Aristotle views tragedy as an “imitation of an action that is serious,complete and of a certain
length and scope in language pleasurably embellished with each kind of artistic ornament” (Gassner
23).The audience should be introduced to a story which, even when merely told, it produces a thrill of
horror and pity and a kind of pleasure and is most effective between kindred . Aristotle lays out
Aristotle lays out specific ingredients to a tragedy including a plot, characters, thought (intellect),
diction and song. This paper will analyze William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and how it is more tragic then
Sophocles, Antigone, by reflecting on the ingredients in Aristotle's view of tragedy.
Aristotle believes that the most important part of the definition of tragedy is the plot or action,
the soul to the tragedy. The plot must be complete with an arrangement of incidents, which is more
important then the actual characters in the play. By this Aristotle means that it must be structured as
whole having a beginning, middle, and end. He mentions the plots are either simple or complex, an
action which is continuous is called simple while complex plot is an action changed by reversal or by
recognition or both. According to Aristotle an effective plot device, and a very commonly used device
for tragedies is recognition (anagnorsis) and reversal (peripeteia). This is when characters recognize
their wrong doings while their fortune reverses usually when something is good it
soon becomes bad and to some degree the character ends up putting it on himself. In other words, the
character's end result in a tragedy is brought about not only by accidentally but by some error
(hamartia) prompted by hu...
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.... The play Hamlet, includes of of
Aristotle's ingredients for tragedy, but what makes this one stand out is the fact that Hamlet's death was
not a choice. As opposed to Antigone's death which she consequently hung herself in a cell. In my
opinion, not having a choice to die is more tragic then having a choice. Another reason why I believe
Hamlet to be a more tragic play then Antigone is because Hamlet is the only character to portray
tragedy without the need for plot, because of his power over the plot. The interpretations of the text can
shift and change with time and place, but the underlying messages and themes remain crucial to the
understanding of the play. The messages and themes prevail in Hamlet because of his strong textual
integrity relating to, specifically, the plot and its connection to the tragic structure defined by Aristotle.
Aristotle defined a tragic story as the adventure of a good man who reaches his ultimate downfall because he pushed his greatest quality too far. Sophocles advocates the definition in the tragic play Oedipus Rex. He develops the play with the great polarities of fame and shame, sight and blindness, and ignorance and insight to show Oedipus’ experiences in search for knowledge about his identity. Through his search, Oedipus pushes his quest for truth too far and ultimately reaches his doom. Oedipus’ reliance on his intellect is his greatest strength and ultimate downfall.
Aristotle defines tragedy in his respected piece Poetics and many other forms of literature. Many tragic heroes such as Oedipus Rex and Romeo and Juliet fit well into this mold of a tragic hero as defined by Aristotle. For example, they were flawed but well intentioned and their lives ended in a catastrophic death. Those plays, and many others in the genre, had all the elements of a tragedy: plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. They were fantastic displays of misery that aroused pity and fear in the audience.
The Tragic Play Antigone by Sophocles has a Conflict between religious morals and loyalty to the state and its laws. This struggle is displayed through the characters Antigone and Creon. Antigone’s life meets a tragic end in the play, but her death makes her a martyr leading to the citizens to follow her view of religion.
Oedipus from the drama, “Oedipus the King” and Hamlet from, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” are two characters that are different, yet they both share the same title of being a tragic hero. Oedipus and Hamlet have many characteristics of a tragic hero that separates them in varieties. However, some of those characteristics show that both characters have and use similar thought processes and methods, which classify them as tragic heroes of their dramas. The five characteristics of a tragic hero are: nobility, tragic flaw, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and lastly irony. Both Oedipus and Hamlet hold or have a nobility position in their drama’s plot. Oedipus is the son of the king, and fate has foretold that he will kill his father and take over the kingdom. Hence, Oedipus was fated into his nobility, so he is required always remain in a status above all others. Hamlet is also the son of the former king that is now dead. Hamlet was born into this nobility, and this makes him the prince. Both characters are royalty, yet their morals and values are what make their nobilities the same. Their actions create heavy and dramatic outcomes, which lead to many more complications. Both men try to resolve their problems different, so their fortunes become reversed. Oedipus and Hamlet are very different, yet almost have the same fates. Out of all the five characterizes, three of them describe and separate both men best as tragic heroes. The tragic flaws, which is defined as hamartia, both men have are the main reason they are heroes of tragedy, their recognitions of their situations, which is an anagnorisis, are at different points in their stories, and lastly both men meet an ending that is meant to be an irony of their fate.
“Now tragedy is the representation of action, and action involves agents who will necessarily have certain qualities of both character and intellect. It is because of the qualities of the agents that we classify their actions, and it because of their actions that they succeed or fail in life” (Poetics 23-24).
