Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote the book Poetics. Poetics explains what goes into a tragedy to make a tragedy a “good tragedy”. Aristotle noted that there are six elements to a tragedy which are most important. These six elements being Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Melody, and Spectacle.
Both King Lear, and The Sorrows of Young Werther touch on numerous elements of a good tragedy imposed by Aristotle in Poetics.
William Shakespeare’s King Lear, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther are both tragedies, with the former being written as a play, and the latter being written as a novel. Both fall under the genre of tragedy.
While the genre of both King Lear and The Sorrows of Young Werther may be tragedies, there is an underlying theme that also connects the two. King Lear and The Sorrows of Young Werther are both tragedies with love as a part of the storyline, but love affects the protagonists in different ways. For Lear, it is a matter of love and deception, while for Werther, it is love and obsession.
Both of the protagonists have a character flaw. Lear’s flaw is that he is easily deceived. Werther’s flaw is his uncontrollable emotions.
For Lear, he is deceived by his daughters, Regan and Goneril, when the two flatter Lear with exaggerated statements about how much they love Lear. The flattering statements from Goneril and Regan are exactly what Lear wants to hear. At the beginning stage of the play, Lear is a character who values
When hearing the word Tragedy, it would not be surprising if several different individuals would immediately think of several unique examples of the word. Perhaps one is an opera enthusiast who immediately thinks of Puccini’s La Boheme. Another is a war enthusiast that thinks about History Channel’s new episode highlighting the harshest and bloodiest battles of World War One. Even a third one obsessed with Greek mythology could generate a handful of examples of tragedy. Tragedy, like love or comedy is a universal theme that can be used to entertain, enlighten and excite its audiences. William Shakespeare, a world renown writer, was a master of this genre writing works, including Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Hamlet. Another lesser known
Tragedy is an element of literature. It is rooted in Greek mythology and ancient Greek society. Its definition is “A literary piece that consists of a courageous noble character who must confront powerful obstacles, either external or from within”, and “the protagonist usually has a tragic
This reckless behaviour causes Lear to lose a valued and trustworthy follower. Without a doubt, Lear's rash behaviour contributes to the suffering he endures at the hands of others.
In literature, a tragedy is defined as a drama where the main character in the end suffers extreme sorrow because of their mistakes or poor judgment. The characters that are fated to suffer the extreme sorrow, the tragedy, are (called) tragic characters. These tragic characters, however, must follow Aristotle’s principles which include:
Throughout time, the tragedy has been seen as the most emotionally pleasing form of drama, because of its ability to bring the viewer into the drama and feel for the characters, especially the tragic hero. This analysis of tragedy was formed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, and also noted in his Poetics (guidelines to drama). As a playwright, Shakespeare used Aristotle’s guidelines to tragedy when writing Othello. The play that was created revolved around the tragic hero, Othello, whose tragic flaw transformed him from a nobleman, into a destructive creature, which would inevitably bring him to his downfall. This transformation follows an organic movement of the complex plot from the beginning, middle, to the end of the drama while
What aspects employ the genre of tragedy within novels, plays, and cinema? Tragedy is something that is defined universally as the upheaval of any plot, story, or play where an event causes or leads to great suffering for everyone. Authors, playwrights, and even directors all know the certain scene or event that is key for the foreshadowing of tragedy to take place. This signal in any work allows us as an audience or reader to understand the meaning and significance for the need for a certain event to occur. King Lear the renown play about family ties by William Shakespeare has the genre tragedy stamped all over it due to the chaotic and brutal ending. The historian Hayden White’s essay “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact” focuses
eldest daughters all that he has, but Goneril and Regan do not fulfill Lear's needs
His two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, passionately profess their love for Lear, and the youngest, Cordelia, bluntly states that her words would fail to reflect her love for Lear. Cordelia’s response causes a series of events and encounters to take place. The use of syntax within the play shows the inner workings and the effects of deception in the play. In Act
According to Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, the plot of a tragedy is above all the most important element, and for one to write a successful tragedy, one must have an excellent plot. In his Poetics, Aristotle lists four
Before beginning, however, it is necessary to examine the aim of Tragedy. A Tragic work, according to Aristotle, was simply one that showed men as better than they typically are in everyday reality. Tragedy served to show mankind at his noblest, without, however, depicting man as unreal or unbelievable. To represent a noble man
Aristotle was a famous disciple of Plato who first defines fine arts and he differs with his teacher Plato in his book of Poetic. His Poetic deals with the principles of Poetic art in general and tragedy in particular on the basis of his analysis and the principles of his Poetic are Probability, Catharsis, Mimesis, Tragic Hero and Hamartia. This essay will explain tragedy looking through Aristotle’s tragic principles in the book Things fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
In the play King Lear, the two characters Gloucester and King Lear, both run on very parallel paths. the turning point in the play where the reader starts to feel sorry for them is as soon as things start to go bad for them. Early in the play, Lear makes bad decisions on which daughters to give his land and power to, while Gloucester is making Edmund feel bad for being a bastard. Their decisions blow up in their faces and the reader starts to feel bad for them. King Lear is driven to madness and Gloucester has his eyes gouged out and want to kill himself. The impressions on both of these characters change throughout the course of the play in the same way.
Aristotle’s “The Poetics” describes the process of a tragedy. It is not the guide per se of writing a tragedy but is the idea’s Aristotle collected while studying tragedies. A tragedy, according to Aristotle, consists of six major points. The first and most important is the plot, which is what all the other points are based on. Such points are: character, language, thought, melody, and spectacle (Aristotle). A prime example of the usage of these parts in a tragic drama is evident in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”.
Tragedy as an element of the human experience has been the subject of many of the great works of literature written in the Western tradition. For some, tragedy embodies the highest form of humanity. It is through suffering that we are able to reveal ourselves most completely. Others see tragedy as an element of morality where we are to learn well the lessons of those who tempt the gods. The Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, outlined a theory of tragedy as archetypal drama in his classic work, the Poetics. He uses the play by Sophocles, Oedipus the King (hereafter "Oedipus"), as the standard model by which all other tragedies are measured. In Aristotle's view, a perfect
The play King Lear is what is known as a Shakespearian tragedy. All that this means is that it was written by Shakespeare, possibly one of the most famous playwrights in history, and that the play is considered to fit into the category of a tragedy. A tragedy can be simply described as a play with an unhappy ending. Shakespeare wrote a number of tragedies, and readers of the plays debate which tragedies were the best. King Lear is certainly a well-known tragedy, but should it be counted as one of the best? Should it be considered one of Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies? Many people do regard it as one of the best Shakespeare tragedies, but it generally comes down to opinion. In order to determine the best Shakespeare tragedy, it has to be stacked up against other well-known Shakespearian tragedies like Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, and Hamlet in multiple ways, both objectively and subjectively. When compared to these plays, it is evident that King Lear should not be counted as one of the top four Shakespearian tragedies on account of three things, its popularity in relation to the other tragedies, its character development in relation to the other tragedies, and the clarity of its overall message compared to the other tragedies. This is not to say that King Lear is a poorly written play, just that although it is great in its own right, it does not deserve to be in the top four Shakespearian tragedies of all time list; other