CHAPTER 3 A BRIEF SURVEY OF SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDIES

Transcription

1 91 CHAPTER 3 A BRIEF SURVEY OF SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDIES "All the worlds is a stage And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts". 1 Four hundred years ago a playwright, unique in the human history of literature, was in his prime. Well acknowledged at his time, legendary today, William Shakespeare is probably amongst the most read, most quoted and, quite certainly, the most written about authors of all time. The world has witnessed many poets and dramatists. However, William Shakespeare is known as the best in this category of all time. He is a critical analyst who has shown the world the ways to resolve problems virtually through his literary excellence. We are aware that Shakespeare is not God, and that writers can differ only in degree and never in kind. But Shakespeare is so rich a writer that a difference in degree pragmatically becomes one in kind. Shakespeare s mind was open; he adopted ideas wherever he found them.

2 92 He was not afraid of breaking the rules of classical drama or to challenge his audience politically, morally, or ethically. He portrayed an enormous range of human behavior with understanding and sympathy. His tragic masterpieces were Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, all occupy entirely separate and uniquely distinct spaces of time and from one another, Shakespeare s tragedies are so richly particularized, these plays occupy a privileged, position in the postmodern scrutiny of early modern subjectivity. In the plays of Shakespeare, the tragic hero is always a noble man who enjoys some status and prosperity in society but possesses some moral weakness or flaw which leads to his downfall. There were few important themes of the play such as Revenge Motif, Violence & conflicts. Known throughout the world, the works of William Shakespeare have been performed in countless hamlets, villages, cities and metropolises for more than 400 years. And yet, the personal history of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery. There are two primary sources that provide historians with a basic outline of his life. As we may consider one source is his work that we can call his plays, poems and sonnets and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these only provide brief sketches of specific events in his life and provide little on the person who experienced that occasion. Even the most common person totally unacquainted with literature is likely to have at least once heard of Hamlet, and is perhaps even able to associate him and his secret

3 93 most quoted, immortal starting words of the suicide soliloquy To be or not to be although probably being quite ignorant of the fact that this phrase has anything to do with contemplating to kill oneself with the name of Shakespeare. Further as we move to Shakespearean tragedies and to understand it, we can consider it as a story of an exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate. But it is clearly much more than this, and it s the amount of calamity which merely befell a man, descending from the clouds like lightning, or stealing from the darkness liked disease, could alone provide the substance of its story. The calamities of tragedy do not simply happen, nor are they sent; they proceed mainly from actions, and those the actions of men. We see a number of human beings placed in certain circumstances; and we see, arising from the co-operation of their characters in these circumstances, certain actions. These actions beget others, and these others beget others again, until this series of interconnected deeds leads by an apparently inevitable sequence to a catastrophe. The effect of such a series on imagination is to make us regard the sufferings which accompany it, and the catastrophe in which it ends, not only or chiefly as something which happens to the persons concerned, but equally as something which is caused by them. Thus it solves the problem of revenge and fulfills its desire. This at least may be said of the principal persons, and, among them, of the hero, who always contributes in some measure to the disaster in

4 94 which he perishes which is the first aspect and then there is a second aspect of tragedy in literature which evidently differs greatly from the first. Men, from this point of view, appear to us primarily as agents, with whom our fear and pity are attained, though they will not cease or diminish, will be modified accordingly. As we remember that it too is only one aspect, and additional to the first, not a substitute for it. The 'story' or 'action' of a Shakespearean tragedy does not consist, of course, solely of human actions or deeds but the deeds are the predominant factor. The center of the tragedy, therefore, may be said with equal truth to lie in action issuing from character, or in character issuing in action ultimately. Shakespeare's main interest may be said to lie in mere character, or was a psychological interest, would be a great mistake, for he was dramatic to the tips of his fingers. It is possible to find places where he has given a certain indulgence to his love of poetry and even to his turn for general reflections. As we may see it would be very difficult, and in his later tragedies perhaps impossible, to detect passages where he has allowed such freedom to the interest in character apart from action. But for the opposite extreme, for the abstraction of mere 'plot', which is a very different thing from the tragic 'action'. And as we facilitate our study of Shakespearean tragedies we need to classify the meaning of tragedies in their respective characters. Thus the great tragedies written by Shakespeare seem to have had no particular analytical conception of these tragedies that is

