Shakespearean Tragedy: Kastan

What does Kastan note that Shakespeares tragedies tend to be defined by?

Their ambiguity

What does Kastan explore?

The nature of the tragic genre in Shakespeares plays rather than following the rigid tragic structure or pattern of traditional and classical tragedies

What are the elements of Tragedy according to Aristotle?

Tragic Arc: Downfall from a high position of respect and power and usually ends in death

-This downfall is caused by the protagonist “hamartia” (miss the mark)

-Anagnorsis where they recognise this responsibility

-Downfall creates a sense of catharsis at the tragedy which paradoxically leave with a sense of satisfaction

“For Shakespeare…uncertainty..

is the point”

Not having a clear cause for the hero’s tragic downfall actively adds to the what?

Tragic effect of the play as a whole

“speaks tragedy…

fearful incomprehensibility

What are neither the audience nor the characters entirely sure about?

What has caused the tragic downfall of the heroes

What happens when the tragic hero has a falsely confident belief in reason and order?

“struggle unsuccessfully to reconstruct a coherent worldview from the ruins of the old”

Argue with Kastan: How does Shakespeare not present a protagonist with a “confident sense of a tragic world”?

Hamlet unique as a character is his acute awareness of this as he is crippled into inaction by his awareness of the tragic worlds true uncertainty

What do Shakespeares heroes desperately try to create a sense of?

Order and reason in a world that has none

“Characters…commit themselves to a…

confident sense of the tragic world they inhabit”