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Shakespeare's Comedy vs. TragedyCertain parallels can be drawn between William Shakespeare'splays, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and "Romeo and Juliet". These

parallels concern themes and prototypical Shakespearian character

types. Both plays have a distinct pair of lovers', Hermia and

Lysander, and Romeo and Juliet, respectively. Both plays could have

also easily been tragedy or comedy with a few simple changes. A tragic

play is a play in which one or more characters is has a moral flaw

that leads to his/her downfall. A comedic play has at least one

humorous character, and a successful or happy ending. Comparing these

two plays is useful to find how Shakespeare uses similar character

types in a variety of plays, and the versatility of the themes which

he uses.

In "Romeo and Juliet", Juliet is young, "not yet fourteen",

and she is beautiful, and Romeo's reaction after he sees her is,

"O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear

Beauty to rich for use, for the earth too dear!"

Juliet is also prudent, "Although I joy in thee, I have no joy in this

contract tonight. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden." She

feels that because they have just met, they should abstain from sexual

intercourse.

Hermia is also young, and prudent. When Lysander suggests that

"One turf shall serve as a pillow for both of us, One heart, one bed,

two bosoms, and one troth," Hermia replies "Nay, good Lysander. For my

sake, my dear, Lie further off yet; do not lie so near." Althoughthis couple has known each other for a while (Romeo and Juliet knew

each other for one night when the above quote was spoken), Hermia also

abstains from even sleeping near Lysander even though she believes he

does not have impure intentions.

Romeo's and Juliet's families are feuding. Because of these

feuds, their own parents will not allow the lovers to see each other.

In the a differnet way Hermia is not allowed to marry Lysander.

Hermia's father Egeus says to Theseus, Duke of Athens,

"Full of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

Stand fourth, Demetrius. My noble lord,

This man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child."

Egeus tells the Duke that his daughter can marry Demetrius, not

Lysander. Hermia replies ". . . If I refuse to wed Demetrius," Egeus

replies "Either to die the death, or to abjure for ever the society of

men." If Hermia does go against her father's wishes, and weds

Lysander, she will either be put to death, or be forced to become a

nun.


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Both pairs of lovers also seek help from another. Juliet and

Romeo seek Friar Lawrence, and Lysander and Hermia seek Lysander's

aunt, who lives in the woods near Athens.

Both sets of youths have the same character type. They are

young, their love is prohibited, both women are prudent, and both seek

the help of an adult. Yet they have their subtle differences. For

example, Lysander, never mentioned a love before Hermia. Romeo loved

Rosaline, before he loved Juliet. Hermia's family and Lysander's

family were not feuding, whereas the Montagues' and Capulets' feude

was central to the plot of the play.

The stories of "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's

Dream" are very different however. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a

comedy. Oberon, king of the fairies, sends a mischievous imp named,

Puck, to play a trick on the queen of the fairies, Titania, and on a

pair of Athenian youth. Puck turns Nick Bottom's head into that of an

ass (Nick Bottom is the man in the play production within "A Midsummer

Night's Dream"; he tried to play every part), and places an herb on

Titania that causes her to fall in love with him. This is quite

humorous. However, at the end of the play all the couples are back

together, with the ones they love. Thus Lysander and Hermia do get

married. If Egeus had showed up at the wedding, he could have killedher. Egeus' dominate nature is his flaw', and if he would have

attended the wedding, and killed his daughter, this play could have

been a tragedy.

Likewise, "Romeo and Juliet", could have been a comedy. The

first two acts of this play qualifies it as a comedy. In act I,

Sampson and Gregory, servants of the Capulets, "talk big about what

they'll do the Montagues, make racy comments, and insult each other as

often as they insult the Montagues." ("Barron's, 45). In act II, Romeo

meets Juliet. All is going well until Tybalt, a Capulet kills Romeo's

best friend, Mercutio. Things go continue to go wrong from here, until

at the end of the play Romeo, thinking that Juliet is dead (she is in

fact alive, she took a drug to fake her death), drinks poison, and

when Juliet awakens from the spell of the drug, seeing her dead lover,

stabs herself. If the families' pride had not been so great that they

would murder one another, or prohibited true love, this play could

have been a comedy. This play is a tragedy, not because one character

has a flaw, but both families have a flaw- pride.

