Dramatic Structure of a Tragedy

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Dramatic Structure of a Tragedy DRAMATIC STRUCTURE OF A TRAGEDY EXPOSITION RISING ACTION A Shakespearean tragedy traditionally The exposition introduces important information to the At the beginning of the rising action the conflict is audience that is vital to the unfolding action of the play. introduced and an incident occurs that sets the rising follows the Freytag Pyramid of Dramatic Exposition can also feature ‘incluing’ which ‘clues’ the action in motion. Throughout the rising action a series of Structure which consists of five parts. audience into the world of the play. Central themes and events occur that lead to the climax. It is at this point in ideas are also conveyed and the atmosphere for the play is the play that the tragic hero suffers from their fatal flaw in Freytag’s analysis is derived from Aristotle’s established. character and makes errors of judgment. Poetics that had a three-part view of a plot structure. The five parts are: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Denouement. In the boxes, outline the particular moments or scenes in Macbeth that correspond with the five parts of the plot structure. 1 CLIMAX FALLING ACTION DENOUEMENT The climax is the turning point in the play that changes the During the falling action a conflict between the tragic Normality is restored and the conflict is resolved. protagonist’s fate. This climax is the consequence of the hero and the avenging hero takes place which results in events that occurred in the rising action. After the climax the tragic hero winning or losing. The falling action often the tragic hero is more controlled by their actions than in contains a moment of suspense where it is perceived that control of their actions. the tragic hero may escape their fate. 2.
Recommended publications
  • Philosophy in Literature
    Syracuse University SURFACE Syracuse University Press Libraries 1949 Philosophy in Literature Julian L. Ross Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/supress Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Ross, Julian L., "Philosophy in Literature" (1949). Syracuse University Press. 3. https://surface.syr.edu/supress/3 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Libraries at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Syracuse University Press by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. OU_168123>3 ib VOOK t'l hvtent <J/ie tyovevnment //te ^United cf ai o an f.r^^fnto iii and yccdwl c/ tie llnited faaart/* *J/ie L/eofile of jf'ti OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY CallNo. 9ol//k?/^ Accession No. < Author ""jj^vv JLj. This book should be returned on or before the date last marked below. PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE JULIAN L. ROSS Professor of English, Allegheny College SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS IN COOPERATION WITH ALLEGHENY COLLEGE Copyright, 1949 SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS Only literature can describe experience, for the excellent reason that the terms of experience are moral and literary from the beginning. Mind is incorrigibly poetical: not be- cause it is not attentive to material facts and practical exigencies, but because, being intensely attentive to them, it turns them into pleasures and pains, and into many-colored ideas. GEORGE SANTAYANA TO CAROL MOODEY ROSS INTRODUCTION The most important questions of our time are philosoph- ical. All about us we see the clash of ideas and ideologies. Yet the formal study of philosophy has been losing rather than gaining ground.
    [Show full text]
  • The Character of Huckleberry Finn
    Forthcoming in Philosophy and Literature 2017 Gehrman The Character of Huckleberry Finn Kristina Gehrman University of Tennessee, Knoxville ABSTRACT: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is morally admirable because he follows his heart and does the right thing in a pinch. Or is he? The Character of Huckleberry Finn argues that the standard reading of Huck woefully misunderstands his literary and moral character. The real Huck is strikingly morally passive and thoroughly unreliable, and when the pinch comes, he fails Jim completely. His true character emerges when, with Iris Murdoch’s “justice and love”, we attend to Huck’s youth and his history of unmitigated abuse and neglect. Huck’s case reveals how (and how much) developmental and experiential history matter to moral character. I. Ever since Jonathan Bennett wrote about Huckleberry Finn’s conscience in 1974, Mark Twain’s young hero has played a small but noteworthy role in the moral philosophy and moral psychology literature. Following Bennett, philosophers read Huck as someone who consistently follows his heart and does the right thing in a pinch, firmly believing all the while that what he does is morally wrong.1 Specifically, according to this reading, Huck has racist beliefs that he never consciously questions; but in practice he consistently defies those beliefs to do the right thing in the context of his relationship with his Black companion, Jim. Because of this, Huck is morally admirable, but unusual. Perhaps he is an “inverse akratic,” as Nomy Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder have proposed; or perhaps, as Bennett argued, Huck’s oddness reveals the central and primary role of the sentiments (as opposed to principle) in moral action.2 But the standard philosophical reading of Huckleberry Finn seriously misunderstands his 1 Forthcoming in Philosophy and Literature 2017 Gehrman character (in both the moral/personal and the literary sense of the word), because it does not take into account the historically contingent, developmental nature of persons and their character traits.
