A.C Bradley the shakespearean tragic hero

tragic hero

• Bradley argues that a Shakespearean tragic usually contains 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

• most of shakespearean love tragedies focus on the heroine as the centre of tragedy- unlike in other plays such as macbeth are more single stars

• for the sake of brevity, we must ignore it and speak of the tragic story as primarily being concerned with one person

shakespearean tragedy

• no play at the end of which the hero remains alive is considered, in a shakespearean sense, a tragedy

• on the other hand, the story depicts the troubled part of the heros life which precedes and leads to his death

• an instantaneous death happening amidst prosperity would not suffice for tragedy

• it is in fact a tale of suffering and calamity conducting to death

exceptional suffering and calamity

• the suffering and calamity are moreover exceptional

• they fall upon a conspicuous person

• they are themselves of some striking kind

• they are also as a rule, unexpected and contrasted with happiness or glory

• however this exceptional suffering and calamity greatly go beyond the hero ,so as to make a scene of woe is central and a chief source of the tragic emotions and especially of pity

• however, the amount of tragic pity greatly varies from plays

medieval tragedy

• to the medieval mind, tragedy is more of a narrative than a play .. a total reversal of fortune wavered upon a man who stood ‘in high degree’ , happy and apparently secure - such was a tragic fact to the medieval mind

• along with the common human sympathy and pity it evoked, it also aroused fear

• it frightened men and awed them

• it made them feel that man is blind and helpless , the plaything of an inscrutable power , called by the name of fortune or some other name - a power which appears to smile on him for a while and then on a sudden, strikes him down in his pride

tragedy with shakespeare

• often involves a character of high rank, a king or a leader or members of a great house whose quarrels are of a public moment

• there is an obvious difference between Othello and other three great tragedies- Othello is not a private person as he is the general of the republic

• at the beginning, we can see him as the council chamber of the senate

• his high position never leaves him

• at the end, when he is determined to live no longer, he is determined not to be misjudged

overall

• this characteristic of shakespearean tragedy, athough it is not the most vital, it also is not unimportant

• his ate affects the welfare of a whole nation or empire , and when he falls suddenly from the height of an earthly greatness to the dust, his fall produces a sense of contrast , of the powerlessness of man