Prohibited love, romance, controlling families, both plays

have it all. With a few simple modifications, "A Midsummer Night's

Dream" could have been a tragedy, and "Romeo and Juliet" could have

been a comedy. Shakespeare however, uses many of the same character

types, young, prudent, rebellous lovers, and controling family

members, in both comedies and tragedies. The end results are character

molds, along with theme molds that can be easily translated into

almost any plot, in any play.

What Is The Difference Between Tragedy, Comedy And A

Tragi-comedy?


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To trace down the difference between tragedy, comedy and a tragi-comedy, we will first have to

see what these terms mean. Tragedy is probably one the most debated issues in literature. Nocritic in the history has ever been able to define "tragedy" in an absolute way. Aristotle's

definition of tragedy seems to fail now in modern times. The formative elements described byAristotle have been rejected by many of the modern writers. For example, for Aristotle, Organic

plot is the best suitable plot for a tragedy but in the modern and post modern era of literature wehave seen a number of writers who have strongly disagreed with Aristotle. His definition has also

been rejected.However, for the sake of a general understanding, we can say that tragedy is a play, which has an

unhappy ending. It is not necessary that there must be some bloodshed at the end of the play. Wecan even have an unhappy ending without any kind of blood shed.

On the contrary, a comedy is generally a play that has a happy ending and there are no losses inthe play. A common understanding of comedy is that it is a play that brings smile to your faces.

This is not a correct understanding of comedy.Thirdly, a tragi-comedy is a play that has a happy ending but we have some irreparable losses in

the play. For example, in Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale", we have a happy ending but thedeaths of certain characters and golden time lost by the queen Hermione cannot be called back.

Hence, it has got somewhat an element of tragedy in it but the ending is a happy one.

[The following has been excerpted from Ian Johnston'sintroductory lecture to his English 366: Studies in Shakespearecourse at Malaspina University College in British Columbia; it is thebest introductory discussion I have ever read on the subject ofdramatic comedy and tragedy, and it is especially useful as an


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forgets, and re-establishes his or her identity in the smoothly functioningsocial group (which may return to the original normality or may be settingup a better situation than the one the group started with). Comediestypically end with a group celebration, especially one associated with abetrothal or wedding, often accompanied by music and dancing The

emphasis is on the reintegration of everyone into the group, arecommitment to their shared life together. If there has been a clearlydisruptive presence in the action, a source of anti-social discord, then thatperson typically has reformed his ways, has been punished, or is banishedfrom the celebration. Thus, the comic celebration is looking forward to amore meaningful communal life (hence the common ending for comedies:"And theylived happily ever after").

The ending of a tragedy is quite different. Here the conflict is resolved onlywith the death of the main character, who usually discovers just before hisdeath that his attempts to control the conflict and make his way through ithave simply compounded his difficulties and that, therefore, to a large

extent the dire situation he is in is largely of his own making. The death ofthe hero is not normally the very last thing in a tragedy, however, for thereis commonly (especially in classical Greek tragedy) some group lament overthe body of the fallen hero, a reflection upon the significance of the lifewhich has now ended. Some of Shakespeare's best known speeches arethese laments. The final action of a tragedy is then the carrying out of thecorpse. The social group has formed again, but only as a result of thesacrifice of the main character(s), and the emphasis in the group is in amuch lower key, as they ponder the significance of the life of the dead hero(in that sense, the ending of a tragedy is looking back over what hashappened; the ending of comedy is looking forward to a joyful future).

This apparently simple structural difference between comedy and tragedymeans that, with some quick rewriting, a tragic structure can be modifiedinto a comic one. If we forget about violating the entire vision in the work(more about this later), we can see how easily a painful tragic ending can beconverted into a reassuring comic conclusion.. If Juliet wakes up in time, sheand Romeo can live happily ever after. If Cordelia survives, then Lear's heartwill not break; she can marry Edgar, and all three of them can liveprosperously and happily for years to come. And so on. Such changes to theendings of Shakespeare's tragedies were commonplace in eighteenth-centuryproductions, at a time when the tragic vision of experience was considered

far less acceptable and popular by the general public.

Comedy and Tragedy as Visions of Experience

But the terms tragedy and comedy refer to more than simply the structureof a narrative (especially the ending). The terms also commonly refer tovisions of experience (which those structures present). And this matter isconsiderably more complex than simply the matter of the final plot twist.


