William Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' - tragedy or problem play?
William Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' - tragedy or problem play?
Tragedy:
Many readers and critics consider "The Merchant of Venice" as a tragedy, especially with regard to the treatment of the Jew Shylock during the whole play. The following section presents the criteria of a tragedy. In his Poetics, Aristotle defines the term “tragedy” as follows: The imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of his work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
In essence, a tragedy is the mirror image or negative of comedy. In contrast to comedies, tragedies are more serious in the subject. It is quite usual for tragedies that the story begins with happiness and ends in disaster. The aim of a tragedy is to evoke pity and fear on the part of the audience.
According to Aristotle, a tragedy depicts the downfall of a great person through some fatal error or misjudgment. The great person is usually the “tragic hero” who must be essentially admirable and good. The change to bad fortune which the tragic hero undergoes is not due to any moral defect or flaw, but a mistake of some kind. The hero’s downfall is understood by Aristotle to arouse pity and fear that leads to an epiphany and a catharsis both for the hero and the audience. In his “Poetics”, Aristotle also claims that “[…] the structure of the best tragedy should be not simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing fear and pity - for that is peculiar to this form of art.”
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Tragedy:
Many readers and critics consider "The Merchant of Venice" as a tragedy, especially with regard to the treatment of the Jew Shylock during the whole play. The following section presents the criteria of a tragedy. In his Poetics, Aristotle defines the term “tragedy” as follows: The imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of his work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
In essence, a tragedy is the mirror image or negative of comedy. In contrast to comedies, tragedies are more serious in the subject. It is quite usual for tragedies that the story begins with happiness and ends in disaster. The aim of a tragedy is to evoke pity and fear on the part of the audience.
According to Aristotle, a tragedy depicts the downfall of a great person through some fatal error or misjudgment. The great person is usually the “tragic hero” who must be essentially admirable and good. The change to bad fortune which the tragic hero undergoes is not due to any moral defect or flaw, but a mistake of some kind. The hero’s downfall is understood by Aristotle to arouse pity and fear that leads to an epiphany and a catharsis both for the hero and the audience. In his “Poetics”, Aristotle also claims that “[…] the structure of the best tragedy should be not simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing fear and pity - for that is peculiar to this form of art.”
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