5 95 Shakespeare's plays are all about one great general theme as we may consider it as disorder. To analyze this we need to know that the society played a great part in the writings which were associated with that notion of disorder and the social condition of England. All dramatic stories always involve conflict. Typically, the dramatic narrative will open with some sense of a normal society as we see people of all kinds going about their business, and in witnessing this initial state of affairs we quickly ascertain the various ranks of people, the bonds which hold them together, and something about their value system. In other words, we begin with a society which is held together by shared rules. Many of Shakespeare's plays begin with a large group scene like the king and his court, for example, in which everyone has a place and knows his or her place. The scene is offered to us as a symbol of social unity which is about to be broken and will not be restored until the closing scenes e.g., which we can see in King Lear, Macbeth, Richard II. The final action of a tragedy is then the carrying out of the corpse. The social group has formed again, but only as a result of the sacrifice of the main character, and the emphasis in the group is in a much lower key, as they ponder the significance of the life of the dead hero in that sense, the ending of a tragedy is looking back over what has happened. Thus if we try and understand the logical approach of the same, the tragic heroes always lose because the demands they make on life are excessive. Setting themselves up as

6 96 the only authority for their actions and refusing to compromise or learn and then except too late, they inevitably help to create a situation where there is no way out other than to see the action through to its increasingly grim conclusion. Hence, for most of us tragic heroes are often not particularly sympathetic characters. There is something passionately uncompromising about their obsessive egoism which will only accept life on their own terms in a sense they are radically unsociable beings which in Shakespeare writings almost always do occupy, important social positions and generally caused due to revenge motif. The tragic hero is not willing or able identify himself as a normal human being at times he himself is a victim if time and situation which can be a cause of conspiracies. The tragic personality wants to answer only to himself, and thus his sense of his own identity is not determined by others but given that his passions are huge and egocentric and uncompromising, the establishment of an identity inevitably brings him into collision with the elemental forces of life, which he must then face alone because to acknowledge any help would be a compromise with his sense of who he is. There are multitudinous reasons why one single man, son of a probably illiterate tradesman and common in nature, born in the midst of sixteenth century Elizabethan England, was by the mere means of his very desirable mind and little theatre experience able to establish for himself, this immortal fame. Shakespeare must have been a person of extraordinary talent and creative power, but there was more. One might say that he had many faces in the

7 97 meaning of Versatility and talent. The variety in his work ranges from pure comedy over historical accounts and heart rending romance to deadly sadly dark tragedy and avenging, cruel blood filled revenge plays. Many critics and ordinary readers still startle at the overwhelming fact that A Midsummer night s Dream, Othello, the Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and others whose difference could not be greater, are actually off-springs of the same mind. This diversity of Shakespeare s creation is just another reason for his success. He was a great writer in all the genre of English literature. Shakespeare began his writing career in the very early 1590's at a time when the theatre was flourishing in London and had developed, in the hands of Shakespeare's predecessors, some very popular genres. If we look at the first group of plays that is from The Comedy of Errors to Two Gentlemen of Verona, approximately from 1590 to 1593, we can see that the list is dominated by comedies and historical chronicles. This feature is not surprising as we know that this ambitious young professional writer wanted to make his mark quickly, and then the most obvious resources available are the already popular forms of art. So we see here plays very closely patterned on popular classical originals, e.g., The Comedy of Errors, derived from the eternally popular Latin playwright Plautus and historical chronicle plays appealing to the intensely patriotic fervor of the English audience whose excessive pride feelings had reached an highest point of sorts in 1588 with the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

8 98 The year which can best be labeled the starting point or the turning point of Shakespeare s career is At this time Robert Greene, another Elizabethan playwright, wrote about Shakespeare, calling him an upstart crow. From such a comment we can conclude that by this time he was well-known enough to get the recognition of another playwright. Although Shakespeare was writing during the next few years, many of the theaters were closed due to the plague and he did not get much public recognition as in till that time he was not among the well known play writers. When in 1594 theaters had opened again, Shakespeare instantaneously launched himself by performing with a group called The Lord Chamberlain s Men. In the years Shakespeare s career was at its peak; He produced about two plays every year, performing some of them. Scholars estimate that he made pounds every year, a high income in those days. Theater became the whole and sole reason for the writer to get inspired to write plays. Then the famous Globe Theater was constructed in When the lease on the Theatre expired, the Lord Chamberlain s Men temporarily made other arrangements, although desiring a permanent place to perform. Unfortunately, the landlord of The theatre would not allow Shakespeare and his men back. So in 1599 they managed to tear down The Theatre, move it across the river in the middle of the night, and use that material to construct the Globe Theater. This, of course did not go over well with the landlord, but there was nothing he could do. The Globe was one of the grandest

