What Is a Shakespearean Tragedy?

A Shakespearean tragedy is a play penned by Shakespeare himself or a play written in the style of Shakespeare by a different author. Shakespearean tragedy has got its own specific features, which distinguish it from other kinds of tragedies. Traditionally Shakespeare play types are categorized as Comedy, History, and Tragedy, with some additional play categories proposed over the years. The plays grouped as Shakespeare tragedies follow the Aristotelian model of a noble, flawed protagonist who makes a mistake and suffers a fall from his position before the normal order is somehow resumed. It must be kept in mind that Shakespeare is mostly indebted to Aristotle’s theory of tragedy in his works.

Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy
A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language; in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.”
— Aristotle

What Is a Tragedy?

A tragedy is a play which when adequately acted before an audience can produce a complete cleansing of the emotions. To effect such a catharsis the dramatist much move the audience; he must have a capacity to feel the patho of human suffering, a strong moral sense, and great craftsmanship. The word tragedy was derived from the Greek word tragoidia, which means ‘the song of the goat.’ It is called “the song of the goat” because in ancient Greece the theater performers used to wear goatskin costumes to represent satyrs. Today in theater and literature a tragedy is a work that has an unhappy ending. The ending must include the main character’s downfall.

List of Shakespeare Tragedy Plays

Shakespeare wrote eleven tragedies beginning with ‘Titus Andronicus’. They include the four great tragedies ‘Hamlet’, ‘Othello’, ‘Macbeth’ and ‘king Lear’, the two great Roman tragedies ‘Julius Caesar’, and ‘Antony Cleopatra’ and the lyrical tragedy ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

The Origin of Shakespearean Tragedy

One of the main features of Renaissance art is that it was inspired by classical art and philosophy. This is evident in the work of such artists as Michelangelo who, caught up in the spirit of Humanism that was sweeping across Europe, focused on the human form. Focusing on the human form during Mediaeval times would have been impossible as it would have been a distraction from the necessary focus on God.

The essence of Humanistic art was that human beings were created in God’s image so it was possible for Michelangelo even to portray God – as a beautiful and physically powerful man with realistic human features, presented as perfection – in fact, the human form at its most beautiful. Artists became anatomists, going as far as buying human bodies for dissection. The result was a new realism in the representation of human beings in art.

Shakespeare is, in a way, the Michelangelo of literature. That he could, in one play, Othello, written four hundred years ago, represent what we can recognize as a modern psychopath and a modern alcoholic, in Iago and Cassio respectively, is incredible. Iago is a fully realized psychological character just as David is a fully realized man physically.

Greek drama was an important model for Renaissance drama after the flat, unrealistic morality plays of the medieval centuries. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, defined tragedy and asserted that it was the noblest and most serious, dignified, and important form of drama. Many of the plays of the Renaissance resembled those Greek tragedies. In several of Shakespeare’s plays, there is a central protagonist who undergoes a harrowing experience as he is brought down from his lofty height, ending up dead.

There is also a special feeling created in an observer of those Shakespeare dramas, similar to the feeling described by Aristotle as the effect of tragedy on an observer. Critics thus thought of those Shakespeare plays as tragedies and that notion has remained with us to this day, although many of those interested in Shakespeare are now thinking differently about the plays from this ‘Shakespearean tragedy’ label. There are still teachers, though, who teach the ‘tragedies’ as though they were Aristotelian tragedies and miss a great deal of what those plays are doing.

EXAMPLES OF SHAKESPEARE’S TRAGIC CHARACTERS

Using the term ‘Shakespeare tragedy’ about any of Shakespeare’s plays invites attempts to fit them to the Aristotelian pattern but none of them fits exactly. Othello seems to conform to the pattern but when one thinks about it, Othello, superficially resembling a tragic hero, doesn’t even seem to be the main character in the play. It can be seen as a modern psychological drama about a psychopath who manipulates every one around him just for fun – just because he has nothing better to do – and destroying other human beings gives him pleasure or is necessary because they get in his way.
Othello may seem to have a fatal flaw – too trusting, gullible – but so do all the other characters, because Iago has deceived them all with his psychopathic charm and a deliberate effort of making himself appear trustworthy. Every misjudgment Othello makes is the hard work of Iago. Easily manipulated? Jealous? Does he have all those ‘tragic flaws’ as well? The feeling at the end is not quite Aristotle either. Perhaps it is more of disgust for Iago than pity for Othello, who comes across as more stupid than tragic. And to make things more complicated, our feeling of pity is directed more to, Desdemona. And yet some teachers miss the meaning of this play by their insistence on teaching it as an Aristotelian tragedy.
Antony and Cleopatra are sometimes called a ‘double tragedy’. While Othello appears to fit the Aristotelian pattern because of the huge charisma of Othello at the beginning of the play Antony and Cleopatra cannot fit it in any shape or form. In tragedy, the focus is on the mind and inner struggle of the protagonist. The emotional information comes to the audience from that source. In comedy the information comes from a variety of sources and the comic effect is produced by a display of many different points of view, coming at the audience from different angles. That is exactly what happens in Antony and Cleopatra, so we have something very different from a Greek tragedy. What we have is a miracle – a tragic feeling coming out of a comic structure.
So what is Shakespearean tragedy? Perhaps there is no such thing. And yet we can identify tragic moments, feelings, and even a cathartic effect in some of the plays. We must be very careful not to insist on fitting them to any pattern because that wouldn’t help us understand the plays. We must look elsewhere for our understanding of them. Moreover, all of Shakespeare’s plays have elements of both tragedy and comedy, sometimes very finely balanced, creating effects that Aristotle could never have dreamt of.