Elizabethan Tragedy: A Different Shape of the Development of

Greek Tragedy
By
Faizah Zakiyah Darojad
140222602020
Universitas Negeri Malang
faizahzakiyah88@gmail.com

What is a tragedy in drama?

Tragedy, as a branch of drama, began in Greece during the fifth century B.C. The term
‘Tragedy’ is used today to define any sort of calamity or catastrophe. ‘Tragedy’ can also refer
to a work of art that ask question(s) pointedly regarding a man’s duty in the world. The
ancient Attic playwrights first used the word to describe a specific kind of play, which was
presented at religious festivals in Greece. The word tragedy is derived from Greek ‘tragoidia’
which is often translated into English as a ‘goat-song’. It may be interpreted in several ways:
a goat was sacrificed when the dithyrambs were sung; a goat might be the prize for the best
song; or the goat was the symbol of Dionysus the Greek god of fertility.

According to Aristotle, tragedy can be interpreted as "… a representation of an action that is

worth serious attention, complete in itself, and of a variety of artistic devices…presented in
the form of action, not narration, by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of
such emotions….” In addition, Aristotle classifies tragedy into six essential parts; plot,
character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song (or musical lyrical element) provided by the
chorus. Since traditionally tragedy begins with the chorus. Nietzsche as cited from
Shodhganga’s The Origins and the Development of Tragedy states that “tragedy arose out of
the tragic chorus and was, to begin, nothing but chorus.”

The plays were staged in an open-aired theatre such as Dionysos in Athens for any male
spectator in Greece at the time. Women were not allowed to attend and watch as well as
taking a role in the play itself. The plot of a tragedy was almost always inspired by episodes
from Greek mythology as how the people believe, which were often a part of Greek religion.
As a consequence of this serious subject matter, which often dealt with moral right and
wrongs, no violence was permitted on the stage and the death of a character had to be heard
from offstage and not seen, sometimes it is expressed in the chorus only (cited from Ian C.
Story and Arlene Allan’s A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama).

The basic difference Aristotle draws between tragedy and other genres, such as comedy and
the epic, is the "tragic pleasure of pity and fear" the audience feel watching a tragedy. In
order for the tragic hero to arouse these feelings in the audience, he cannot be either all good
or all evil but must be someone the audience can identify with; however, if he is superior in
some way(s), the tragic pleasure is intensified. His disastrous end results from a mistaken
action, which in turn arises from a tragic flaw or from a tragic error in judgment. Therefore,
because the tragic hero's suffering is greater than his offense, the audience members feel pity
because they perceive that they could behave similarly (to the tragic hero).

Elizabethan tragedy, a development of Greek tragedy or not?

Even if Shakespeare does not follow the Aristotelian unities, the influence of Greek drama is
still apparent in his tragedies. The Elizabethan tragedies, especially Shakespearean tragedy,
like the former tragedies, are likely perceived as dramatic lessons (cited from Gordon
Braden’s Classical Greek Tragedy and Shakespeare).

There are quite apparent differences in terms of plotting. Greek tragedies always have a good
or balanced beginning, middle and ending. The transformation of each session is usually done
by chorus. Therefore, the plot moves in a linear way. However, Elizabethan tragedies tend to
break that rule. They almost never start from the very beginning. Something has already
happened before the plays begin to suggest the influence of past time. Besides, the plot
moves in a complex manner like what happens in Othello, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, as
well as Macbeth.

Both Greek tragedy and Shakespearean tragedy shows the fall of the tragic heroes which may
lead to the worst possibility, their death. The tragic situation in the plays of Sophocles
represents an interlocking of certain complex circumstances and personalities, which
eventually make a pattern that cannot be avoided, which we often call as “unavoidable
destiny” (cited from Ubong Nda nad Margaret Akpan’s Sophocles and Shakespeare: A
Comparative Study of Classical and Elizabethan Tragedies). To say it simply, however hard
the characters try to solve things, things will not go their way except for destiny to allow
things happen the way the characters want. That is why we often hear that the Greek tragedy
points out that “you cannot avoid destiny.” However, the most important cause of the
Elizabethan’s tragic heroes’ downfall is their passion. Othello’s credulous trust in
appearances, Macbeth’s overweening ambition, Brutus’ self-deluding idealist approach to
life, and the lovers’ passionate rashness in Romeo and Juliet result in their deaths. This
passion is translated into unnatural thirst for power, wealth, political authority and mastery of
the world. This is quite different from Greek tragedy because the tragic heroes in Elizabethan
tragedy are “given choice” within the plot though the rashness and carelessness of the
characters lead to their fall.