9 99 play-houses of that time, and many of Shakespeare s plays were performed there. In his writings we can see the power and the genius of one of the greatest artists of all time. Shakespeare lived at a time when ideas and social structures established in the middle Ages still informed human thought and behavior. Queen Elizabeth I was God s deputy on earth, and lords and commoners had their due places in society under her, she herself took great interest in everything happening around, with responsibilities up through her to God and down to those of more humble rank. The order of things, however, did not go unquestioned. Atheism was still considered a challenge to the beliefs and way of life of a majority of Elizabethans, but the Christian faith was no longer single. Rome s authority had been challenged by Martin Luther, John Calvin, a multitude of small religious sects, and, indeed, the English church itself. Royal prerogative was challenged in Parliament; the economic and social orders were disturbed by the rise of capitalism, by the redistribution of monastic lands under Henry VIII, by the expansion of education, and by the influx of new wealth from discovery of new lands thus broadening the horizon. An interplay of new and old ideas was typical of the time there was freedom as well as authority official homilies exhorted the people to obedience that is the Italian political theorist Niccole Machiavelli was approaching a new, practical code of politics that caused Englishmen to fear the Italian Machiavellian and yet prompted them to ask

10 100 what men do, rather than what they should do it. The questing and reasoning had a fair chance to change and elaborate. The best example we see, in the best writing of that age particularly in revenge tragedies as in Hamlet, disquisitions on man there belief and the change in rotten state, times which was out of joint clearly reflect a growing disquiet and skepticism. The translation of Montaigne s Essays in 1603 gave further currency, range, and desire to such thought, and Shakespeare was one of many who read them, after which he made direct and significant quotations in The Tempest. In philosophical have an inquiry about how did the impulse became advance, rather than the traditional why, in Aristotle. Shakespeare arrived in London probably sometime in the late 1580s. He was in his mid 20s. It is not known how he got started in the theatre or for what acting companies did he wrote his early plays, Indicating a time of his being placed as a writer.these plays show a more direct debt to London dramatists of the 1580s and to Classical examples than do his later works. He learned a great deal about writing plays by imitating the successes of the London theatre, as any young poet and learning dramatist might do. Shakespeare s plays written between 1603 and 1606 unmistakably reflect a new, Jacobean distrust. James I, who, like Elizabeth, claimed divine authority, was far less able than she to maintain the authority of the throne, then there were political reasons like the so called Gunpowder Plot in 1605 showed a determined challenge by a small minority in the state; James s struggles with

11 101 the House of Commons in successive Parliaments, in addition to indicating the strength of the new men, also revealed the inadequacies of the administration. This period we can, with some justification, call Shakespeare's apprenticeship, where he is learning the craft. Some of the plays, by the standard of his later works, seem very crude both in style and contend. The Henry VI plays feature a sometimes bewildering series of battles, many often repetitive and predictable set speeches at key moments, and, in general, an often rather simple vision of experience. Titus Andronicus is the most horrifically violent and rhetorically excessive of all Shakespeare's plays it features gang rape, mutilation, multiple murders, all with a high rhetoric to match a real pot boiler. Love's Labors Lost is an amazingly witty poetical tour de force, in a poetical style that seems clearly designed to show how skillful the writer can be in the approved verse forms of the day it may well have been written for a private and very sophisticated audience. As we can see the development of Shakespeare's art from the beginning, to get a sense of how he experimented with the prevailing popular genres. Following the apprenticeship period, we can distinguish a second period, which can be called as Shakespeare s early maturity, characterized by a large group of plays, starting with Midsummer Night's Dream in 1594 and ending with Twelfth Night written in Here Shakespeare finds his authentic style and produces a rich series of plays which were so well crafted, still largely comedies and historical chronicle plays, but with two tragedies Romeo and Juliet and Julius

12 102 Caesar, both deservedly popular, but, by common consent, somewhat less impressive than the later plays in that genre. In this period, too, many of the sonnets were probably written. It appears, then, that by 1600 Shakespeare has fully hit his stride and is well launched in a professional career. And then as a surprise unpredictable form of art and literature ever written, came such outstanding flow of art and literature. Starting with Hamlet in 1601 and continuing until Measure for Measure in 1604 there were a series of very troubling plays, full of harsh imagery, puzzled doubled meaning, and interpretative difficulties resulting in revenge plays and mainly tragedies of a unique honor and horror. From the sturdily built comic affirmation of, As You like It, which seems to spring from an imagination which was richly confident about the world's happiest possibilities, we move to something much more strangely doubled meaning and bitter especially where relations between men and women are concerned. We also see that same contrast in the sonnets written by William Shakespeare although these are not organized in a chronological sequence some of the most powerfully and imaginary charged poems celebrating the beauty and joy of love stand side by side with poems despairing about any chance for meaningful love in a deceitful, troubling, and diseased world thus manipulating both kind of emotional backgrounds. When such outburst of emotions took place this period was being called as Shakespeare's Problem Period and the plays were well known as the Problem Plays although the name is used a great