    [Show full text]
  • The American Postdramatic Television Series: the Art of Poetry and the Composition of Chaos (How to Understand the Script of the Best American Television Series)”
    RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 72 – Pages 500 to 520 Funded Research | DOI: 10.4185/RLCS, 72-2017-1176| ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2017 How to cite this article in bibliographies / References MA Orosa, M López-Golán , C Márquez-Domínguez, YT Ramos-Gil (2017): “The American postdramatic television series: the art of poetry and the composition of chaos (How to understand the script of the best American television series)”. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 72, pp. 500 to 520. http://www.revistalatinacs.org/072paper/1176/26en.html DOI: 10.4185/RLCS-2017-1176 The American postdramatic television series: the art of poetry and the composition of chaos How to understand the script of the best American television series Miguel Ángel Orosa [CV] [ ORCID] [ GS] Professor at the School of Social Communication. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (Sede Ibarra, Ecuador) – [email protected] Mónica López Golán [CV] [ ORCID] [ GS] Professor at the School of Social Communication. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (Sede Ibarra, Ecuador) – moLó[email protected] Carmelo Márquez-Domínguez [CV] [ ORCID] [ GS] Professor at the School of Social Communication. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador Sede Ibarra, Ecuador) – camarquez @pucesi.edu.ec Yalitza Therly Ramos Gil [CV] [ ORCID] [ GS] Professor at the School of Social Communication. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (Sede Ibarra, Ecuador) – [email protected] Abstract Introduction: The magnitude of the (post)dramatic changes that have been taking place in American audiovisual fiction only happen every several hundred years. The goal of this research work is to highlight the features of the change occurring within the organisational (post)dramatic realm of American serial television.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy, Theory, and Literature
    STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS PHILOSOPHY, THEORY, AND LITERATURE 20% DISCOUNT NEW & FORTHCOMING ON ALL TITLES 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS Redwood Press .............................2 Square One: First-Order Questions in the Humanities ................... 2-3 Currencies: New Thinking for Financial Times ...............3-4 Post*45 ..........................................5-7 Philosophy and Social Theory ..........................7-10 Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics ............10-12 Cultural Memory in the Present ......................... 12-14 Literature and Literary Studies .................... 14-18 This Atom Bomb in Me Ordinary Unhappiness Shakesplish The Long Public Life of a History in Financial Times Asian and Asian Lindsey A. Freeman The Therapeutic Fiction of How We Read Short Private Poem Amin Samman American Literature .................19 David Foster Wallace Shakespeare’s Language Reading and Remembering This Atom Bomb in Me traces what Critical theorists of economy tend Thomas Wyatt Digital Publishing Initiative ....19 it felt like to grow up suffused with Jon Baskin Paula Blank to understand the history of market American nuclear culture in and In recent years, the American fiction Shakespeare may have written in Peter Murphy society as a succession of distinct around the atomic city of Oak Ridge, writer David Foster Wallace has Elizabethan English, but when Thomas Wyatt didn’t publish “They stages. This vision of history rests on ORDERING Tennessee. As a secret city during been treated as a symbol, an icon, we read him, we can’t help but Flee from Me.” It was written in a a chronological conception of time Use code S19PHIL to receive a the Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge and even a film character. Ordinary understand his words, metaphors, notebook, maybe abroad, maybe whereby each present slips into the 20% discount on all books listed enriched the uranium that powered Unhappiness returns us to the reason and syntax in relation to our own.
    [Show full text]
  • On Violence: a Mimetic Perspective *
    On Violence: A Mimetic Perspective * Wolfgang Palaver Ten years ago a violent tragedy happened in this town that still causes us to think about the problem of human violence. This period of ten years coincides exactly with the period since the end of the cold war and its significant change of the international political landscape. The first chapter of my paper will focus on the problem of civil wars that followed the end of the cold war and gave us a new insight into the complex nature of human violence. My second chapter will give a short introduction into René Girards mimetic theory that seems to me one of the most efficient analytical tools to understand violence, especially if we look at civil wars. A third chapter will address some of those questions that arise when we are confronted with tragedies like the Montréal Massacre. I will turn to the work of Dostoevsky to understand what may cause a man to run amok and kill other people - fourteen young women - cruelly, indiscriminately and without knowing them. In a concluding chapter I will give a short summary of possible answers to the problem of violence. 1. From the Cold War to Civil War During the eighties, optimistic members of the peace movement like me thought that if the cold war would ever end it would be followed by a period of peace and harmony. We were, however, quite wrong and had to learn our lesson when we were confronted with an increase of civil wars since 1989. In 1993 the German poet and essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger published his book Civil Wars: From L.A.
