The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare's Tragedies: "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet," "Othello," and "King Lear"

Abstract

IntroductionqShakespears genius lay for Comedy and Humour. In Tragedynhe appears quite out of his Element.q Not an unexpected judgmentnfrom Thomas Rymer, whose view of tragedy was qshortq in more senses than he knew -- too narrowly focused onnconventional consistency and poetic justice to take in the complexnvision of an Othello or a Julius Caesar. It is a surprise,nthough, to find the more humane and unblinkered Johnsonnagreeing with Rymer. In an age accustomed to seeing Shakespeare'snhighest art in the great tragedies, we can make little ofnJohnson's conclusion that they show the dramatist working innan uncongenial mode to produce labored scenes in which qtherenis always something wanting.q But we may depart fromnJohnson to admire Shakespeare's splendid achievements in thendevelopment of tragedy and still gain a valuable perspective onnthese achievements from that initial notion that comedy camenmore naturally to him than tragedy.Certainly mastery of comedy came earlier. By the generallynaccepted dating, Shakespeare in the first decade of his career as anplaywright wrote eight comedies but attempted tragedy, as distinctnfrom history with tragic elements, only twice. AlthoughnLove's Labour's Lost was written at most only a year after TitusnAndronicus, the fourth comedy presents none of the problems in moral and dramatic direction, in control of tone and adjustmentnof language to action, that are so evident in the first tragedy.nRhetoric and situation could not be more perfectly fused innLove's Labour's Lost, and Shakespeare is already at ease within thencomic formulas to the point of playing sophisticated tricks withnthem. The narrative poems from these same years can also beseen as exercises in comedy and tragedy --n n n n n n