Tragedy Critics

What is Kastan’s main argument?

that Shakespeare’s tragedies fail to conform to the conventional argument of what a tragedy is as outlined by Chaucer

Kastan: “the … but not its cause”

inescapable trajectory of the tragic action

Kastan: “the inescapable trajectory of the tragic action but not its …”

cause

Kastan: “For Shakespeare…”

the uncertainty is the point

Kastan: “Shakespeare’s tragedies provoke…

questions about the cause of the pain and loss

Kastan: “There is no such thing as Shakespearian tragedy: …”

there are only Shakespearian tragedies…Shakespearian modifies tragedy 

Kastan: “Tragedy, for Shakespeare, is the genre of …”

uncompensated suffering

What is Nutall’s main arguemnt?

The tension between pleasure and pain in tragic drama, people enjoy the uncomfortable albeit somewhat unconsciously, which is why tragedies are so popular

Nutall: “If we were all wicked, …”

there would perhaps be no problem

Nutall: “In the tragic theatre suffering and death are perceived as matter for grief and fear, after which it seems that grief and fear become in their turn…”

matter for enjoyment

Nutall: “one can enjoy an activity or process without at any point thinking consciously,….”

‘I am enjoying this’, or ‘this is very agreeable’

What is Bradley’s main argument?

Shakespeare’s tragedies follow definitions of the genre offered by the ancient Greek writer Aristotle where the play centres on a character of high rank and exceptional qualities who undergoes a reversal of fortune that leads to his own death and to a more general calamity

Bradley: “no play at the end of which the hero remains alive is,….”`

in the full Shakespearean sense, a tragedy

Bradely: “It is, in fact, essentially a tale of …”

uffering and calamity conducting to death. The suffering and calamity are, moreover, exceptional

Bradely: “man is blind and helpless, the …”

plaything of an inscrutable power…a power which appears to smile on him for a little, and then on a sudden strikes him down in his pride

Bradely: "His fate affects the …”

welfare of a whole nation or empire…his fall produces a sense of contrast, of the powerlessness of man, and of the omnipotence…which no tale of private life can possibly rival”

What is Mack’s argument?

Shakespeare deliberately condemns his tragic hero to madness as a form of both punishment (as according to societal/religious rules and orders) but also as a mechanism to state the truth that may be rejected/overlooked in other forms

Mack: “The excess of any passion approached…”

madness

Mack: “madness, when actually exhibited was…”

dramatically useful

Mack: “madness to some degree…”

a punishment or doom

Mack: “Shakespeare himself…”

perhaps – who, having been given the power to see the ‘truth’, can convey it only through poetry – what we commonly call a ‘fiction’, and dismiss