Shakespearean tragedies dynamics: identifying a generic structure in Shakespeare's four major tragedies

Abstract

Many interpretations of Shakespearean tragedy have been conducted, mostly following the principles of interpretation in literary study. In our paper, four tragedies by William Shakespeare – Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth – were analysed systemically to find out whether they inhabit a common structure. Using the plot structure as the basis for our analysis, we identified the most important system elements, their connections, and interactive behaviour using causal loop diagrams (CLDs). Our results revealed that all four tragedies basically conform to Senge's archetypal structure ‘shifting the burden’, adding the action of the heroine or villain and the characters' boundaries of perception. The results suggest that, even though characters and settings vary highly, these tragedies have similar structures and archetypal solutions exist to overcome the problem. Furthermore, we propose that CLDs and systems archetypes are a reasonable hermeneutic tool to analyse not only Shakespearean tragedies but also other literary works.