Tragedy: Difference between revisions

During the late 19th century in the United States, two authors will be one of the many to start the new tragic genre of American Tragedies. In 1850 and 1851, both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville created the embodiment of the tragic form just when America was booming with optimism and vying for materialistic possessions. Their novels <i>[[The Scarlet Letter]]</i> and <i>[[Moby Dick]]</i> will be the first of many that will succeed in this genre. The trend continued on into the 20th century and paid close attention to the pathos of the victims. Although they were sometimes insignificant, they were still engulfed by the unmatching force of the significant being who ends up destroying the victim in the process. Only the novels of William Faulkner, in their depth and powerful assault on basic tragic themes, give memorization of traditional tragic values long forgotten in his "Saga of the South."

During the late 16th Century, playwright William Shakespeare composed several works during the Renaissance Tragedy era, which became known as the Shakespearean tragedies.<ref>http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl339/tragedy.html</ref> Today, Shakespeare is seen as one of the central founders of British tragedies. Scholars typically categorize British tragedies into three distinct periods. The first period, which is marked by the tragedy ''Titus Andronicus'', occurs around 1590-1594. The second period occurs around 1595-1601, and produces works such as ''Julius Caesar.'' Finally, the third period of tragedies produces some of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies including, ''Othello," ''Macbeth," and ''Hamlet," occurs around 1602-1610.<ref>http://absoluteshakespeare.com/william_shakespeare.htm</ref>