What are the characteristics of a shakespearean tragedy?
“A Shakespearean tragedy is a five act play ending in the death of most of the major characters.” This statement with others of its kind may accurately describe many of Shakespeare’s plays, but if we are looking for the essence of Shakespearean tragedy we must look in an entirely different realm. We cannot merely list the literary devices used, find the ones common to all of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and call this collection their essence. We recognize tragedy in literature because we find that it corresponds to a sense of the tragic within us. More… http://www.lcurve.org/writings/Tragedy.h… Characteristics of a Shakespearean Tragedy: The following fourteen points are a summation of a typical Shakespearean tragedy. http://kilby.sac.on.
They obviously need to contain some kind of tragedy in the plot e.g tragic deaths in Romeo and Juliet. If you look at all of Shakespeare’s main tragedies (including Macbeth and King Lear) they all contain some form of doom and gloom. Also, the main character(s) are usually made to be liked by the audience and have both a good and a bad side to them. The hero usually has some kind of dark side which leads to their downfall. Often, supernatural forces are also involved. + suspense and climax More info @ wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.
