Comments on: Question of the Week

By: DeLisa

DeLisa — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:21:25 +0000

In Theatre History, I always learned that tragedies end in death and comedies end in marriage. I think that’s as in depth as the classifications have gone. I think MUCH ADO is a tragedy because she gets to marry a JERK who will likely treat her terribly. I think it’s considered a “problem play” because it’s full of sadness and yet ends with a marriage. Any in depth reflection of these pieces puts most in the contemporary Tragicomedy designation. HAMLET is full of hilarious moments and I often feel like it’s designation as a “tragedy” causes so many people to miss that. Perhaps Macbeth is not considered a History play because of its speculation on the supernatural? Anyway I think all these classifications are shallowly based and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Btw, the CAPTCHA word for this entry was “literary.” I’m not even kidding! :-)

By: Gedaly

Gedaly — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:27:53 +0000

Which set of genres are we debating putting stock into? Scholars have expanded the folio’s to include Romances and Problem Plays. Though I don’t really think that’s very accurate. Most of the Comedies are romantic stories, but the “Romances” are the ones that scholars deemed not funny enough to be a comedy. A little too subjective, right?

The rules for the Folio classifications are a little fuzzy and don’t necessarily have to do with plot, as in the case of Comedies/tragedies, but also with subject matter, ie: histories.

Many people believe Julius Caesar is classified as one of the histories, I correct them and then try to help explain. When I am asked by students, actors, co-workers, etc. to explain the rules to these genres I’ll say the Comedies have a romantic element to to them, often concludes with marriage (or one will probably happen soon thereafter) and no main character dies at the end. Tragedies conclude with the main characters death (but could be of loved ones as in a Greek tragedy).

Finally, the Histories are a set of plays that are about English Kings no less than about 500 years before Shakespeare. Richard III could be described as a tragedy, Henry V could be described as a Comedy. Both of those can easily be argued, but if we go by the rule that main character dies at the end for tragedy and there is an implied marriage at the end for comedy, it stands true.

I think a better question would be, what do we need the groupings for? If you’re doing a study on certain plays that all have something in common, it’d be best to define your own grouping of the plays by attributes that are clear.

I suppose I didn’t really answer the question.

One classic definition of Tragedy is that the story progresses with the main character having things go his way until about midway though the show when (usually because of his/her tragic flaw) things start going downhill and end in death.

And the converse can prove true for comedy. The story moves with the protagonist getting further and further from their objective until the plays climax when the tables turn and all is resolved.

Going by the above guidelines I’d say that structurally, Romeo and Juliet is, after all, a tragedy.

By: Duane

Duane — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:25:39 +0000

Oooo, that last one in particular rings a bell:

http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/2008/08/you-do-realize-romeo-and-juliet-is.html

One of my contributors said, “Structurally, Romeo and Juliet is a comedy” and it kicked off quite the fire storm :).