    [Show full text]
  • Read an Excerpt
    MASTERFUL AND HEARTRENDING Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal Zink: the Myth, the Legend, the Zebra Drama by Cherie Bennett The Dramatic Publishing Company © The Dramatic Publishing Company, Woodstock, Illinois plores importantchés Brilliantlythemes exposesand whileMilwaukee easy and avoiding resolutionsex Shepherd cli Zink: the Myth, the Legend, the Zebra Drama. By Cherie Bennett. Cast: Version for 25 or more actors. Commissioned by First Stage Milwaukee, Zink is about true courage in the face of unpredictable predators. Imaginative, funny, and heartbreaking, it’s the story of the relationship between Becky, a lonely pre-teen girl with leukemia, and her guardian-angel herd of zebras on the African savannah. The zebras range from street-smart Ice Z to grandfatherly Papa Zeke, effete Zilch to endearing Schlep, a furry green monkey sure he is actually a zebra. In Africa, Becky learns about Zink, a mythical polka- dotted zebra once an outcast but later a hero with the most courage and biggest heart. Becky’s health worsens and she zaps back and forth between her real life and the zebra world until the shattering, breathtaking and uplifting climax. Never maudlin, “playwright Bennett does a masterful job of balancing the hard realities of ill- ness and the magic found on the zebras’ African plains. A clear case of theatrical risks bringing great rewards. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) “Brilliantly exposes important themes while avoiding clichés and easy reso- lutions. Superb.” (Milwaukee Shepherd) Zink the Zebra diversity curriculum available from Zink the Zebra Foundation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Family drama, best for ages 8 and up. Simple, flexible set. ISBN: 0-87129-882-1 Code: Z20 Front cover: First Stage Milwaukee premiere production.
    [Show full text]
  • Create a Character: Acting & Language Arts with Caren Graham
    Create A Character: Acting & Language Arts With Caren Graham ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS LEARNING TARGETS ● How do actors create a character? ● I can make creative choices with my voice and body ● How can characters I discover in other disciplines like to invent a variety of characters history, fairy tales, or literature come to life in ● I can create other forms of dramatic writing or drama? analyze a recording of myself performing MATERIALS NEEDED: Paper and Pencil ​ DIGITAL SUPPORT RESOURCES: <link> ​ ​ ​ INSTRUCTIONS 1. Choose a character from a favorite book. Examples: Harry Potter or Hermione Granger. 2. With pencil and paper write down 3 sentences to describe your chosen character. 3. Use descriptive words like tall, lanky, bent over. ​ ​ 4. Add personality traits like brave, scary, quick witted, confident. ​ ​ 5. Now use your imagination to create a character statue which is a frozen moment in time in a posed ​ ​ ​ position. Start with your face. Try making a “brave” facial expression! ​ a. Is there a moment in Harry Potter, when Harry or Hermione felt clever or brave? Write it ​ ​ down. b. Create that moment in a character statue and then come to life. c. Try to exaggerate (make bigger) a personality trait: for instance brave, and then switch to ​ ​ ​ another feeling or trait like scared. 6. Now add a gesture (an expressive movement) to go with that character trait! ​ ​ ​ ​ a. Move your whole body with expression, posture and gesture. Try saying something in the manner your character might speak with the gesture. b. Acting like the character, did it feel better to be brave or scared? Why? 7.
    [Show full text]
  • Short Stories
    Elements and Characteristics of Short Stories Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually, a short story will focus on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a limited number of characters, and covers a short period of time. In longer forms of fiction, stories tend to contain certain core elements of dramatic structure: exposition (the introduction of setting, situation and main characters); complication (the event of the story that introduces the conflict); rising action, crisis (the decisive moment for the protagonist and their commitment to a course of action); climax (the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point of the story with the most action); resolution (the point of the story when the conflict is resolved); and moral. Because of their short length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern. Some do not follow patterns at all. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical, though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action. As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning-point. However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open and may or may not have a moral or practical lesson. Of course, as with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by author. Length Determining what exactly separates a short story from longer fictional formats is problematic. A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to be read it in one sitting, a point most notably made in Edgar Allan Poe's essay "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846).
