Types of Drama Tragedy- a play written in a serious, sometimes impressive or elevated style, in which things go wrong and cannot be set right except at great cost or sacrifice. Aristotle said that tragedy should purge our emotions by evoking pity and fear (or compassion and awe) in us, the spectators. The tragic pattern: 1. a theme of fatal passion (excluding love) as a primary motive 2. an outstanding personality as center of conflict (classical tragedy demanded a “noble” character)
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Bible, Oxford University Press Plato, Symposium, Hackett Marx, Communist Manifesto, Norton Critical Edition Darwin, Origin of Species (includes The Descent of Man), Norton Critical Edition Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Cambridge University Press (contains both Birth of Tragedy and “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”) Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Perseus Distribution Thomas Mann, Death in Venice, Norton Critical Edition Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis and Other Stories, Simon
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Edmond Mak Professor Bradley ENGL-103-192 27 April 2011 Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy When one thinks of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, some works that might come to mind include Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, or the many works written by Shakespeare such as Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, or Macbeth. A common feature that all of these works share is that they were all written around and/or before the sixteenth century. One might be surprised, however, to discover that stories are still being written
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Dr. G. Davies-Morris HUM 110 2013.5.13 Oedipus Rex Reflection Laius and Jocasta were King and Queen of the Great City of Thebes. After they bore a child Oedipus ,they took him to an oracle to see what was to become of him. Warned in a prophecy that Oedipus will grow up to murder his father and marry his mother, Laius and Jocasta arrange for his death - instructing a herdsman to kill the child. But the herdsman pities little Oedipus, and instead of killing him, passes him on to another herdsman
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Sophocles' Oedipus is a perfect fit to Aristotle's Ideal Tragic Hero. Oedipus follows all of the rules, with a hamartia, an anagnorisis, and a peripeteia. The audience is introduced to the hamartia, or tragic flaw, of Oedipus early in the play. Oedipus believes he can dodge the oracle given to him at Delphi that he will kill his father and marry his mother. By leaving the city of Corinth and heading to Thebes, Oedipus thinks that he can outsmart the will that the gods have for him. However, the audience
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The Tragedy of Hamlet A tragedy can be defined as a literary work in which the main character or characters suffer extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavourable circumstances. William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a well known play that falls under the genre of a tragedy because it’s very dramatic, contains numerous murders and has an overall suspenseful atmosphere throughout the play. Hamlet follows the elements of a classic
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the elements that our tragic hero witnesses completely integrated to the gripping conclusion or is it more a series of episodes which do not connect; the former being tragedy, the latter being an epic. Aristotle tells that the six elements (plot, character, thought, diction, spectator, song) are required. The characters in a tragedy should be a good man who is consistent and not far away from the reality. In the case of Angel Heart, The viewers follow a virtuous character though the movie and identify
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Can King Lear be defined as an Aristotelian Tragedy ? When viewing upon a tragedy, a reader is offered to empathize the suffering a character endures through pity and fear, yet still being able to feel that enticing pleasure. With this being said, King Lear can be defined as a tragedy even by Aristotle, one of the most renowned masterminds on tragedies. Based on the Aristotelian principles for a tragedy, the ‘perfect’ tragedy must contain plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle and song
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"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is one of my favorite short stories by Hemingway. A story about three men at different states of their lives; two waiters of a cafe (one young, one older) and an old man as a customer. The old man is living in a state of despair and loneliness, having recently attempted suicide. The younger waiter is insensitive to this and just wants the old man to leave. He himself has "everything": youth, confidence, a job and a wife. He does not realize that not everybody has that
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Hamlet as a Tragic Hero William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of the English language, wrote a total of 37 plays in his lifetime, all of which can be categorized under tragedy, comedy, or history. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare's most popular and greatest tragedy, displays his genius as a playwright, as literary critics and academic commentators have found an unusual number of themes and literary techniques present in Hamlet. Hamlet concerns the murder
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