13 103 deal less nowadays than it used to be. And the sudden change of tone has invited all sorts of biographical speculation and questioning that after all what could have happened to the successful poet playwright to turn his vision of life so bleak and bitter, to find out the cause of writing revenge as the vision of human character of Shakespeare shift so quickly for example, from Falstaff and Rosalind to Hamlet and Pandarus. It might be the social and political causes, the need of drama lovers, may be the competitiveness and ambitiousness which arises in that era the need of survival as a play writer. It may be presumed that the death of Shakespeare's father in 1601 and of his son Hamlet a few years before might have had something to do with it as it can be his personal life as well which played the influential part in his writings. The Problem Plays or very well know as revenge tragedies include Hamlet which can be studied and which is famous for the interpretative and puzzled debates, its chief character have always produced. The other revenge plays in this category of revenge play have generally been less popular than most of the others until recent decades. The increased popularity of the revenge plays after World War II perhaps indicates that in the doubled emotional confusion we find something particularly appropriate to modern times. The Problem Period was followed by the most staggering outburst of high-level poetic genius the world has ever seen, Shakespeare's great tragic period, in which, in the space of about four years, he produced, one right after the other, a sequence of tragedies unequaled in English

14 104 literature for their power, dramatic intensity, and quality in the best form of expression. And further when we talk about plays and tragedies continued by William Shakespeare, and then came a genre of romance. In this also there were slight disturbing plays written by him. Whatever had leaded to the confusing emotional outburst of Shakespeare's vision in the problem plays it was swept aside by a profound maturing tragic understanding of the world. Later in the Romances, again the change in style is remarkable and wholly unexpected. Shakespeare in these plays returns to the comic vision of life, but with a new style of comedy which stresses somewhat different themes, particularly the importance of learning from experience over time, of retaining faith in one's fellow human beings, of forgiving. It kind of changed the outlook of revenge plays and brought about a emotional change again in William Shakespeare's writings. The sense here is of a new mature acceptance of what life has to offer even with all the difficulties and problems, a feeling that the suffering and loss which life inevitably brings do not therefore make it empty of all possible joys something strongly brought out in some of the tragedies. Coming back to the Elizabethan era and its writers there was no shortage of great authors poets and playwrights during Elizabethan era, even Queen Elizabeth was known to write poetry from time to time, but by far the most discussed, the most influential and the most widely known is William Shakespeare. He is widely, regarded as the greatest writer in the English

15 105 language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon", or simply The Bard. His surviving works of excellence, including some collaboration, consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets and several poems. Firstly, one who reads a few of Shakespeare's great plays and then the meager story of his life is generally filled with a vague wonder. Here is an unknown country boy, poor and poorly educated according to the standards of his age, which arrives at the great city of London and goes to work at odd jobs in a theater. In a year or two he is associated with scholars and dramatists, the masters of their age, writing plays of kings and clowns, of gentlemen and heroes and noble women, all of whose lives he seems to know by intimate association. In a few years more he leads all that brilliant group of poets and dramatists, who have given undying glory to the Age of Elizabeth era. Play after play runs from his pen, mighty dramas of human life and character following one another so rapidly that good work seems impossible; this was all due to the demand of the drama at that particular times pane,yet they stand the test of time, and their poetry is still unrivaled in any language. For all this great work the author apparently cares little, since he makes no attempt to collect or preserve his writings. A thousand of scholars have ever since been busy collecting, identifying, classifying the works which this magnificent workman kept aside so carelessly when he abandoned the drama and retired to his native village. He has a

16 106 marvelously imaginative and creative mind; but he invents few, if any, new plots or stories. He simply takes an old play or an old poem, makes it over quickly, and then this old familiar material glows with the deepest thoughts and the tenderness feelings that ennoble our humanity and each new generation of men finds it more wonderful than the last. There are, in general, two theories to account for Shakespeare that is one, the romantic school of writers have always held that in him "all came from within"; that his genius was his sufficient guide and knowledge; and that to the overmastering power of his genius alone we owe all his great works. And second practical, unimaginative men; assert that in Shakespeare "all came from without," and that we must study his environment rather than his genius, if we are to understand him. He lived in a play loving era; where literature had its highest peak he studied the crowds, gave them what they wanted, and simply reflected their own thoughts and feelings. In reflecting the English crowd he unconsciously reflected all crowds, which are alike in all ages; hence this was the cause of his continued popularity. And in being guided by public sentiment he was not singular, but followed the plain path that every good dramatist has always followed to success. Probably the truth of the matter is to be found somewhere between these two known extremes. We may consider it as of his great genius there can be no question; but there are other things to consider which followed the ear he was in. As we have already noticed, Shakespeare was trained, like his fellow workmen, first as an