    [Show full text]
  • OHS Honors English Primer Is the Result of Over a Decade of Collabo- Ration Among the English Teachers of Oviedo High
    Honors English Primer Prepared exclusively for the students of Oviedo High School 2008 Edition About Your Primer The 2008 OHS Honors English Primer is the result of over a decade of collabo- ration among the English teachers of Oviedo High. We have worked together to ensure that the materials you will find here are relevant and helpful to your studies both here at Oviedo and later in life. Materials included in this publi- cation have been created specifically for you by the teachers at this school, and the information included is designed to continually build your expertise in communication skills, literary analysis, meaningful composition, and effective research. Your teachers throughout the next four years will refer you to these pages as a resource for reference, instruction, and guidance as you continue to grow as a student of English. Our Primer has four distinct sections that each focus on a different aspect of the skills you will be acquiring: Literature, Composition, Grammar, and Re- search. Some courses may rely more on one section than another, but each course will use the Primer to build off your previous knowledge and prepare you for what lies ahead. Keep this document with you—in class at all times, throughout your career as a high school student, and as you journey into high- er education. It is our sincere hope that you find the2008 OHS Honors English Primer a helpful resource as you continue to prepare yourself for your future. Best wishes for lasting success, The English teachers of Oviedo High School The 2008 edition of The OHS Honors English Primer was set in Myriad® Pro and Warnock® Pro using Adobe® In- Design® CS3.
    [Show full text]
  • The Structure of Plays
    n the previous chapters, you explored activities preparing you to inter- I pret and develop a role from a playwright’s script. You used imagina- tion, concentration, observation, sensory recall, and movement to become aware of your personal resources. You used vocal exercises to prepare your voice for creative vocal expression. Improvisation and characterization activities provided opportunities for you to explore simple character portrayal and plot development. All of these activities were preparatory techniques for acting. Now you are ready to bring a character from the written page to the stage. The Structure of Plays LESSON OBJECTIVES ◆ Understand the dramatic structure of a play. 1 ◆ Recognize several types of plays. ◆ Understand how a play is organized. Much of an actor’s time is spent working from materials written by playwrights. You have probably read plays in your language arts classes. Thus, you probably already know that a play is a story written in dia- s a class, play a short logue form to be acted out by actors before a live audience as if it were A game of charades. Use the titles of plays and musicals or real life. the names of famous actors. Other forms of literature, such as short stories and novels, are writ- ten in prose form and are not intended to be acted out. Poetry also dif- fers from plays in that poetry is arranged in lines and verses and is not written to be performed. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ These students are bringing literature to life in much the same way that Aristotle first described drama over 2,000 years ago.
    [Show full text]
  • Module-9 Background Prose Readings COMEDY and TRAGEDY
    Module-9 Background Prose Readings COMEDY AND TRAGEDY What is comedy? The word ‘Comedy’ has been derived the French word comdie, which in turn is taken from the Greeco-Latin word Comedia. The word comedia is made of two words komos, which means revel and aeidein means to sing. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, comedy means a branch of drama, which deals with everyday life and humourous events. It also means a play of light and amusing type of theatre. Comedy may be defined as a play with a happy ending. Function of Comedy Though, there are many functions of comedy, yet the most important and visible function of comedy is to provide entertainment to the readers. The reader is forced to laugh at the follies of various characters in the comedy. Thus, he feels jubilant and forgets the humdrum life. George Meredith, in his Idea of Comedy, is of the view that comedy appeals to the intelligence unadulterated and unassuming, and targets our heads. In other words, comedy is an artificial play and its main function is to focus attention on what ails the world. Comedy is critical, but in its scourge of folly and vice. There is no contempt or anger in a comedy. He is also of the view that the laughter of a comedy is impersonal, polite and very near to a smile. Comedy exposes and ridicules stupidity and immorality, but without the wrath of the reformer. Kinds of Comedy 1. Classical Comedy Classical comedy is a kind of comedy, wherein the author follows the classical rules of ancient Greek and Roman writers.
    [Show full text]
  • Myth Y La Magia: Magical Realism and the Modernism of Latin America
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2015 Myth y la magia: Magical Realism and the Modernism of Latin America Hannah R. Widdifield University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, and the Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons Recommended Citation Widdifield, Hannah R., "Myth y la magia: Magical Realism and the Modernism of Latin America. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2015. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/3421 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Hannah R. Widdifield entitled "Myth y la magia: Magical Realism and the Modernism of Latin America." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Lisi M. Schoenbach, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Allen R. Dunn, Urmila S. Seshagiri Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Myth y la magia: Magical Realism and the Modernism of Latin America A Thesis Presented for the Master of Arts Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Hannah R.
    [Show full text]