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Revenge in the spanish tragedy
Shakespeare's influence on Elizabethan era
Shakespeare's influence on Elizabethan era
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Thomas Kyd’s immense contribution to English literature contribution to English literature is undeniable. He was one of the prominent figures of drama during the Elizabethan era and wrote many works. However, his most important work is The Spanish Tragedy which undoubtedly laid the groundwork for subsequent revenge tragedies. The play’s main plot counts the story of a man who, after having his son killed, decides to take revenge on his son’s murderers and kills them. Some scholars accuse Hieronimo of betraying the Elizabethan belief that revenge should only be enacted by God, and hence, his actions were unjustifiable. However, these scholars fail to see that Hieronimo’s actions were in fact justifiable to a sixteenth-century reader since they were part of a larger plan as witnessed by Hieronimo’s difficult decision (it’s not a decision. It’s an ultimatum) which led to his fragile state of mind, the role of the chorus (should it be “the role of revenge”?), and the protestant and catholic debate inherent in the play.
(alternative thesis) he was put under immense pressure to make a decision which led to a state of mind where killing is considerable, an immense pressure whose source was God.
1. Also, he was fucking crazy. I’m not saying that because of this his actions were justifiable but…(insanity defense) He has to choose between two major decisions: “either to ignore God's justice that cries out for a revenger, or to assume that role and become part of the very evil he is called upon to destroy.” (Divine Justice and Private Revenge in "The Spanish Tragedy" Pag. 232) He was led to believe, after realizing that the king could not fulfill his role of the enactor of God’s revenge, that he was next in line for fulfilling that duty. He...
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... makes the decisions taken by his characters during their lives of a fatalist nature, he also gives that nature to their eternal resting places. In the world of The Spanish Tragedy, the destiny of every single character is predetermined. It gives a reader a certain chill down his spine and makes him feel pity for those characters. The personages inside the play have no free will, and they don’t know they have no free will. The Spanish Tragedy presents a violent and bloody sequence of events that make a reader feel as if the entire play and the actions are pointless.
Apart from the idea that every play and written work is by nature predeterminist once published since once a book is published what was written cannot be taken back and it will always happen the same way. But the point is that inside the play, the actions are predetermined not by the author but by God.
Schlegel, August Wilhelm. Criticism on Shakespeare s Tragedies . A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. London: AMS Press, Inc., 1965.
...g his time period to show his audience that corrupt, unharmonious love is detrimental to Spanish society. However, both of these plays were never performed nor published during this time period, and as the Duke says in Punishment Without Revenge, “A play, Ricardo, is a mirror to all men…. The truth is simply the majority of men would willingly ignore the truth about themselves” (P. 178-179) This line shows that perhaps the reason these plays weren’t performed during the time period is because of the truth they held within their plots that the audiences of the time were not ready to accept, which Lope was very much aware of. If Spanish society were to accept that their ideas of true love were selfish and detrimental during this time, it would raise many other questions about Spanish society that neither the people nor the government were prepared or willing to answer.
Romeo and Juliet made many choices out of their own free will, including an irreversible decision that ended in despair for all characters. “All are punished!”(5.3.305). In the play “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, the actions of Romeo, the actions of Juliet, and the actions of others prove that free will is more paramount than fate in the plot of the play.
In Shakespeare’s plays, those characters experienced great struggles of choosing to be moral or evil. He gave them chances to choose whether they wanted to become good and moral even though, according to the settings, it was reasonably for them to become evil and give their enemies a taste of their own medicine. In this paper, three characters from different plays will be compared, such as Claudio from Much Ado about Nothing, Prospero from Tempest, and Hamlet from Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark.
...with the blood of his king; and the blood stain would not fade with any amount of washing. Knowing this left him detesting himself and the fear trapped within his mind. Living with the dread became impossible and eventually he was no longer in control of his own destiny; but became the subject of his own fear.
Othello is one of Shakespeare’s four pillars of great tragedies. Othello is unique in comparison to the others in that it focuses on the private lives of its primary characters. When researching the subject of Othello being an Aristotelian tragedy, there is debate among some critics and readers. Some claim that Shakespeare did not hold true to Aristotle’s model of tragedy, according to his definition in “Poetics,” which categorized Othello as a classic tragedy as opposed to traditional tragedy. Readers in the twenty-first century would regard Othello a psychological thriller; it definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat creating the emotions of terror, heart break, and sympathy. This paper will focus on what Shakespeare actually intended regarding “Othello” and its Aristotelian influences.