17 107 actor, second as a reviser of old plays, and last as an independent dramatist. He worked with other playwrights and learned their secret and shared them too with the following writers of the same era who considered him as the father of English literature. As he studied and followed the public taste, and thus his work indicates at least three stages, from his first somewhat crude experiments to his finished masterpieces. So it would seem that in Shakespeare we have the result of hard work and of orderly human development, quite as much as of raised genius. Which we can see is based on intuition just rather than experience. His plays have been translated into all major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. We can see the two outward influences were powerful in developing the genius of Shakespeare, which was one the little village of Stratford; center of the most beautiful and romantic district in rural England, and second the great city of London, the center of the world's political activity. In one he learned to know the natural man in his natural environment; in the other, the social, the artificial man in the most unnatural of surroundings. Every phase he wrote was a reflection to the natural beauty of this exquisite region in Shakespeare's poetry; just as his characters reflect the nobility and the littleness, the gossip, vices, emotions, prejudices, and traditions of the people about him. His writings suggest that he was not only genius but also a keen, sympathetic observer, whose eyes see every significant detail. So with the nurse

18 108 in Romeo and Juliet, whose endless gossip and vulgarity cannot quite hide a kind heart, she is simply the reflection of some forgotten nurse with whom Shakespeare had talked by the wayside. Not only the gossip but also the dreams, the unconscious poetry that sleeps in the heart of the common people, appeal tremendously to Shakespeare's imagination and are reflected in his greatest plays. Now moving to the detail study of revenge motif in William Shakespearean writings and there understandings, when we come to revenge plays and qualified tragedies: Othello tries to tell a curt soldier's story of his love; but the account is like a bit of Mandeville's famous travels, teeming with the fancies that filled men's heads when the great round world was first brought to their attention by daring explorers. To understand it further the form of expression in Shakespearean writings here is a bit of folklore, touched by Shakespeare's exquisite fancy, which shows what one boy listened to before the fire at Halloween: "Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spider's web, The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat, Her chariot is an empty hazel nut Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

19 109 And in this state she gallops night by night". 2 As we can see that the above lines claim the Shakespeare's education at the hands of Nature, which came from keeping his heart as well as his eyes wide open to the beauty of the world. The form of expression is so great that the reader gets lost in his marvelous words because he notes and remembers every significant thing in the changing panorama of earth and sky, no other writer has ever approached him in the perfect natural setting of his characters. He was everything, in his imagination, and it is impossible from a study of his scenes and characters to form a definite opinion as to his early occupation. This order is more or less guessing; but the wide variety of these plays, as well as their unevenness and frequent crudities, marks the first or experimental stage of Shakespeare's work. We may say that it seemed like as if the author were trying his power, or more likely trying the temper of his audience. For it must be remembered that to please his audience was probably the ruling motive of Shakespeare, as of the other early dramatists, during the most vigorous and prolific period of his career. Following his experimental work there came a succession of wonderful plays like Merchant of Venice, As You like It, Twelfth Night, Julius Cesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra. As we can see that the author was so involved with the situations and circumstances of that era that his works reflect the same as, "the great tragedies of this period are associated with a period of gloom and sorrow in the poet's life;

20 110 but of its cause we have no knowledge. It may have been this unknown sorrow which turned his thoughts back to Stratford and caused, apparently, dissatisfaction with his work and profession; but the latter is generally attributed to other causes". 3 We may classify Elizabethan era carefully as the reading of the plays and poems leaves us with an impression of four different periods of work, probably corresponding with the growth and experience of the poet's life. These are: first, a period of early experimentation. It is marked by youthfulness and exuberance of imagination, by extravagance of language, and by the frequent use of rimed couplets with his blank verse. The period dates from his arrival in London to Typical works of this first period are his early poems, Love's Labor's Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Richard III. Second was a period of rapid growth and development which was from 1595 to Such plays as The Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream, As You like It, and Henry IV, all written in this period, show more careful and artistic work, better plots, and a marked increase in knowledge of human nature. Third was the period of gloom and depression, from 1600 to 1607, which marks the full maturity of his powers. What caused this evident sadness is unknown; but it is generally attributed to some personal experience, coupled with the political misfortunes of his friends, Essex and Southampton. "The Sonnets with their note of personal disappointment, Twelfth Night, which is Shakespeare's Farewell to mirth and his great tragedies, Hamlet, Lear,

21 111 Macbeth, Othello, and Julius Cesar, belong to this period. Forth was the period of restored serenity, of calm after storm, which marked the last years of the poet's literary work. The Winter's Tale and The Tempest are the best of his later plays; but they all show a falling off from his previous work, and indicate a second period of experimentation with the taste of a fickle public". 4 To talk further about the same tragedies connected to revenge plays we can see that Elizabethan drama broke away from religious domination, which was the major focus of the medieval mystery play and morality play. Shakespeare often used controversial subjects for his drama, including the question of political power. The Spanish Tragedy which was written by Thomas Kyd is sometimes said to have been an influence upon Shakespeare's Hamlet. We do know that William Shakespeare was brooded on the magical, transforming power of art. This power could be associated with civility and virtue at a time in which the possibility of some kind of magic was not merely a theatrical fantasy but a widely shared fear, a fear upon which the state could act and react as well. Tragedy emerges not only from a culture in which the devil are imaginable as real events but also from a world in which many of the most fundamental assumptions about spiritual life were being called into question by the movement known as the Reformation. Catholic and Protestant voices struggled to articulate the precise beliefs and practices thought necessary for the soul's salvation. One key site of conflict was the Bible, with Catholic authorities trying unsuccessfully to stop the circulation of the unauthorized Protestant

