Today, audiences everywhere marvel at some of the most famous tragic plays ever written by Shakespeare and Shakespeare is credited with creating the most well-known and elaborate plays to this date. Some of Shakespeare’s plays such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet all fall under the genre of tragedy and many credit his plays with the genre’s success and origin but in truth the origin of the very nature of these plays date far earlier in time before Shakespeare’s and the earlier English playwrights’ time. Tragedy originated from Ancient Greece around 468 B.C with the first tragic playwright. Aeschylus work Supplices and hadn’t yet carved a place for itself in Greek drama until the three Greek playwrights emerged. Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides are the three most well-known and documented Greek playwrights who gave tragedy its most prominent place in the Greek culture through the themes, plot, structure, and rich characters within their finely tuned plays. Sophocles’ most famous tragic play was Oedipus Rex centered on the backstory of a true historical event that occurred in Greece. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex hits all the major points for Aristotle’s definition of the nature of a tragedy with its plot, heavy underlying themes of morality, diverse and fluid dialogue, accompanied with musical poetry such as choruses.
The major plot of Oedipus Rex revolves around a young king named Oedipus, who rules the land of Thebes, who starts from the highest stature of society and falls to the lowest cavern of humanity possible. Oedipus became the King and married the Queen and had many children, he then learned of the true identity of his father, birth, and sins. He ends up killing his father and bedding with his mother and as such is ...
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A tragedy, in literary terms, is defined as a literary work in which a great person suffers extreme sorrow, or is destroyed as a result of a character flaw or a conflict with an overpowering force, often through no fault of their own. William Shakespeare is known as one of the greatest play writers in the world. Many of his tragedies exemplify this common theme: some things in life seem destined to happen, regardless of the path we take. Three of his most famous tragedies, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet, illustrate this theme.
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In Arthur Miller’s essay, Tragedy and the Common Man, Miller creates a distinction from classical tragedies by creating a modern tragedy. Aristotle’s classic tragedy is, “an imitation of an action that is serious and complete in the mode of action and is not narrated. It effects pity and fear which is called catharsis. It has a beginning, middle, and end and its function is to tell of such things that might happen in the future- to express the universal” (Aristotle). To produce the feelings of either pity or fear, reversal, which is, “the change from one state of affairs to its exact opposite” (Aristotle), and recognition, which is, “the change from ignorance to knowledge, on the part of those who are marked for good fortune or bad” (Aristotle) must both ...
Oedipus Rex (the King), written by Sophocles, is the tragic play depicting the disastrous existence to which Oedipus, an Athenian, is 'fated' to endure. With a little help from the gods and the 'fated' actions and decisions of Oedipus, an almost unthinkable misfortune unfolds. Athenian perfection can consist of intelligence, self-confidence, and a strong will. Oedipus, the embodiment of such perfection, and his tragedy are common place to Athenians. Ironically, the very same exact characteristics that bring about the ominous discovery of Oedipus' fate: to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus' 'fated' decisions entangle everyone whom is of any significance to him within a quagmire of spiraling tragedy. Sophocles uses the riddle of the Sphinx as a metaphor for the three phases of Oedipus' entangled life, the three phases of human life, and to describe how every life-changing action or decision can influence other lives.
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