Genre

Question 1

What does John Wilders identify as the difference between history and tragedy?

Answer 1

Whereas a history play emphasises a ‘nation’s continuing life’, a tragedy play largely emphasises a single character - and thus their death ‘gives the tragedy a sense of absolute finality’

Question 2

What does Samuel Johnson argue of genre in Shakespeare?

Answer 2

There are no strictly delineated boundaries - ‘mixed drama’

Question 3

Who wrote ‘Compensio della Poesia Tragicomedia’ and when?

Answer 3

Giambattisa Guarini, 1602

Question 4

What did Compensio Della Poesia Tragicomedia (1602) insist about tragicomedy?

Answer 4

Tragicomedy should not alternate between tragic and comic but rather create a mixed genre with a unified mood (lacking both the grotesqueness of classical comedy and the horror of classic tragedy)

Question 5

Rick Bowers

Answer 5

Tragic hero asks ‘who am I’; comic hero asks ‘who are you’

Question 6

John Wilders

Answer 6

Tragedy focuses on the individual protagonist; history on the continuing life of the nation

Question 7

Samuel Johnson

Answer 7

All plays are ‘mingled drama’ - no strict genre delineations