Tragicomedy Flashcards
How would the Classical dramatist treat genre?
Would not confuse genre. Treated as distinct.
Audiences unable to keep tragical, historical, pastoral etc all in their minds at once
What is tragicomedy?
Tragicomedy is the mingling of comic and tragic pleasues - it does not allow hearers to fall into excessive tragic melancholy or comic relaxation
Name the conventions of tragedy and comedy…
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
What does the confusion of tragedy achieve?
- Collision of two different things can seem natural and miraculous
- Tragic view of life is corrected by the comic and vice versa
- Tragicomedy is more appropriate than either one as it is more expressive of human experience
How does The Winter’s Tale use self-conscious theatrics?
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
How does Shakespeare develop character as a result of merging the two genres together?
Allows for expanded characters with a depth of vision, as seen in Leontes.
How is Leontes fully human?
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
What is the quote that exemplifies Leontes’ refusal to listen to the oracle?
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”
How is Leontes used as a dramatic structure by which to maintain comic and tragic vision for the spectator?
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
Explain Leontes’ experience between make belief and the reality of human experience…
Tragic acts and tragic flaws of humanity + comic resolution and a plot that encroaches death but never becomes
What has happened to characterisation as a result of fusion of genre?
Characterisation reaches realistic depths through confusion of genre. Characters surrounding him are static, as in Hermoine.
So tragic + comic
What did Guarini say?
Pity and laughter can only be aroused in different parts or by different characters
How does Shakespeare move beyond Guarini?
Creates a quintessentially tragicomic character:
Tormented inner consciousness
Comic implications of his behaviour to defuse tragic potential for suffering
How is Paulina used as a tragicomic device in Act 2, scene 2?
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
What does Paulina do to Leontes?
Turns him from tragically dangerous to comic fugure by mocking unjustified jealousy