22 112 translation of Scripture by William Tyndale, a translation in which doctrines and institutional structures central to the Roman Catholic Church were directly challenged. One who reads a few of Shakespeare's great plays and then the meager story of his life is generally filled with a vague wonder. Here is an unknown country boy, poor and poorly educated according to the standards of his age, which arrives at the great city of London and goes to work at odd jobs in a theater. "In a year or two he is associated with scholars and dramatists, the masters of their age, writing plays of kings and clowns, of gentlemen and heroes and noble women, all of whose lives he seems to know by intimate association" 5. Thus we know that Shakespeare was firstly inspired by his surroundings. In a few years more he started leading all that brilliant group of poets and dramatists who have given undying glory to the Age of Elizabeth era. Play after play runs from his pen, mighty dramas of human life and character following one another so rapidly that good work seems impossible. He had a marvelously imaginative and creative mind. Shakespeare began his writing career in the very early 1590's at a time when the theatre was flourishing in London and had developed, in the hands of Shakespeare's predecessors, some very popular genres. As the demand of writing grew there was no shortage of great authors poets and playwrights during this era, even Queen Elizabeth was known to write poetry from time to time, but by far the most discussed, the most influential and the most widely known was William Shakespeare.

23 113 He is widely, regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon", or simply The Bard. His surviving works, including some collaboration, consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets and several poems. His plays have been translated into all major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare's plays rank among Deviance s "Mona Lisa" and Beethoven's 9th Symphony as some of the most famous works of art in the world. His plays are arguably more famous today than they were when he wrote them, and they continue to inspire generation after generation of new writers. Shakespeare s contemporaries were understandably too close in time and relations to see him and his work in proper perspective. John Dryden said in one of his books, that Ben Jonson, "Shakespeare s close friend and fellow actor. In reading some bombast speeches of Macbeth, which are not to be understood, used to say that it was horror; and I am much afraid that this is so. Dryden, a great critic of the Restoration period (roughly the latter half of the 17th century) considered Shakespeare the father of England s dramatic poets. Yet, as would be expected, he felt the Bard was a primitive artist in a barbarous age that had his faults, and that the fury of his fancy often transported him beyond the bounds of judgments. 6 The great characters of Shakespeare, an absolute mastery over the heart and soul of man, which a great dramatic poet possesses, common

24 114 passion, as grief, anger, etc., usually has upon the gestures and exterior, can easily compass. To know the internal workings and movements of a great mind, of an Othello or a Hamlet, for instance, imitation of the signs of these passions in the countenance or gesture are being portrayed beautifully. Delightful sensation of freshness, with which we turn to those plays of Shakespeare to appreciate that celebrated soliloquy in all the plays of Shakespeare. The dramas are less calculated for performance on a stage than those of almost any other dramatist whatever. Their distinguished excellence is a reason that they should be so. Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on a fatally flawed character or system, that is, a flaw ultimately results in death or destruction. The best dramas of Shakespeare above all, may be considered or shown as anything, that the form of speaking, whether it be in soliloquy or dialogue, is only a medium, and often a highly artificial one, for putting the reader or spectator into possession of that knowledge of the inner structure and workings of mind in a character, which he could otherwise never have arrived at in that form of composition by any gift short of intuition. We find it in a play that a character itself fit perfectly as a subject of dramatic representation. The play itself abounds in maxims and reflections beyond any other, and therefore we consider it as a proper vehicle or conveying moral instruction, all the divine features of Shakespeare, his stupendous intellect; and only taking care to give us enough of passionate character.

25 115 Shakespeare s admirable observation of life and his design of characterization with emotions, when we should feel that not from a petty inquisition into those cheap and every-day characters which surrounded him, as they surround us, but from his own mind, which was, to borrow a phrase of Ben Jonson s, the very sphere of humanity, he fetched those images of virtue and of knowledge, of which every one of us recognizing a part thus we could easily relate to, think we comprehend in our natures the whole; and oftentimes mistake the powers which he positively creates in us for nothing more than indigenous faculties of our own minds and thought, which only waited the application of corresponding virtues in him to return a full and clear echo of the same. When is wrote such wonderful plays in the years before 1593, a non-shakespearean play called Hamlet had been popular on the London stage. Around the turn of the century, Shakespeare decided to rewrite this lost revenge play. Hamlet (1600), his most famous tragedy, is also the play that he seems to have reworked the most. "Existing in three different versions, Hamlet is nearly half again as long as the other tragedies. It was followed by Othello (1602-3), King Lear (1605), and Macbeth (1606). Besides these four great tragedies, during these years Shakespeare wrote five more tragic dramas on subjects taken from ancient Greece and Rome. Troilus and Cressida (1601) is an obscurely satirical rendering of the Trojan wars, while the misanthropic Timon of Athens (1605-6) expresses the futility of King Lear but without Lear's offsetting compassion". 7

