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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...
... middle of paper ...
...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.
To conclude, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy due to the tragic elements of Romeo’s thoughtlessness, Juliet’s attachment towards Romeo, and the plot’s dramatic turnabout. The play has both main characters tragically take their own lives, but there is much controversy whether it should be considered a tragedy or just a tragic story. Aristotle’s Poetics clearly outline all of the necessary parts to a tragedy, and Romeo and Juliet fill in those requisites. Despite all controversies, the one agreement everybody can come to is Romeo and Juliet is one of the world’s most beloved work of literature.
Even after all he did to help Romeo and Juliet, the play still ended in tragedy because of Friar Lawrence’s' shortsightedness.
However, haste is an urgent feeling with such intensity, as it causes several conflicts, including the matrimony, and suicides of Romeo and Juliet, along with the losses of Tybalt and Lady Montague. Meanwhile, immaturity is the leading cause of the deaths of Mercutio and Paris in the matter that they both know what they are getting into when they start the fights, and although they did not expect to die they should not have been acting so foolishly. Everyone makes mistakes, as it is natural to want to rush into things and try to do their job accurately, even if they do not have experience in that field. That includes, Juliet's father, Capulet.
of a book a person may want to know what’s the basic outline of the
end I will come to a final decision of who actually was to blame for
...es toward the forbidden love, acting against his consciousness of formidable fate, and the reassurance and scheming of pitiable decisions points fingers at Friar Laurence as the most to condemn for the deaths of the gentleman Romeo and the beautiful Juliet. Yet, Shakespeare's original play retains tremendous levels of twists and turns that spiral to the tragic finale of Romeo and Juliet's end. Consequently, the blame cannot be assigned so simply to one figure amongst many characters who fed the flames, strangling the existence of the young lovers. But, when the question of blame plagues of onlookers of this play, the Friar's name lingers in the thick air polluted by the toughs of slithering lips.
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. It tells the tale of two lovers from rival households and the tragic journey that leads to their destruction. The play shows all the events over the course of four days in Romeo and Juliet’s home town of Verona. Monday through Thursday is all we have to see of the Montague and Capulet families to acknowledge their hatred for each other. The play shows the struggle of Romeo and Juliet in their efforts to stop the hatred between their families and live happily ever after. But despite their efforts, they end up digging their own graves, showing how different actions have different consequences.
...ods come for the free drugs that he offers. Johnny is a man for whom we feel pride, shame and pity all at once but such a contradictory character would be unstable and unpredictable. Aristotle defines tragedy according to seven characteristics. These are that it is characterized by mimicry, it is serious, it expresses a full story of a relevant length, it contains rhythm and harmony, the rhythm and harmony occur in different combinations in different parts of the tragedy, it is performed not narrated and that it provokes feelings of pity and fear then purges these feelings through catharsis the purging of the emotions and emotional tensions. The composition of a tragedy consists of six segments. In order of relevance, these are plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and performance. For a comedy the ending must be merry. Instead Jerusalem ends in death.
Aristotle’s Poetics is a “reservoir of the themes and schemes deployed in ancient Greek tragedy and poetry” (Poetics iii). Written around 330 B.C., it was the first work of literature to make a distinction amongst the various literary genres and provide a proper analysis of them. In Poetics, Aristotle places a big emphasis on the genre of tragedy. When one hears of the word tragedy, one already assumes that something bad has occurred to an individual and an immediate emotion of sorrow occurs, but how does Aristotle see tragedy? Aristotle gives us his formal definition of tragedy on page 10: “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.” He goes on and explains all the components that make up tragedy. A tragedy must fall into two parts: complication and unraveling (also known as the denouement). Aristotle elaborates on that and speaks of four types of tragedy: “the Complex, depending entirely on Reversal of the Situation and Recognition; the Pathetic (where the motive is passion); the Ethical (where the motives are ethical). The fourth kind is the Simple.
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a love story based in Verona in the 1500s. Romeo and Juliet’s families have been in a feud for years, despite that they still fall in love. Romeo and Juliet hide their love from their families and this destroys them in the end. Romeo is protagonist and tragic hero in this play. He is an passionate and impulsive character that makes him perfect for his part.
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is often referred to as a classic love story. It is a story of love at first sight and fighting between families. The classic is a true tragedy because of the way it is created. Romeo and Juliet is an Aristotelian tragedy because it clearly follows the model shown by Aristotle. All aspects of the plot and characters perfectly follow way Aristotle defined. The plot follows the events that need to occur and the main characters have a flaw. Pity and fear is felt for the characters throughout the play. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a true Aristotelian tragedy because of the characters, plot, and the fact that it triggers pity and fear.
to light that it is a false death. Romeo rushes to her side to murder
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, is a well known play. That it is still performed in theaters and English classes to this day. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a play about two star crossed lovers, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. They fall in love, despite of the feud between their families. They were forced to keep their love secret because of their families, and they also got married without their families figuring out. This story is still read now because of its strong usage of literary elements. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet endures time because of its expert use of literary elements including foreshadowing, metaphor, and simile.
Everyone is to blame for the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo, Juliet, Friar Laurence, and Romeo and Juliet’s parents all played their own role in causing the four deaths of Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, and Paris. It is not just one of them to blame, every one of them did something to cause the tragedy. Some of them played a bigger role than others, but everyone contributed. Fate had nothing to do with it and it was all the different characters faults. Romeo, Juliet, and Friar Lawrence’s rash decisions where the main cause of the tragedy.
6. Paris is the mayor’s son and so has allot of money as well as power