Shakespeare Comedy V Tragedy Research Essay
Shakspere: Comedy V. Tragedy Essay, Research PaperShakespeare & # 8217 ; s Comedy vs. Tragedy Certain analogues can be drawn between William Shakespeare & # 8217 ; s dramas, & # 8220 ; A Midsummer Night & # 8217 ; s Dream & # 8221 ; , and & # 8220 ; Romeo and Juliet & # 8221 ; . These analogues concern subjects and archetypal Shakespearean character types. Both dramas have a distinguishable brace of & # 8216 ; lovers & # 8217 ; , Hermia and Lysander, and Romeo and Juliet, severally. Both dramas could hold besides easy been calamity or comedy with a few simple alterations. A tragic drama is a drama in which one or more characters is has a moral defect that leads to his/her ruin.
A comedic drama has at least one humourous character, and a successful or happy stoping. Comparing these two dramas is utile to happen how Shakespeare uses similar character types in a assortment of dramas, and the versatility of the subjects which he uses. In & # 8220 ; Romeo and Juliet & # 8221 ; , Juliet is immature, & # 8220 ; non yet 14 & # 8221 ; , and she is beautiful, and Romeo & # 8217 ; s reaction after he sees her is, & # 8220 ; O, she doth teach the torches to fire bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of dark As a rich gem in an Ethiop & # 8217 ; s ear Beauty to rich for usage, for the Earth excessively beloved! & # 8221 ; Juliet is besides prudent, & # 8220 ; Although I joy in thee, I have no joy in this contract tonight. It is excessively rash, excessively ill-advised, excessively sudden.
& # 8221 ; She feels that because they have merely met, they should abstain from sexual intercourse. Hermia is besides immature, and prudent. When Lysander suggests that & # 8220 ; One sod shall function as a pillow for both of us, One bosom, one bed, two bosoms, and one engagement, & # 8221 ; Hermia replies & # 8220 ; Nay, good Lysander.
For my interest, my beloved, Lie farther away yet ; make non lie so near. & # 8221 ; Although this twosome has known each other for a piece ( Romeo and Juliet knew each other for one dark when the above quotation mark was spoken ) , Hermia besides abstains from even kiping near Lysander even though she believes he does non hold impure purposes. Romeo & # 8217 ; s and Juliet & # 8217 ; s households are feuding. Because of these feuds, their ain parents will non let the lovers to see each other. In the a differnet manner Hermia is non allowed to get married Lysander. Hermia & # 8217 ; s father Egeus says to Theseus, Duke of Athens, & # 8220 ; Full of annoyance semen I, with ailment Against my kid, my girl Hermia. Stand 4th, Demetrius.
My baronial Godhead, This adult male hath my consent to get married her. Stand Forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke, This adult male hath bewitched the bosom of my child. & # 8221 ; Egeus tells the Duke that his girl can get married Demetrius, non Lysander. Hermia replies & # 8220 ; .
. . If I refuse to marry Demetrius, & # 8221 ; Egeus replies & # 8220 ; Either to decease the decease, or to recant for of all time the society of men. & # 8221 ; If Hermia does travel against her male parent & # 8217 ; s wants, and Wednesdaies Lysander, she will either be put to decease, or be forced to go a nun.Both braces of lovers besides seek aid from another.
Juliet and Romeo seek Friar Lawrence, and Lysande r and Hermia seek Lysander’s aunt, who lives in the woods near Athens. Both sets of youths have the same character type. They are young, their love is prohibited, both women are prudent, and both seek the help of an adult. Yet they have their subtle differences.
For example, Lysander, never mentioned a love before Hermia. Romeo loved Rosaline, before he loved Juliet. Hermia’s family and Lysander’s family were not feuding, whereas the Montagues’ and Capulets’ feude was central to the plot of the play. The stories of “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” are very different however.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a comedy. Oberon, king of the fairies, sends a mischievous imp named, Puck, to play a trick on the queen of the fairies, Titania, and on a pair of Athenian youth. Puck turns Nick Bottom’s head into that of an ass (Nick Bottom is the man in the play production within “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”; he tried to play every part), and places an herb on Titania that causes her to fall in love with him.
This is quite humorous. However, at the end of the play all the couples are back together, with the ones they love. Thus Lysander and Hermia do get married. If Egeus had showed up at the wedding, he could have killed her. Egeus’ dominate nature is his ‘flaw’, and if he would have attended the wedding, and killed his daughter, this play could have been a tragedy.
Likewise, “Romeo and Juliet”, could have been a comedy. The first two acts of this play qualifies it as a comedy. In act I, Sampson and Gregory, servants of the Capulets, “talk big about what they’ll do the Montagues, make racy comments, and insult each other as often as they insult the Montagues.” (”Barron’s, 45). In act II, Romeo meets Juliet. All is going well until Tybalt, a Capulet kills Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio. Things go continue to go wrong from here, until at the end of the play Romeo, thinking that Juliet is dead (she is in fact alive, she took a drug to fake her death), drinks poison, and when Juliet awakens from the spell of the drug, seeing her dead lover, stabs herself. If the families’ pride had not been so great that they would murder one another, or prohibited true love, this play could have been a comedy.
This play is a tragedy, not because one character has a flaw, but both families have a flaw- pride. Prohibited love, romance, controlling families, both plays have it all. With a few simple modifications, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” could have been a tragedy, and “Romeo and Juliet” could have been a comedy.
Shakespeare however, uses many of the same character types, young, prudent, rebellous lovers, and controling family members, in both comedies and tragedies. The end results are character molds, along with theme molds that can be easily translated into almost any plot, in any play.