According to Aristotle there are five characteristics of a tragic hero: Flaw or error of judgment, (Peripeteia) a reversal of fortune, the enlightenment (anagnorisis) the discovery or recognition, (hubris) excessive pride, and the character’s fate. Oedipus finds the elders of Thebes praying to the gods for liberation of the plague. Oedipus “alone can help. The cause of the trouble is himself; the chances he has had in his life are precisely the source of the plague” (Diski 1). Oedipus is the cause and the solution to end the plague, but he is blind to the true. Hamlet, differently from Oedipus, is a “man of thought and action, a justice seeker and a criminal, a victim and a wrongdoer, a deeply reflective introvert and a man capable of acting on impulse” (McHugh 1). Hamlet’s free will, injected him with the desire to vengeance his father at any cause. Both Hamlet and Oedipus meet all of the characteristics of a tragic hero. In the beginning of both stories is introduced the first characteristic of a tragic hero, the flaw and error of judgment. In Hamlet, the ghost of his father tells him to revenge his death and In Oedipus; the oracle warns Oedipus about killing his father. Next, the reversal of fortune, in both tragedies leads to the death of their mothers. The anagnorisis of Hamlet was when he discovered how his father died and in Oedipus when the shepherd recognized Oedipus as the killer of Laius. The hubris overpowered both heroes, Hamlet for vengeance of his father’s death and Oedipus to revenge the death of Laius, which ironically was his real father, and he had killed him. Hamlet and Oedipus have the five characteristics of a tragic hero, the main characteristic that both share, is the error of judgment, however, their fate ...
Beginning with the Greeks, tragedy has been an essential form of entertainment. Although it has changed slightly over time due to different religious and social values, it is still written and performed to this day. Perhaps the most well known tragedy of all time is Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hamlet is perhaps the epitome of all tragedy. Not only does the tragic hero Hamlet meet his demise, but all the main characters in the play at some point due to some flaw in their character, or some fatal decision, also meet the same fate. It is because of their character flaw and/or their fatal decision at some time during the play that their death can be justified.
Neoclassical writers emphasized the importance of the Poetics of Aristotle, as well as the unities of place, time, and action that they extracted from his works. In Poetics, Aristotle laid out the six essential elements of tragedy: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song (McManus). Each of these components held certain value to what Aristotle believed to be a successful play, however, plot and character held to be the most important.
Every Shakespearean tragedy share common conventions. A convention is an element that all stories of the same genre have in common. A tragedy is a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. Othello is a tragedy that is no exception. In Othello, Othello is the tragic hero who is deceived by his so called best friend to think that is wife is cheating on Othello for his lieutenant. Othello’s jealousy ends up being his flaw that leads to his downfall. Romeo and Juliet, another great Shakespearean work, shares many of the same convention that Othello has. in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is the tragic hero and has fallen in love with women from his families arch rivals and must its challenges. In the end his rash decision making leads to his downfall. These two plays, both Othello and Romeo and Juliet, share the same core conventions.
Hamlet is a well-written tragedy because of the use of Reversal and Recognition, the bringing about of pity and fear to cause catharsis, and a strong story structure. Just as Batman falls in The Dark Knight, many characters, that start out as appreciated, fall in Hamlet.
Hamlet seems to embody the sense of futility which dogs human existence and which certainly accords with the scriptural view of man as essentially bad ( a sinner) and not innately good. In this way also the play differs from the Greek idea of tragedy in that it concentrates not on fear or pity but on this sense of disgust. Shakespeare regards the world as a stage and what is portrayed through the characters is a view of the human condition.
According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story that is complete in itself among many other things. Oedipus is often portrayed as the perfect example of what a tragedy should be in terms of Aristotle’s Poetics. Reason being that Oedipus seems to include correctly all of the concepts that Aristotle describes as inherent to dramatic tragedy. These elements include: the importance of plot, reversal and recognition, unity of time, the cathartic purging and evocation of pity and fear, the presence of a fatal flaw in the “hero”, and the use of law of probability.
As a concept in literature, tragedy can be referred to as a progression of unfortunate events whereby characters undergo severe misfortunes which results to a horrible disaster. The involved characters may be one or more. Tragedy in literature works should basically be in five stages in its normal structure: there should be happy times, an introduction to the problem, the problem should be seen to worsen into a dilemma, the problem should be out of control of the characters and finally the problem should end in a catastrophic or have a grave ending situation. According to Aristotle argumentation, a perfect tragedy should be realistic and having a narrow focus, provoke pity and fear to the audiences, be able to outline traits of a perfect tragic
In Aristotle’s book, Poetics, he defines tragedy as, “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear” (Aristotle 1149). Tragedy creates a cause and effect chain of actions that clearly gives the audience ideas of possible events. The six parts to Aristotle’s elements of tragedy are: Plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. According to Aristotle, the most important element is the plot. Aristotle writes in Poetics that, “It is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have” (Aristotle 1150). Plots should have a beginning, middle, and end that have a unity of actions throughout the play making it complete. In addition, the plot should be complex making it an effective tragedy. The second most important element is character. Characters...
In Poetics, Aristotle defines plot as “the arrangement of the incidents” (Aristotle 12). He indicates that there are six elements in every tragic play, which are plot, character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle, among these plot is placed in the foremost positi...