Tragicomedy

Question 1

How would the Classical dramatist treat genre?

Answer 1

Would not confuse genre. Treated as distinct.

Audiences unable to keep tragical, historical, pastoral etc all in their minds at once

Question 2

What is tragicomedy?

Answer 2

Tragicomedy is the mingling of comic and tragic pleasues - it does not allow hearers to fall into excessive tragic melancholy or comic relaxation

Question 3

Name the conventions of tragedy and comedy…

Answer 3

Comedy: concerns men of lower fortunes, comic order, marriage, feigned complication and happy reversal

Tragedy: great persons but not great actions, versimilar plot but not true and passions are moved

Question 4

What does the confusion of tragedy achieve?

Answer 4

1. Collision of two different things can seem natural and miraculous
2. Tragic view of life is corrected by the comic and vice versa
3. Tragicomedy is more appropriate than either one as it is more expressive of human experience

Question 5

How does The Winter’s Tale use self-conscious theatrics?

Answer 5

Uses self conscious theatrics to create tragicomic perspective + audience feels sense of power as allowed to share in the playwright’s control of action
Artificial devices create distance - audience aware of illusory nature

Question 6

How does Shakespeare develop character as a result of merging the two genres together?

Answer 6

Allows for expanded characters with a depth of vision, as seen in Leontes.

Question 7

How is Leontes fully human?

Answer 7

Leontes reflects the best and worst of humanity: he is fully human.

First three acts Leontes jealousy assumed awesome proportions as speculates about Hermoines adultorous relationship with Polixenes.

He ignores oracle, council and wife as a result of childish jealousy: human flaw

Question 8

What is the quote that exemplifies Leontes’ refusal to listen to the oracle?

Answer 8

Act i,ii, 190-93:

Yet shall the oracle/ Give rest to th’ mind of others…/ Whose ignorant reality will not/ Come up to the truth”

Question 9

How is Leontes used as a dramatic structure by which to maintain comic and tragic vision for the spectator?

Answer 9

16 years later, in Act V, Leontes’ repentence is confirmed.

“Destroy’d the sweetest companion that ever man/ Bred his hopes out of…”

Acknowledges destruction is all his own doing. Paulina articulates love before statute and it comes to life: material found in comedy

Comic order restored

Question 10

Explain Leontes’ experience between make belief and the reality of human experience…

Answer 10

Tragic acts and tragic flaws of humanity + comic resolution and a plot that encroaches death but never becomes

Question 11

What has happened to characterisation as a result of fusion of genre?

Answer 11

Characterisation reaches realistic depths through confusion of genre. Characters surrounding him are static, as in Hermoine.

So tragic + comic

Question 12

What did Guarini say?

Answer 12

Pity and laughter can only be aroused in different parts or by different characters

Question 13

How does Shakespeare move beyond Guarini?

Answer 13

Creates a quintessentially tragicomic character:

Tormented inner consciousness
Comic implications of his behaviour to defuse tragic potential for suffering

Question 14

How is Paulina used as a tragicomic device in Act 2, scene 2?

Answer 14

She is established as powerful comic counterforce to Leontes. She burts in upon Leontes in solitude nosily to present him with his baby daughter,

Her shrewish behaviour is not in itself comic but makes Lords and Leontes look ridiculous

Question 15

What does Paulina do to Leontes?

Answer 15

Turns him from tragically dangerous to comic fugure by mocking unjustified jealousy

Question 16

What does Shakespeare do with genre in Act 3, scene 3?

Answer 16

Doesn’t modulate between tragic to comic subtly. Brings together tragedy and comedy, death and new life, fear and laughter, in one big confrontation

Question 17

How is the bear a highly stylised device?

Answer 17

Creates laughter - laughter creates distance - distance detaches audience involvement

Bear is both an agent of comedy and tragedy

Question 18

Why do we forget Leontes and Hermoine in Act 3, scene 3?

Answer 18

Because the tragic no longer informs our conscious response to the play. We forget Siclian events and become prepared for an emotionally fortunate ending.

Dislocation of genre

Question 19

Why is Measure for Measure a problem play?

Answer 19

Integrates tragic and comic effects. But doesn’t wholly embrace either, borders on both.

No one dies, major characters only suffer for a couple of days, Duke’s presence assures audience of fortunate resolution

Question 20

How are MFM and TWT alike?

Answer 20

Both experience shap break between tragic and comic experience

BUT,

tragicomic devices which fortunate conclusions reached are visible in MFM

Question 21

How is the Duke the manipulator of the plays action?

Answer 21

Gurantor of happy endings
Flawed and comedic problem solving methods
Borders on edge of both tragedy and comedy

Question 22

How does the plot itself border on the edge of tragedy and comedy?

Answer 22

Characters of high rank
But involved in private affiars
Mingle with lower class ranks
Presents danger of death but not the death itself

Question 23

What is the Lear quote in 1.1?

Answer 23

By all the operations of the orbs

From whom we do exist and cease to be,

Here I disclaim all my paternal care,

Propinquity and property of blood,

And as a stranger to my heart and me

Hold thee from this for ever. (1.1)

Question 23

Tragic and comic moderate one another but…

Answer 23

tragic potential is always suboridnated by comic order