26 116 The other three tragedies take up Roman subjects handled earlier in the pseudo-historical Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare, now inspired by having discovered Plutarch lives of the Greeks and Romans, wrote his three great Roman tragedies. Julius Caesar (1599) and Antony and Cleopatra (1606) portray the collapse of the republic and the founding of the Roman Empire, while Coriolanus (1608) goes all the way back to Rome's early republic. In this final tragedy of the eleven authored solely by him, Shakespeare connects the Roman mob with contemporary politics, making an unusually topical reference to the grain riots in England's Midlands the previous summer and thus he very well got connected with the roman plays and presented it so well. For further understanding we need to know the other influences on Shakespearean work which was none other than Aristotle itself. Aristotle s Poetics is not one of his major works, although it has exercised a great deal of influence upon subsequent literary studies and criticism. The work of Aristotle outlines and discusses many basic elements that an author should adhere to in order to write a great tragedies or poetry. Two important topics that Aristotle addresses and believes to be crucial to the art work is the mimesis, or imitation of life, and that the audience has an emotional response from the work, or a catharsis. William Shakespeare was a great believer in Aristotle s philosophy concerning tragedies and poetry, and employed these two elements within his works. The basic definition for mimesis is the act of creating an image or images in someone s mind, through

27 117 an artistic representation such as, a play, a poem, or a painting, idea or ideas that will then be associated with past experiences. Aristotle is concerned with the artist s ability to have a significant impact on others. First though the idea or belief that the artistic representation should be occurrences that people could relate to, or experiences that they would be familiar with. Another crucial element to tragedies and good poetry according to Aristotle is the catharsis. This is the purging and purification of the audience s emotions, and followed by this is the basic purpose behind a tragedy. Meaning that the audience has built up emotional energy throughout the work of art, and in the end the ultimate release of these emotions finally returning the audience back to a more stable and neutral emotional state of being. William Shakespeare throughout his tragic period in his plays used the idea of catharsis. In his play Macbeth is one of his works that the audience can observe and feel the buildup of emotions and the final release of these emotions. For example we can see that Macbeth realizes in Act V Scene VII that Mac Duff was untimely ripped from the womb and the witches prophesies have come true and is beheaded by Mac Duff. When the audience realizes that justice has been seen to, and the proper king is in command, the audience feels and exhibits a sigh of relief releasing the emotions that have been pent up within them, ultimately returning them to a normal state of emotions, all the while learning a lesson to be stored for latter recall Therefore we can see that Aristotle had an enormous impact on William Shakespeare plays.

28 118 Shakespeare was firm believer s in Aristotle s ideas, believing that they were the basic building blocks to good poetry and tragedy. These two important ideas of mimesis and catharsis are evident in his works. Tragic hero is another significant element of a Shakespearean tragedy. Shakespearean tragedy is considered as a One Man Show. It is the story of one or two characters, who may be hero or heroine. Shakespearean tragedy is either a story of one man or a woman, who suffers due to some flaw in their character or due to their inevitable fate. Whatever may be the case, the hero is the most tragic personality in his tragedies. According to Bradley, It is essentially a tale of suffering and calamity conducting to death. Usually the hero has to face death in the end. An important feature of tragic hero is that he is a towering personality in his state or locality. He hails from elite stratum of society and holds high position in his state. Tragic heroes are kings, princes or military generals, who are very important for their states." Look at the personality of Hamlet, who is the prince of Denmark. A. C. Bradley saw Shakespearean tragedy characterized by the "tragic flaw," the internal imperfection in the hero that brings him down. His downfall becomes his own doing, and he is no longer, as in classical tragedy, the helpless victim of fate". 8 The so called hero is intellectual, highly learned and sociable and holds a philosophic bent of mid. Hero in the tragedies of Shakespeare is such an important personality that his death gives rise to turmoil, disturbance and chaos

