CU British Literature 2013-14

Group 5 : Shakespeare Drama

History of Shakespeare

Parents – John Shakespeare and Mary Arden

Shakespeare was born on April 26, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Died on April 23, 1616

At the age of 18, he got married to Anne Hathway in 1582

He had three children; the eldest being Sussan and twins Hamnet and Judith.

He wrote sonnets, 38 plays and two narratives.

Genres of his plays

It is not easy to categorically say whether a Shakespeare play is a tragedy, comedy or history because the Shakespeare blurred the boundaries between these genres. For example, Much Ado About Nothing begins like a comedy, but soon descends into tragedy – leading some critics to describe the play as a tragi-comedy.
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can variously describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or, often, a serious play with a happy ending
Shakespeare's tragicomedy plays are sometimes refered to as a Romance, a Tragedy and a Comedy. The List of Shakespeare Tragicomedies includes Hamlet, Pericles, Prince of Tyre , Cymbelline, The Winter's, The Tempest ,Othello, Macbeth and Lear presumably, Condell and Heminges grouped Cymbeline with the tragedies and The Winter's Tale and The Tempest with the comedies because they felt that tragic elements predominated in the former and comic elements in the latter.
Due to the fact that romances combine both tragic and comic elements, Fletcher called them "tragi-comedies" (a term which he coined in the preface to The Faithful Shepherdess, 1608; According to Fletcher, a tragi-comedy "wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy." Like comedy, romance includes a love-intrigue and culminates in a happy ending. Like tragedy, romance has a serious plot-line (betrayals, tyrants, usurpers of thrones) and treats serious themes; it is darker in tone (more serious) than comedy. While emphasizes evil, and comedy minimizes it, romance acknowledges evil -- the reality of human suffering.

1) In the early eighteenth century, the critics most loyal to what Pope calls "the model of the Ancients" * have lamented Shakespeare's lack of taste in inserting comedy in his tragedies.

2)They admire Shakespeare's genius, they acknowledge that the comic passages "wou'd be good anywhere else,"and they are forced to admit that, in the words of Nicholas Rowe (1709), "the generality of our audiences seem to be better pleased with it [tragi-comedy] than with exact tragedy." But, says Rowe,"the severer Critiques among us cannot bear it."

3) "Grief and Laughter," wrote Charles Gildon (1710) "are so very incompatible that to join these two . . . wou'd be monstrous . .

And yet this Absurdity ... is what our Shakespear himself has frequently been guilty of..

References

1. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27530731.pdf?acceptTC=true

2. http://www.ask.com/question/list-of-shakespeare-tragicomedies

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragicomedy

4. http://youtu.be/pw-J7GbwNV4

5. http://youtu.be/IONNCf1zgg4 ....

Now we have a video to present to you. Mashing up two plays of Shakespeare we have a tragic romantic and slightly comical play, a climax which even Shakespeare would be proud of .....

CU British Literature 2013-14

Tuesday 10 September 2013

Group 10 - Comments here :)

Group 3 - Add your comments :)

Monday 9 September 2013

Group 9 - Brit Lit CIA 3

Group 9 - Neoclassical Literature

GROUP 2

Sunday 8 September 2013

Group 11 Victorian Today: Victorian Age with a contemporary touch (Part II)