Shakespearean tragedy

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Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career. One of his earliest plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, which he followed a few years later with Romeo and Juliet. However, his most admired tragedies were written in a seven-year period between 1601 and 1608. These include his four major tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, along with Antony & Cleopatra and the lesser-known Timon of Athens and Troilus and Cressida.

Contents 1 Tragedies 2 Love tragedies 3 List of tragedies by William Shakespeare 4 Footnotes

[edit] Tragedies

Many have linked these plays to Aristotle's precept about tragedy: that the protagonist must be an admirable but flawed character, with the audience able to understand and sympathize with the character. Certainly, all of Shakespeare's tragic protagonists are capable of both good and evil. The playwright always insists on the operation of the doctrine of free will; the (anti)hero is always able to back out, to redeem himself. But, the author dictates, they must move unheedingly to their doom.

[edit] Love tragedies

Romeo and Juliet, Antony & Cleopatra, and Othello could all be considered love tragedies.^[1] These tragedies differ from the other tragedies in that the lovers are not doomed through any fault of their own, but because of some barrier in the world around them. In these tragedies, death is almost a kind of consummation of their love -- as if love can not properly succeed in a tragic world.

[edit] List of tragedies by William Shakespeare

• Romeo and Juliet
• Macbeth
• King Lear
• Hamlet
• Othello
• Titus Andronicus
• The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• The History of Troilus and Cressida
• The Life of Timon of Athens
• Cymbeline was listed in the First Folio as a tragedy although most modern readers regard it as a romance.

[edit] Footnotes

Image:Shakespeare2.jpg	William Shakespeare and his works
General information	Biography | Style | Influence | Reputation | Religion | Sexuality | Shakespearean Authorship Question
Tragedies	Antony and Cleopatra | Coriolanus | Hamlet | Julius Caesar | King Lear | Macbeth | Othello | Romeo and Juliet | Timon of Athens | Titus Andronicus | Troilus and Cressida
Comedies	All's Well That Ends Well | As You Like It | The Comedy of Errors | Cymbeline | Love's Labour's Lost | Measure for Measure | The Merchant of Venice | The Merry Wives of Windsor | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Much Ado About Nothing | Pericles, Prince of Tyre | The Taming of the Shrew | The Tempest | Twelfth Night | The Two Gentlemen of Verona | The Two Noble Kinsmen | The Winter's Tale
Histories	King John | Richard II | Henry IV, Part 1 | Henry IV, Part 2 | Henry V | Henry VI, part 1 | Henry VI, part 2 | Henry VI, part 3 | Richard III | Henry VIII
Poems	Sonnets | Venus and Adonis | The Rape of Lucrece | The Passionate Pilgrim | The Phoenix and the Turtle | A Lover's Complaint
Apocrypha and Lost Plays	Edward III | Sir Thomas More | Cardenio (lost) | Love's Labour's Won (lost) | The Birth of Merlin | Locrine | The London Prodigal | The Puritan | The Second Maiden's Tragedy | Richard II, Part I: Thomas of Woodstock | Sir John Oldcastle | Thomas Lord Cromwell | A Yorkshire Tragedy | Fair Em | Mucedorus | The Merry Devil of Edmonton | Arden of Faversham | Edmund Ironside | Vortigern and Rowena
Other play information	Shakespeare's plays | Shakespeare in performance | Chronology of Shakespeare plays | Oxfordian chronology | Shakespeare on screen | BBC Television Shakespeare | Titles based on Shakespeare | List of characters A-K · L-Z | Problem Plays | List of historical characters | Ghost characters

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