The Comedic Value of the Play, Pseudolus

The qualities a tragic hero, in Shakespeare's plays, normally displays consists of the hero falling from a place of glory, or rank, or happiness. We are astounded by the extent to which they fall, or allow themselves to stoop. The resulting catastrophe from the hero's mistake is of monumental proportions. With the discussed play Julius Caesar, Cassius exhibits Jealousy, Rashness, and Impulsive behaviour. Cassius makes mistakes, each with a disastrous effect.

In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.

Homologous to the stock characters first used in ancient Rome, the “innocent” character type, usually cast as one of the main protagonists or their close friend, is commonly found in modern American comedy. The innocent character is always portrayed as being naive, trustworthy, lacking inherently negative qualities, and usually lacking common sense in some sphere of his or her life. Just as Roman stock characters are, the innocent is recognizable from many literary and visual works, and is distinguished by a recognizable clichés often subject to criticism and parody. While Roman stock characters are still utilized today, however the innocent is a much more commonly utilized character type than many of the stock characters originating from Roman theatre.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet serves as one of the most multi-faceted characters in the entire play with critics often deeming his personality “paradoxical”. Ultimately, Hamlet provides the audience with the epitomy of internal contrast and instability by rapidly transitioning through periods of caution and rash action, introversion and extroversion and calculation and spontaneity.

The Comedy of Hamlet Shakespearean plays are often known for their outstanding entertainment and classic comic conflict. In his masterwork, Hamlet, Shakespeare uses these aspects to serve his thematic purpose. He has used comedy throughout many of his historic plays, but in this play, comedy is the drawing point that makes it fun and entertaining, yet clear and intuitive. Generally, his tragedies are not seen as comical, but in reality, they are full of humor. However, these comic elements don’t simply serve to relieve tension; they have much significance to the play itself. The characters of Hamlet, Polonius, Osric, and the Gravediggers, prove to be very influential characters, and throughout the play, they are the individuals that

For several centuries, tragedy is one of the many popular genres of literature. In every tragedy, there is a tragic hero who makes an error that leads to their own downfall. William Shakespeare is known to have written many tragedies, which includes Julius Caesar. Due to the many downfalls of

Bastard, a child born out of wedlock, an illegitimate descendant that "deserves to be slapped." Don John, coined as “Shakespeare’s most passive villain” is plagued by the society of Messina that rejected him from the very moment of birth. Looking through the idea of predetermined roles in life, we can come to realize the roots of Don John’s agitation arises from his illegitimacy, stacking him at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Here he feels obliged to act the part of the villain, delegated by his very own blood.

Tragic Hero In the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar the main character, Brutus, experiences many things that lead him to become a tragic hero. From the interactions between Cassius and Brutus, the two characters contract each other, Brutus’s character develops into a tragic hero, and the plot advances and a theme is also created.

The concept of a tragic hero exists when a character prevails the traits of bravery, honor, and loyalty, much like the main character of Cyrano in Edmond Rostand’s 17th century play, Cyrano de Bergerac. In the year of 1640, Cyrano realizes his love for Roxane, his intelligent and exquisite cousin. With the help of a young and handsome nobleman named Christian, Cyrano expresses his love for Roxanne through eloquent love letters that Christian delivers to Roxane, pretending that Christian himself wrote the letters. In due time, Cyrano proves to be a tragic hero through verifying himself to be a brave, honorable, and loyal man.

Many aspects of the film pay clear homage to New Comedy. The plot is simplistic, focusing on the desire of a young man to get around the restrictions of his parents and gain the affections of the girl he loves. The characters, although not boring, are one-dimensional. Hero, the love-sick youth, has one hope in the film: to unite himself with Philia. Pseudolus, his slave, only wishes to earn his freedom. The life's work of Erronius is to find his children, each bestowed with a ring bearing an engraved gaggle of geese; and so on through the inhabitants of this depiction of Rome. Each character does whatever it takes to achieve their one goal in life, and this is what builds the frenetic disposition of the plot, causing twists and turns especially where the very determined instigator Pseudolus is concerned. There is no character development, however, and every character finishes the film with same endeavor he

There is no denying that Shakespeare is a definitive playwright. He has presented us with classic works that have set the precedent for drama and the theatre. Among Shakespeare’s more notable plays are his tragedies. In the tragedy his protagonists are often given flaws in their

Hamlet's Sense of Humor     Well aware that several hours of unrelenting angst would be a bit much for his audience to take, William Shakespeare strategically placed several humorous scenes throughout his masterpiece, Hamlet.  In particular, the character of Polonius fills the role of the

As with many plays, actors in Shakespeare’s, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, are at liberty to alter the portrayal of their characters. Because of this, the significance and subtleties of various characters can be lost in varying adaptations of the play. This holds true for the character Polonius,

The rise of tension between characters is another characteristic of comedic plays. After Oberon sees the way that Helena has been treated by Demetrius, he orders Puck to apply the juice to the eyes of Demetrius. Puck accidentally applies the juice to Lysander’s eye, which causes him to fall in love with Helena. After the mistake had been caught, Oberon sends Puck to watch Helena and Oberon applies the juice to Demetrius’ eyes. This causes both men to fall for Helena and now the battle is for Helena and not Hermia. Helena is convinced that this is a joke or prank because neither of the two men loved her before. Now because of Puck’s mistakes the four decide to find a

Hamlet: A Tragic Comedy William Shakespeare once said that “brevity is the soul of wit.” This is heavily evident in regards to Hamlet and all of his short, witty comments throughout the play. In Act I Scene II Hamlet 's wit comes out in full force during a discussion with his