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Of the two, the comic vision is easier to explain, since, as we shall see, itcorresponds to the way most of us think (or like to think) about life. Statedmost simply, the comic vision celebrates the individual's participation in acommunity as the most important part of life. When the normal communityis upset, the main characters in a comedy will normally have the initial urge

to seek to restore that normality, to get back what they have lost. Initially,they will be unsuccessful, and they will have to adapt to unfamiliar changes(funny or otherwise). But in a comedy the main characters will have theability to adjust, to learn, to come up with the resources necessary to meetthe challenges they face. They may also have a great deal of luck. But oneway and another, they persevere and the conflict is resolved happily with thereintegration of the characters into a shared community. Often an importantpoint in the comedy is the way in which the main characters have to learnsome important things about life (especially about themselves) before beingable to resolve the conflict (this is particular true of the men inShakespeare's comedies).

This form of story, it will be clear, is an endorsement of the value in thecommunal life we share together and of the importance of adjusting ourindividual demands on life to suit community demands. In a sense, thecomic confusion will often force the individual to encounter things he orshe has taken for granted, and dealing with these may well test manydifferent resources (above all faith, flexibility, perseverance, and trust inother people). But through a final acknowledgment (earned or learned) ofthe importance of human interrelationships, a social harmony will berestored (commonly symbolized by a new betrothal, a reconciliationbetween parents, a family reunion, and so on), and a group celebration(feast, dance, procession) will endorse that new harmony.

Tragedy, by contrast, explores something much more complex: theindividual's sense of his own desire to confront the world on his own terms,to get the world to answer to his conceptions of himself, if necessary at theexpense of customary social bonds and even of his own life. The tragic herocharacteristically sets out to deal with a conflict by himself or at least entirelyon his own terms, and as things start to get more complicated, generally thetragic figure will simply redouble his efforts, increasingly persuaded that hecan deal with what is happening only on his own. In that sense, tragicheroes are passionately egocentric and unwilling to compromise theirpowerful sense of their own identity in the face of unwelcome facts. They

will not let themselves answer to any communal system of value; theyanswer only to themselves. Lear would sooner face the storm on the heaththan compromise his sense of being horribly wronged by his daughters;Macbeth wills himself to more killings as the only means to resolve thepsychological torment he feels; Othello sets himself up as the sole judge andexecutioner of Desdemona.


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Tragic heroes always lose because the demands they make on life areexcessive. Setting themselves up as the only authority for their actions andrefusing to compromise or learn (except too late), they inevitably help tocreate a situation where there is no way out other than to see the actionthrough to its increasingly grim conclusion. Hence, for most of us tragic

heroes are often not particularly sympathetic characters (not at least in theway that comic protagonists are). There is something passionatelyuncompromising about their obsessive egoism which will only accept life ontheir own terms--in a sense they are radically unsociable beings (althoughthey may occupy, and in Shakespeare almost always do occupy, importantsocial positions).

The intriguing question is the following: Why would anyone respond to lifethis way? That question is very difficult to answer. The tragic response tolife is not a rationally worked out position. For any rational person, thecomic response to life, which requires compromise in the name of personalsurvival in the human community (or which sees the whole question of

personal identity in social terms), makes much more sense. What does seemclear is that the tragic response to life emerges in some people from a deeplyirrational but invincible conviction about themselves. Their sense of whatthey are, their integrity, is what they must answer to, and nothing the worldpresents is going to dissuade them from attending to this personal sense ofworth. Hence, tragedy is, in a sense, a celebration (if that is the right word)of the most extreme forms of heroic individualism. That may help toexplain the common saying "Comedy is for those who think, tragedy forthose who feel."

One way of clarifying this is to think how we construct for ourselves a sense

of who we are, of our identity. Most of us do that in terms of socialrelationships and social activities. In traditional societies, one's identity isoften very closely bound up with a particular family in a specific place. Wedefine ourselves to ourselves and to others as sons, daughters, husbands,wives, members of an academic community or a social or religious group, orparticipants in a social activity, and so on. In that sense we define ourselvescomically (not in a funny way but in terms of a social matrix). The tragichero is not willing or able to do this (although he or she might not be awareof that inability at first). The tragic personality wants to answer only tohimself, and thus his sense of his own identity is not determined by others(they must answer to his conception of himself). Given that his passions are

huge and egocentric and uncompromising, the establishment of an identityinevitably brings him into collision with the elemental forces of life, whichhe must then face alone (because to acknowledge any help would be acompromise with his sense of who he is).

