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Can We Define the Nature of Shakespearean Tragedy?

De casibus virorum illustrium (On the Fates of Famous Men) is a work of 56 biographies in Latin prose composed by the Florentine poet Giovanni Boccaccio of Certaldo in the form of moral stories of the falls of famous people, similar to his work of 106 biographies De Mulieribus Claris. CHAUCER'S EARLY POEM DE CASIBUS VIRORUMILLUSTRIUM by M. Seymour The title says it all. But though an early origin is widely assumed,1 the Monk's Tale is still treated (when at all) as the dramatic expression of its narrator,2 and investigations into its origins, the only other aspect of.

Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 1985), pp. 258-269 (12 pages)

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De Casibus Trag 3

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Journal Information

Comparative Drama is a scholarly journal devoted to studies international in spirit and interdisciplinary in scope. Founded over forty-five years ago by English professors at Western Michigan University, the journal has earned recognition from the academic community worldwide and continues to maintain the standard of excellence set by its founders. In keeping with our philosophy of interdisciplinarity, internationality, and inclusiveness, we publish a range of scholarly perspectives on drama from the ancient past to the postmodern present, from traditional to experimental, written by established as well as emerging scholars. Our aims are to generate provocative and innovative views of an existing corpus, to provide a forum for the discussion of dramatic works previously marginalized or omitted from the literary canon, and to encourage the use of archival materials.

Publisher Information

Comparative Drama is a scholarly journal devoted to studies international in spirit and interdisciplinary in scope. Founded over forty-five years ago by English professors at Western Michigan University, the journal has earned recognition from the academic community worldwide and continues to maintain the standard of excellence set by its founders. In keeping with our philosophy of interdisciplinarity, internationality, and inclusiveness, we publish a range of scholarly perspectives on drama from the ancient past to the postmodern present, from traditional to experimental, written by established as well as emerging scholars. Our aims are to generate provocative and innovative views of an existing corpus, to provide a forum for the discussion of dramatic works previously marginalized or omitted from the literary canon, and to encourage the use of archival materials.

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Various ideas have been associated with the term tragedy and the term comedy over the centuries, including tragedy that is not tragic, in the sense of 'sad' or 'disastrous,' and comedy that is not comic, in the modern prevalent meaning of 'amusing.' The modern English meaning of comedy as a synonym for humor is largely a twentieth-century development.

Greek Origins

Tragedies are first heard of, as stage plays, in the Dionysiac celebrations in Athens at the turn of the fifth century b.c.e., and comedies appear as a contrasting type of play a century later. Aristotle (384–322 b.c.e.) said that tragedies dealt with spoudaia (serious matters) and comedies with phaulika (trivial subjects). Tragedies aimed at arousing and then purging emotions such as pity and fear. Effective tragedies need not end in disaster; he gives highest praise to the happily resolved Iphigenia among the Taurians of Sophocles, and, among narrative poems (since staging is not essential to tragedy), he considers the Odyssey to have a tragic story as well as the Iliad, though he notes at one point that the effects of such a double-plotted story (good end for the good, bad for the bad) are more appropriate to comedy.

Aristotle's treatment of comedy has not survived, and his analysis of tragedy was not cited in antiquity. His chief disciple, Theophrastus (c. 372–c. 287 b.c.e.) also dealt with tragedy and comedy, and his definitions were cited by the Latin grammarian Diomedes (4th century c.e.). They can be rendered as follows: 'Tragedy deals with the fortunes of heroes in adversity,' and 'Comedy treats of private deeds with no threat to life.' Diomedes adds that tragedies usually move from joy to sadness, comedies the opposite.

Meanwhile, Horace (65–8 b.c.e.) had discussed the genres in his Ars poetica. He explains the meaning of 'tragedy' as 'goat-song,' so called because the winning players were rewarded with a cheap goat. He does not define the forms and deals mainly with questions of style, that is, tone and diction. The complaints of tragedy should not readily be mixed with the privata carmina (domestic verse) of comedy. Ovid (43b.c.e.–17 c.e.), too, has style in mind when he says that tragedy is the gravest form of writing (Tristia 2.381). It consists of sublime verse, as opposed to the lighter forms of elegy (used for love poems) (Amores 3.1.39–42).

Another influential grammarian of the fourth century, Aelius Donatus, considers Homer the father of tragedy in the Iliad and the father of comedy in the Odyssey. He attributesto Cicero (106–43 b.c.e.) a definition of comedy as 'the imitation of life, the mirror of custom, the image of truth,' which is later reflected in Hamlet's discourse to the players.

The chief Greek authors of tragedies were Aeschylus (525–456 b.c.e.), Sophocles (c. 496–406 b.c.e.), and Euripides (c. 484–406 b.c.e.). Comedy was divided into old, middle, and new. Aristophanes (c. 450–c. 388 b.c.e.) straddled the old and the middle periods, while Menander (342–292 b.c.e.) represented the new. The Latin playwrights Plautus (c. 254–184 b.c.e.) and Terence (186 or 185–?159 b.c.e.) specialized in adapting Greek comedies from Menander's period. As for tragedy, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.e.?–65 c.e.) is the only known playwright whose works are extant. Plautus claimed that one of his plays, the Amphitruo, was a combination of comedy and tragedy, not because it used an elevated style, but rather because it introduced characters proper to both genres, kings and gods on the one hand and slaves on the other.

The Latin World

By Seneca's time, plays may have largely or entirely ceased to be performed by actors and, at most, been presented only by public recitations. The term tragedy was also used for pantomime productions, tragoediae saltatae, and also for citharoediae, in which a tragic protagonist sang and accompanied himself on the lyre.

The most important treatment of tragedy and comedy in the early Middle Ages was that of St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636).In book 8 of his Etymologies

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