The tragic in Antony and Cleopatra Essays -- Shakespeare Tragedy Plays

The tragic in Antony and CleopatraHis captains heart,Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burstThe buckles on his breast, reneges all temper And is become the bawl and the fanTo cool a gipsys lust.Antony and Cleopatra seems to have a special place in Shakespeares works because it is at a crossroad between two types of exploit. It clear belongs to what are generally called the Roman plays, along with Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. But it is also considered a tragedy. The importance of history in the play cannot be denied, especially where it is compared to Shakespeares great tragedies such as settlement and Romeo and Juliet. But one might wonder what is specifically tragic in Antony and Cleopatra, and what can be said about the tragic in a play which is so different from the other tragedies. It is clear that the notion of tragic in the everyday sense is not necessarily the same as the notion of tragedy, which is a philosophic notion whose definition depends on which philosoph ic system one takes into account. In this article I shall take the term tragic in its literary and outstanding sense and try to define its main characteristics.Taking into account a wide corpus of plays, from Antiquity as well as from France and England, we can rule several constant features that can define the tragic. A tragedy usually shows a character that is outstanding by his rank or/and inner abilities, go into misfortune as a result of fate, and because of an error or a weakness for which he is not really responsible. Several tragic elements can be detected in Antony and Cleopatra. First, we find characters that have high rank because they are outstanding figures we also see a tragic situation because from the be... ...es. In fact the tragic might be more prominent in this hybrid play (both historical play and tragedy) Antony and Cleopatra, than it is in some of Shakespeares great tragedies such as Othello. BibliographyAngel-Perez, Elisabeth. 1997. Le thtre Anglais. Pari s HachetteAnouilh, Jean. 1946. Antigone, Paris Editions de la Table RondeBiet, Christian. 1997. La tragdie. Paris Armand ColinCuddon, J. A . 1992. The Penguin Dictionary Of Literary Terms And Literary Theory. Penguin USA Racine, Jean. 1674. Pr organisation of Iphignie en Aulide. Editions lIntgrale 1667. Premire Prface of Andromaque. Editions lIntgrale1677. Prface of Phdre. Editions lIntgraleSuhamy, Henri (directed by). 2000. Antony and Cleopatra. Paris Ellipses 1. Article published in Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Henri Suhamy The tragic in Antony and Cleopatra