We might also ask why we bother paying such attention to a tragiccharacter. What is there about the tragic response which commands ourimaginative respect? After all, many of these characters strike us as very


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naive and full of their own self-importance (in some ways, perhaps, quitechildish), not the sort of people one would like to have as next doorneighbours or dinner companions. Incapable of adapting to unexpectedchanges in life, they often seem so rigid as to defy credibility and curiouslyblind (a key metaphor in many tragedies). Characteristically, they don't listen

to others, but rather insist that people listen to and agree with them (thepronouns I and me are very frequent in their public utterances--Lear is oneof the supreme examples of this tendency).

Why are these people worthy of our attention? We shall have much toexplore on this question in dealing with Macbeth and Lear, but for themoment we might observe that we don't have to like these peopleparticularly in order for them to command our attention. What matters istheir willingness to suffer in the service of their own vision of themselves.They have set an emotional logic to their lives, and they are going to see itthrough, no matter how powerfully their originally high hopes are deceived.They are also, in a sense that we can imaginatively understand, although

rarely if ever attain in our own lives, truly free, since they acknowledge noauthority other than themselves. Macbeth is a mass murderer (of womenand children, among others); no one watching the play will have anysympathy for his bloody actions. And yet as he faces and deals with the grimrealities closing in on him, his astonishing clear sightedness, courage, andwillingness to endure whatever life loads on him command our respect andattention. The same hold true for Lear, in many ways a foolish father andking and an inflexibly egocentric man, whose sufferings and whosewillingness to suffer inspire awe.

Characters in plays, as in life, do not decide to be tragic or comic heroes.

What they are emerges as they respond to the unexpected conflict which theopening of the drama initiates. Their response to the dislocation ofnormality will determine which form their story will take. To the comichero, undertaking what is necessary for the restoration of normality isimportant, and that may well require serious adjustments to one's opinion ofoneself, an ability to adopt all sorts of ruses and humiliations (disguise,deceptions, pratfalls, beatings, and so on), a faith in others, and somecompromise in the acknowledgment of others. Comic heroes and heroineslearn to listen to others and respond appropriately. The tragic hero, bycontrast, takes the responsibility fully on himself. In his own mind, he is theonly one who knows what needs to be done, and if circumstances indicate

that he may be wrong, he is incapable of acknowledging that until it's toolate. His sense of himself is too powerful to admit of change. Tragic heroesdo not listen to others, only to themselves (or to others who tell them whatthey want to hear). People who tell them they are acting foolishly are simplypart of the problem.

Tragic heroes and heroines, in other words, do not answer to communitymorality; they do not accept the conventional vision of things which


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reassures most of us by providing a group sense of what is most importantin life. For that reason (as I shall mention in a moment) the tragic vision ispotentially very disturbing, because we are dealing with a character who isnot satisfied with traditional group explanations, with the socially reassuringrules and habits, and whose life therefore tears aside momentarily the

comforting illusions which serve to justify life to us as a meaningful moralexperience.

For that reason inquiring into the motivations of tragic characters is oftendifficult. Why do they behave the way they do? Why can't they just bereasonable and act normally? Why doesn't Lear take up his daughters' offer?Why doesn't Othello just ask Desdemona about her "affair" with Cassio?Why does Macbeth kill Duncan? Often we seek simple rational moralisticexplanations: Lear is too proud, Othello is too angry, Macbeth is tooambitious. Such simplistic answers (which cater more to our desire for areassuring reason than to the complex details of the play) are an attempt tocope with the unease which the tragic character can generate.

The critic Murray Krieger has suggested that the comic and tragic visions ofexperience correspond to the two things we all like to think about ourselvesand our lives. Comedy celebrates our desire for and faith in community andthe security and permanence that community ensures (if not for us, then forour families). To become cooperating members of the community most ofus spend a lot of time educating ourselves, compromising some of thethings we would most like in life, and rebounding from disappointmentsand set backs with a renewed sense of hope (and perhaps some new ways ofdealing with things). Tragedy, by contrast, celebrates our desire forindividual integrity, for a sense that there are some things which we are not

prepared to compromise, even if asserting our individuality fully brings great(even fatal) risks. The tragic hero has this sense to an excessive degree, justas many comic heroes display an astonishing flexibility, adaptability, andwillingness to learn and change.

An alternative formulation of this difference (prompted by the writings ofStanley Cavell) might be to characterize it as arising from two different waysof approaching the world we encounter: acceptance or avoidance. The firstway accepts the world (including the various explanations of it offered byour culture) and seek to be accepted by it. This response clearly requires usto place ourselves and our thinking within a community (even our

challenges to accepted ways of thinking will be directed by how thecommunity allows for such disagreements) and, equally, to limit thedemands we make on understanding the world (keeping such demandswithin conventional boundaries).

