ENGL 1F95 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Postmodern Literature, Brossard, Lucretius
26 Apr 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Hamlet, cont"d and nicole brossard"s [all these months spent] (in lecture notes) We have talked about different approaches and different themes in the text, but one thing that we haven"t really addressed yet is the question of genre. The title of the play declares that it is a tragedy, so it stands to reason that the play fulfills the basic features of the genre. After the epic, tragedy is arguable the highest genre of western literature, and one with an ancient history. Scholars and philosophers trace the genre back to ritual violence and sacrifice. Tragedy: a serious play (or, by extension, a novel) representing the disastrous downfall of a central character, the protagonist. In some ancient greek tragedies such as the eumenides of. Aeschylus, a happy ending was possible, provided that the subject was mythological and the treatment dignified, but the more usual conclusion, involving the protagonist"s death, has become the defining feature in later uses of the term.