Therefore, if I may make a point here, unlike the Greek tragedy which is religious in its
nature, Elizabethan tragedy, except for few plays, is rather secular. The conflict is almost
always between two persons or two groups. If we come back to the purpose of the tragedy
play in Greece, the plot of the tragedy was almost always inspired by episodes from Greek
mythology as how the people believe, which were often a part of Greek religion. Therefore
the point of destiny or fate is strong in this era. On the other hand, the Shakespearean tragedy
choose to depict that the ‘man’ does not fall for destiny or fate because the social and cultural
background in that time was renaissance era, the age of reasoning. Besides, during the raise
of Shakespearean drama, the philosophy of humanity, which main issue is about human-
centered decision and love for creature instead of creator, blows strongly. This new emphasis
on ‘man’ helps to turn the spotlight from God to the man himself in the theatre. This makes
the Elizabethan drama a secular one, interested mainly in man-man relationship instead of
God-man relationship.

As for the relationship between the individual or a man and the social order, the Elizabethans
absolutely believe in the analogy between the body politic and the universe where the order
of the state is comparable to the universe, like the king to the sun, the social classes, the
hierarchies of the “Great Chain of Being” and such (cited from Shodhganga’s The Origins
and the Development of Tragedy). Casca in Julius Caesar thinks that the tempest and the
angry winds are reflections of either a civil war that has started in heaven, or else the world,
behaving too rudely to the gods, has provoked them to send down destruction.

Come back to the point of tragic ending in tragedy, the final section of tragedy shows the
issue of the conflict in a catastrophe (cited from Ubong Nda nad Margaret Akpan’s Sophocles
and Shakespeare: A Comparative Study of Classical and Elizabethan Tragedies). The tragic
plays of Shakespeare usually end in the death not only of the central figure but a considerable
number of people. In King Lear, Polonius, Ophelia, Desdemona, Macduff’s wife and
children, and Coredelia die for things that are not originally their fault. C.S. Lewis, as cited
from Shodhganga’s The Origins and the Development of Tragedy, remarks that the
Elizabethan dramatist is preoccupied with various sorts of death. The tragic heroes almost
always think of death. Lewis believes that death almost constitutes the frame of the tragic
picture presented on the stage. For Brutus and Othello, suicide in the high tragic manner is
escape and climax; for Lear, death is deliverance; for Romeo and Antony, a poignant loss.
For all of them, as for their writer, death is the end. John Bayley’s analysis of the nature of
death in Shakespeare’s tragedies is very much part of life, to be lived through and endured as
life itself is. He adds that Elizabethan tragic decorum regards death as a ceremony in which
all the players participate and are united into a whole. The discussion of the plot must
eventually lead to the delineation of the tragic character whose actions form the main cause
of the tragedy (John Bayley, 1981). Bradley (2006) states that “the tragic hero is usually a
good man, certainly one who foresees the qualities of greatness or nobility; in short he is not
mean or contemptible.

Moreover, the tragic action is concerned with the fall of the tragic heroes who hold a high
position in society, as Shakespeare often use kings or princes as the character in the play as in
Romeo and Juliet and King Lear. Bradley (2006) explains the reason behind Shakespeare’s
tendency to choose persons of high rank when he points out that “when the hero falls
suddenly from the height of earthly greatness to the dust, his fall produces a sense of contrast,
of the powerlessness of man and the omnipotence perhaps the caprice of fortune or fate,
which no tale of private life can possibly rival.” Moreover, as the plays show, the fate of the
tragic character almost always affects the welfare of a whole kingdom.

In some of his tragic plays, Shakespeare uses supernatural devices to indicate the course of
events as in Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Hamlet. In fact, the mixed up events of these plays
suggest a lot that the characters in those play will lead to one and only big final at the end.
For them it is the doom in the character that determines the end of the play. To quote A.C.
Bradley, character is destiny (cited from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet,
Othello, King Lear and Macbeth).
The most important quality in Shakespeare’s tragic heroes is their impropriety or
improperness to the action. They are often called “miscast” or “misfit” (cited from
Shodhganga’s The Origins and the Development of Tragedy). This is evident from how
Shakespeare revealed a highly imaginative Macbeth figure not in accordance with the type of
work he did and the very weak Hamlet figure to be in the position he played in the drama.
Moreover, the part of a romantic lover or of one who could love both wisely and well is not
ideal for Othello who is black, middle-aged, and possessed of the strongest animal passions.
This, in my opinion, is a symbol of how the society was in those days when people had to
face reality where they did not have the ability to fight in it.

