A Consideration of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as a Tragedy

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A Consideration of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as a Tragedy

William Shakespeare was a playwright and an actor in the sixteenth

century. He wrote a series of sonnets and plays that have become

increasingly popular. Many of his ideas were taken from other writers,

and he transformed them brilliantly. His plays were of many genres,

including a series of tragedies. "Romeo and Juliet" was part of this

series along side other well-known titles such as "Othello" and

"Macbeth". It was based on Arthur Brooke's poem, "The tragicall

historye of Romeus and Juliet". Brooke's version was long and insipid,

but Shakespeare's genius as a language craftsman made it powerfully

vivid.

What makes "Romeo and Juliet" a great tragedy? To know this we must

review the definition of what a tragedy is. The Chambers Twentieth

Century Dictionary identifies it as

"A species of drama in which action and language are elevated and the

catastrophe is usually sad."

On a more basic level, I would define a tragedy as a literary work

that has a serious or sorrowful content, often a combination of events

leads to a disastrous conclusion.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher; he too made his own study of what

constitutes a tragedy. His analytical treatise, "The Poetics" was

based on the evidence of many Greek plays. He came to the conclusion

that a tragedy must have these characteristics: a tragic hero, and a

harmatia (tragic flaw). For example in "Macbeth" the harmatia was

excessive ambition. He also concluded that a tragedy provokes pity and

fear and that it produces in the spectator a catharsis of these

emotions. In this way a tragedy can be socia...

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...ing for the moment, and they pay the

consequences. Friar Lawrence is wise, he realises that they are moving

too fast, but in his wish to do good is unable to prevent them.

Throughout the whole play there is evidence of their haste, and there

is no consideration for the future, only that they must get married

now. For instance Romeo kills Tybalt in haste, it is his immediate

instinct on the death of his good friend Mercutio, he yet again does

not consider the consequences. And when Romeo hears that he is

banished, he very nearly kills himself without thought of anything

else.

There are only a couple of instances when either part of the couple

stop to consider their actions, they are too blinded by love to care.

This tragic flaw is, alongside the sequence of preceding events, the

main cause of their tragic death.

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