In Hamlet, the motif of a young prince forsaken of his father, family, and rationality, as well as the resulting psychological conflicts develop. Although Hamlet’s inner conflicts derive from the lack of mourning and pain in his family, as manifested in his mother’s incestuous remarrying to his uncle Claudius, his agon¬1 is truly experienced when the ghost of his father reveals the murderer is actually Claudius himself. Thus the weight of filial obligation to obtain revenge is placed upon his shoulders. However, whereas it is common for the tragic hero to be consistent and committed to fulfilling his moira,2 Hamlet is not; his tragic flaw lies in his inability to take action. Having watched an actor’s dramatic catharsis through a speech, Hamlet criticizes himself, venting “what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of a dear father murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell… [can only] unpack my heart with words” (Hamlet 2.2.611-614). Seeing how the actor can conjure such emotion over simple speech, Hamlet is irate at his lack of volition and is stricken with a cognitive dissonance in which he cannot balance. The reality and ...
Although many arguments could take place over the blame of Othello’s fate, the one murderer no one doubts is jealousy. Although Othello’s insecurities and “blindness” along with one of the most duplicitous villains in all of literature definitely catalyze the deaths at the conclusion of the play, in the end Othello must suffer the consequences manipulated or not. Despite the number of uninteresting characters in the play, Othello, the Moor of Venice contains one of the most intricate characters in any of Shakespeare’s plays, and will be discussed and intensely argued forever.
Meron, Theodor. “Crimes and Accountability in Shakespeare.” The American Journal of International Law. 92.1 (Jan.,1998): 1-40. JSTOR. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Aristotle, as a world famous philosopher, gives a clear definition of tragedy in his influential masterpiece Poetics, a well-known Greek technical handbook of literary criticism. In Aristotle’s words, a tragedy is “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play, the form of action, not of narrative, through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions”(Aristotle 12). He believes that a tragedy should be serious and complete in appropriate and pleasurable language; the plot of tragedy should be dramatic, whose incidents will arouse pity and fear, and finally accomplish a catharsis of emotions. His theory of tragedy has been exerting great influence on the tragedy theories in the past two thousand years. Shakespeare, as the greatest dramatist in western literature, also learnt from this theory. Hamlet is one of the most influential tragedies written by Shakespeare. The play vividly focuses on the theme of moral corruption, treachery, revenge, and incest. This essay will first analyze Shakespeare’s Hamlet under Aristotle’s tragedy theory. Then this essay will express personal opinion on Aristotle’s tragedy theory. The purpose of this essay is to help the reader better understand Aristotle’s theory of tragedy and Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet.
Hieronimo is a symbol for the authority of law within The Spanish Tragedy. From his soliloquy in act III scene II, one can see Hieronimo’s ambiguity in deciding whether to pursue either justice or revenge. It could be argued that Hieronimo’s actions and concerns change throughout the course of the play by the wills of others and not his own desires; thus representing the failed authority of the law. This can be shown by analysing Hieronimo, Bel-imperia, the Gods, Lorenzo and the Law.
Of the 38 plays Shakespeare has produced over his lifetime, his tragedies are the most heart-wrenching, horrifying productions the theater has ever seen. In these tragedies, there are gruesome ideas such as lethal love, megalomania, and the absolute corruption of heroes that were originally considered to be wholesome. The latter theme can especially be seen in the play Othello. In this tragedy, there is an ongoing theme of corruption in a considerable amount of characters in the play, the most significant change being in Othello. Othello undergoes a shocking transformation, as he starts off as the storybook hero, a reputable soldier who illustrates great passion towards his wife, but transforms to become a twisted
In the tragedy of Hamlet Shakespeare does not concern himself with the question whether blood-revenge is justified or not; it is raised only once and very late by the protagonist (v,ii,63-70) and never seriously considered. The dramatic and psychological situation rather than the moral issue is what seems to have attracted Shakespeare, and he chose to develop it, in spite of the hard-to-digest and at times a little obscure, elements it might involve [. . .] . (118-19)
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society, coupled with his innate tendency to over-think his actions, leads to an unfocused mission of vengeance that brings about not only his own death, but also the unnecessary deaths of nearly all of the other main characters in the revenge tragedy.
Throughout 'The Spanish Tragedy', by Thomas Kyd, there is a constant theme of justice and revenge. Justice is the supreme law of the land; without justice, a country would fall into disrepute and those who are readily concerned with the status of society would have no grounds to stand upon. Therefore, those in power venerate justice. Revenge, however, upsets the delicate balance that holds Spanish society together. Hieronimo does his best to maintain a civil attitude towards incrimination and justice, but his plans for revenge lay waste to the very law he professes to adore. A series of carefully plotted steps, coupled with thoughts of revenge, reveals the descent of Hieronimo into madness and thereby fueling his rejection of justice.