It is important to see that the Elizabethan tragic plays, following Greek tragedy, are not
interested in women as tragic characters. The plays was all about a male-dominated tragic
world. Shakespeare’s tragic female characters are often characterized by submissiveness,
weakness and lack of initiative. Lady Macbeth, in G.B. Harrison’s words, is the real cause
and the agent of Macbeth’s tragedy, but once her ambition is achieved, she weakens and
declines (cited from John Bayley, Shakespeare and Tragedy, 1981).

The Elizabethan dramatists are also famous for inserting comic elements in their tragic plays.
Consequently, the Renaissance stage saw both the clown and king sharing in the effect and
meaning of a single play. “Many times (to make mirth) they make a clown companion with a
king; in their grave counsels, they allow the advice of fools, yea, they use one order of speech
for all persons, a gross indecorum.” Whetstone adds that in King Lear (cited from
Shodhganga’s The Origins and the Development of Tragedy).

The Elizabethan tragic dramatists, and most notably Shakespeare, did not fully follow the
models of Greek tragedy of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Their models were Roman
and late-medieval (cited from Ealr Showerman’s The Rediscovery of Shakespeare’s Greater
Greek). They deal with a number of themes, the most important of which is revenge. This
was due to two main reasons; the first is the influence of the philosopher and the tragic
playwright Seneca who wrote ten tragedies during the first century AD, which were
translated into English around the time of Shakespeare’s boyhood, and the second reason is
the popular tradition that considers revenge as “a kind of wild justice” as Shakespeare’s
brilliant contemporary, Francis Bacon called it (cited from Shodhganga’s The Origins and the
Development of Tragedy).
Tillyard (1943) sees tragedy as a picture of life disturbed by the intrusion of a disruptive evil
force, the apparent triumph of that force, and then the reassertion of a normality which has
been strengthened through trial. Evil in King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet and Julius Caesar takes
the form of a violation of a natural order, the outcome of which is destruction not only on the
personal level but also on the public one as well. Lear’s division of his kingdom between his
two daughters was a foolish act that shows his lack of understanding and wisdom. Therefore
Lear should be punished for having violated a natural law. This punishment, in the end, helps
Lear to realize his mistake and to pick up self-knowledge though it cannot be done except by
the most violent methods. This recalls the Greek principle ‘Learning through suffering’ and
makes King Lear the most fatalistic, the most Aeschylean and the most heathen of
Shakespeare’s tragedies (cited from Shodhganga’s The Origins and the Development of
Tragedy).

It is very important to note that in almost all Elizabethan tragedies, especially Shakespeare’s
plays, villainy never remains victorious and prosperous in the end. The life presented in
Shakespeare’s, major tragedies is one which contends against evil as it would against poison,
struggles against it in agony and eventually casts it forth, though it must rend itself in so
doing and must tear out much good along with the evil. The catastrophe, which befalls the
tragic hero who is, by nature, a good man, gives one the dominating impression of waste.
(cited from Shodhganga’s The Origins and the Development of Tragedy). Furthermore,
Bradley (2006) maintains that in Shakespeare’s plays, all human activity takes place in a
world that has as its predominating features a moral order that is good.

My last point is, almost all the Elizabethan dramatists show an absolute absence of feelings or
interest to the two of three unities; unities of time and action as essential points of an ideal
tragic plot. It is, as cited from Ealr Showerman’s The Rediscovery of Shakespeare’s Greater
Greek, proven through the sprawling structure of Tamburlaine I, and II, in Faustus’ ability to
travel through time and space, and in the choice of Rome and Egypt as locations in Antony
and Cleopatra. Not only that. Some of the plot of plays in Elizabethan tragedy often change
over and are not based on a certain day. Meanwhile, it has been known that plays in Greece,
generally, have to be plotted within a day or it cannot be more than twenty-four hour from the
moment the play in staged. If I may assume, the absolute differences between the two
tragedies may be due to the development of way of thinking.
References:
Bayley, J. (1981). Shakespeare and Tragedy. London: Rutledge & Kegan Paul.
Braden, G. (2017). Classical Greek Tragedy and Shakespeare. Classical Receptions Journal
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Bradley, A.C. (2006). Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamplet, Othello, King Lear and
Macbeth. Delhi: Nice Printers.
Nda, U., Akpan, M. (2011). Sophocles and Shakespeare: A Comparative Study of Classical
Elazibethan Tragedies. Greener Journal of Art and Humanities (www.gjournals.org).
Shodhganga. (2010). The Origins and the Development of Tragedy.
shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/93621/9/09_chapter2.pdf.
Showerman, E. (2015). The Rediscovery of Shakespeare’s Greater Greek. THE
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Storey, A.C., Allan, A. (2005). A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama. USA: Blackwell
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Tillyard, E.M.W. (1943). The Elizabethan World Picture. Lodon: Chatto & Windows.