29 119 in the country. In Hamlet, when Hamlet takes revenge upon the death of his father, he not only kills his uncle but invites his own death at the hands of Laertes. Due to the death of Hamlet, the army of Fortinbras enters Denmark and gets control of the affairs of Denmark. To see the influential part clearly we can say that the dramatic form of classical tragedy derives from the tragic plays of ancient Athens as well, which depicted the downfall of a hero or famous character of Greek legend. The hero would struggle against overwhelming fate, and his defeat would be so noble that he wins the moral victory over the forces that destroy him. A tragedy evoked pity and terror in the audience; it was a catharsis, or washing clean of the soul, which left the spectator trembling but purified. We can compare and see that in somewhat same way Aristotle proposed the tragic unities of Place, Time, and Action, that is, the whole tragedy would take place in a single location, for example a house or a city square (this included messengers who came in from elsewhere), it would happen during the course of one day (including speeches about events which had happened in the past), and it would be a single story, without subplots. Compared with these strict rules as we may see, Shakespeare's tragedy is a more relaxed genre, but taking in consideration Othello much more than, for example, the sprawling Hamlet, observes the spirit of Aristotle. Othello, apart from Act I in Venice, is located entirely within the fortress at Cyprus. Although logically the play covers an unspecified time lapse of, we may presume, two or

30 120 three weeks, it proceeds, more or less, by major scenes through the hours of the day, starting in Venice with the elopement after midnight as it is seen, the Senate meeting at dawn, then at Cyprus with the morning storm and afternoon landings and developments, the fateful drinking party in the early evening and the murder at bed time. Shakespeare definitely followed some of Aristotle's ideas, but not all of them or consistently. The first group consists of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. These are the four great tragedies and best follow the Aristotelian model. They are widely considered the Shakespeare "mind" tragedies. They all have a protagonist that has a tragic flaw that eventually leads to his downfall. In Shakespeare's plays, however, the tragic flaws are less discernible. It is believed that Aristotle had a tendency to exaggerate the flaw, while Shakespeare makes it more real. This is just about the only thing it has in common with the Aristotelian tragedy though. Shakespeare loved to make a complicated plot with many sub-plots in order to make the play that much more real and meaningful to the audience. Therefore, he did not limit his tragedies to the classical unities as Aristotle did. The catharsis is another difference. Shakespeare's plays do not end with the sense that everything is now finished. Instead, the plays end with the audience remaining wondering at the absolute destruction of the protagonist. There is just the feeling of amazement at the utter despair of the play. The other group is the "heart" tragedy, for example Romeo and Juliet. It does not even attempt to follow the Aristotelian tragedy. To begin, the "heart"

31 121 tragedy is about a man and women deeply in love with one another. Their love could be interpreted as tragic flaws, but such a thought may be thought as a long stretch. Their love is attacked by external forces; however, the tragedy in this play is not tragic flaws within the protagonists but the fact that circumstances are tearing their great love to sunders. Romeo and Juliet, as well as all of Shakespeare's "heart" tragedies, ends with either the death or permanent separation of the lovers causing pain and agony. A Shakespearean tragedy is built upon a central conflict which runs through from the beginning to the end of the tragedy until the conflict is finally resolved. Now coming to the revenge motif plays the conflict provides the exposition, suspense, climax and the catastrophe of the play. Coming back to revenge specific genre we may see in the case of Hamlet, it is not otherwise though. The play is built upon the long, tragic conflict between Hamlet and Claudius and the conflict is built upon the motif of revenge. The driving and focusing force in hamlet is that it shapes the turns of the plot of the play namely as exposition, gradual development of the plot, the suspense, climax and the catastrophe of the play is the revenge, especially the revenge for the death of father. It is not only Hamlet s desire to take revenge, but also that of Laertes as well that also acts as the driving force behind the plot. In the play Hamlet two of the character's fathers are brutishly murdered. The first murdered character is King Hamlet who is supposed to be revenged by his

32 122 son prince Hamlet. The second murder is Polonius who is supposed to be revenged by his son Laertes. As we can see that both Prince Hamlet and Laertes go to seek revenge for the death of fathers, however they will each use different methods to accomplish their deeds. But the play in which the central action springs from the revenge motif is called the revenge tragedy, which shares some other typical features. Now as we are discussing revenge plays, before going further let us see what motivated Shakespeare to write such a tragedy in which revenge takes the driving wheel.at first it is clear in the previous chapter of Elizabethan era, the writer was certainly influenced by his age. Hamlet is a play that very closely follows the dramatic conventions of revenge in Elizabethan theater. All revenge tragedies originally stemmed from the Greeks, who wrote and performed the first plays. After the Greeks there were Seneca who was very influential to all Elizabethan tragedy writers, including William Shakespeare the two most famous English revenge tragedies written in the Elizabethan era were known to be Hamlet, written by Shakespeare and The Spanish Tragedy, written by Thomas Kyd. These two plays used mostly all of the Elizabethan conventions for revenge tragedies in their plays. Hamlet especially incorporated all revenge conventions in one way or another, which truly made Hamlet a typical revenge play filled with revenge motif.