The second way (avoidance) is, in some fundamental way, suspicious of,unhappy about, afraid or contemptuous of acceptance, since that meansanswering to other people, letting them take full measure of us, and limiting


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our understanding of the world to what is available to us from oursurrounding community. This response prompts the individual to powerfulself-assertion in a rejection of any compromise in the direction of commonsocial interaction. Hence, this method of encountering the world leads toisolation, suffering, and eventually self-destruction (since the reality of the

world can never be known by nor will ever answer to one person'simagination).

Since one of the most common ways of representing acceptance of theworld is human love, that experience is a prominent feature of plays whichendorse such acceptance (i.e., comedies). For the same reason, it is a markedfeature of much Shakespearean tragedy (starting with Richard III) that thehero suffers from an inability to love or else loses that capacity.

This last point introduces a gender differentiation which is important inShakespeare (and elsewhere) and raises some important questions aboutcontrasting male and female principles, the former associated with the

origins of tragedy in some dissatisfaction with the given world and the latterassociated with an acceptance of that world. I don't propose to pursue thathere, but as you read these plays you will see that characteristicallyShakespeare associates the drive to impose order (political or personal) onthe world with men and measures the nature of this drive often by the wayin which it affects (or arises out of) their ability or, rather, inability to love.

For those interested in psychoanalytic origins of behaviour, this distinction,too, offers potential insight. If the fundamental experience of life in men is aseparation from and a desire to repossess the mother (Freud's Oedipalconflict) then we can see in these plays a clear distinction between those

who have overcome this separation and integrated themselves into thecommunity happily and those whose life is characterized by a continuingsense of separation from what they sense they most fully need on their ownterms. I offer this here as a fertile suggestion which we may take up later on.

By way of clarifying the distinction between the comic and tragic visionsfurther, we might consider the different emotional effects. While the endingof a comedy is typically celebratory, there is always a sense of limitationunderneath the joy (how strong that sense is will determine just how ironicthe ending of the comedy might be). The human beings have settled for thejoys which are possible and are not going to push their demands on life

beyond the barriers established by social convention. Hence, comedy, in asense, always involves a turning away from the most challenging humanpossibilities. Tragedy, on the other hand, although generally gory and sad inits conclusion, also affirms something: the ability of human beings to daregreat things, to push the human spirit to the limit no matter what theconsequences. Hence, beneath the sorrowful lament for the dead hero, thereoften will be a sense of wonder at this manifestation of the greatness of thisindividual spirit.


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This sense of potential sadness or limitation in the conclusion of a comedymay help to account for one of the most intriguing figures in our culturaltraditions, the clown with the broken heart, the sad clown, the professionalfunny man who brings laughter to others because, although he knows thatthe social order he is serving may be an illusion, it's all there is between us

and the overwhelming and destructive mystery of life. The tradition of thesadly wise professional funny man stems from this awareness: settling forthe joys that are possible (like shared laughter) is a way of screening from usthe tragic suffering at the heart of life. We see this in at least two ofShakespeare's most famous clowns: Feste in Twelfth Nightand the Fool inKing Lear. We also see it, incidentally, in the sad lives of many other famousclowns, fictional and otherwise (Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Tony Hancock).

The comic vision of experience is common to many cultures. Our traditionsof comic drama originated with the ancient Greeks, but the form neverreally had to be reinvented or passed down, because it is a vital element inmost dramatic rituals which communities routinely celebrate on important

occasions (in harvest pageants, celebrations of spring, and so on). Anypagan culture based upon the cycles of nature which turns to some form ofritualized drama, usually as part of the celebrations associated with anagricultural or hunting festival, will almost certainly produce some form ofcomedy.

Tragic drama, by contrast, has a very different history. The ancient Greeksdeveloped the vision and the style in a way unheard of in other ancientcultures. And its unique presence there is a tribute to the way this cultureoriginated a preoccupation with the lives of heroic individuals, whose verygreatness brings upon them unimaginable suffering and an early death,

something very strong in our Western traditions. The Greek tradition oftragic drama was not available to Shakespeare; he knew some of the storiesfrom various sources other than the Greek originals, but had no directexperience of what tragedy really meant to the Greeks. Hence, he had noinherited sense of the full potential of the tragic vision in drama.

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