The Pleasure of Tragedy: Nuttall

What does Nuttall consider in this essay?

The tension between pleasure and pain in the tragic drama

What was literature commonly used as a means of in the medieval and early Tudor period?

Teaching important lesson’s in morality

What happens in morality plays?

characters would undergo an allegorical journey towards morality, encountering various obstacles along the way

Although Shakespeare was writing after the height of the moraluty play what still plays a big part of contemporary culture?

The idea that literature could teach us lessons about ourselves

Why may audience gain pleasure from the tragic hero’s downfall?

Jealous of their high status and enjoy watching them fall down to the level of the common man or even further

What does Hamlet featuring the famous play-within-a-play to reveal Claudius guilt give to the audience?

We have the opportunity to observe Hamlet both as a character and as an audience member

What do more recent audience members seek out?

Plays in which no pleasure can be derived

Why do we appreciate the morality of the tragic plays?

In that characters somehow deserve their suffering, and teach audiences a valuable lesson about themselves

What is it more accurate to say?

That we become ‘preoccupied’ and engaged with tragedy than it is to say that we ‘enjoy’ it

What does the fact that Hamlet being watched and written on for over 400 years imply?

That we do experience a perverse kind of pleasure from watching the hero’s tragic downfall