justice on the wicked . '93All of Shakespeare 's tragedies , in the last analysis , concern themselves either with a reversal of fortune or with a fall from happiness to misery , from high estate to low . Some , like Antony and Cleopatra , Richard II , Coriolanus and Richard III , are stories in the tradition of the medieval Falls of Princes or The Mirror for Magistrates '94 (Holzknecht , 329 Shakespeare and How He Uses Tragedy In His Writing Page -2-

Always innovative , Shakespeare extended the strict boundaries of the Medieval morality play by advancing character and settings which may have been hitherto more recognizable to his audience as the trappings of comedy . In Romeo and Juliet , the play '92s main characters are divided into opposing groups based along generational divisions . '93In fact , a conflict of generations--the different ways of viewing the world and of acting in it--lies close to the heart of this tragedy , as in many plays mostly comedies '94 (Halio 31

Critics have often noted the similarities between Romeo and Juliet with '93the Italian commedia dell ' arte [ .] Moreover , in attempting to make a tragedy out of romantic love--as opposed to the classical subjects advocated and adopted since Aristotle first formulated the qualities of the tragic personages in his Poetics--Shakespeare was engaging in something innovative and experimental '94 (Halio 31

Shakespeare '92s use of tragedy , then , applies as much to radical...