Poetic devices

Hamartia, or the first step in Aristotle 's theory of the tragic hero, explains that the play must demonstrate a flaw or error of judgement. The play offers an illustration of "hamartia" throughout its prose, as at the beginning of the play; Oedipus thinks he is free of guilt. However, his rash anger leads him to unknowingly kill his real father, King Lauis, at the crossroads. The murder of Oedipus ' father is one of the essential links in his downfall, which indicates that his anger is a very…

The narrator is originally very involved and emotional in the poem, but in the end becomes very detached. It is as if it is the only way the narrator can deal with the tragedy is to become distant from what is happening. Frost uses many literary devices to make this poem striking. Immediately, allusion can be found in the title of the poem itself. Allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing, or idea. Allusion is often taken from literary…

play that induces many emotions in the audience for various characters on numerous occasions. One of the greatest philosophers in mankind, Aristotle, states in his book Poetics that “poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history…” (Poetics Part IX). Between poetic literature and historical accounts, poetic literature is much easier to understand since plays can exert a perception onto the audience in which they can relate to on an everyday level. Historical accounts…

While a powerful tragic piece departs its reader with a sense of relief, it first derails the reader 's emotions into a frenzy of fear, pity, and sorrow. In Sophocles’ tragic play, Oedipus the King, Oedipus must save Thebes from the dreadful fortune cursed upon them. What Oedipus fails to realize is that he caused the plague through his fulfilled prophecy: to exchange rings with his mother and to terminate his father’s life. Over the course of the play, Oedipus slowly unravels his origins. His…

Grace Wang December 18, 2015 Tragedy Essay Which is the better tragedy, according to Aristotle’s definition of tragedy: Medea or Oedipus Rex? According to Aristotle’s definition, a tragic hero is a distinguished person occupying a high position, living in a prosperous life and falling into misfortune due to his own tragic flaw which consequently leads to his reversal and late recognition. Medea and Oedipus Rex are both one of the best classical and well known examples of tragedy. Oedipus Rex…

Of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, many of them fall into the genre of tragedy, including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. This latter in particular could be classified as a revenge tragedy due to its subject matter. Some elements of tragedy include complex, character-driven plots, noble, yet flawed, main characters, and highly embellished language. Hamlet contains these elements, respectively, in Hamlet’s convoluted attempts to avenge his father, his paradoxical good and bad traits, and…

Troy Maxson: Good, Bad or Tragic Hero? In August Wilson’s play Fences the protagonist, Troy Maxson, is widely considered to be one of the greatest characters of the American stage (Shmoop Editorial Team). He is a very complex man and leaves one wondering is he good, bad or simply a tragic hero? This is not an easy question to answer on the surface, but, reading and analyzing the play points toward the latter. Troy is quite simply bad at being good. “Troy has a clear-cut case of hamartia. This…

“Do any humans beings ever realize life while they live it? —every, every minute”: Tragedy in Our Town Despite the uplifting tone of Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, he suggests that individuals never truly appreciate life. In Our Town, it manifests a tragic vision of life and can be classified as one of the major genres of modern drama, a tragedy. In the tragedy, it implies that there is a symbol of death that is foreshadowed from the beginning. This captures how Our Town is a classical…

It can be argued that dominant ‘fatal flaw reading’ of the play The Tragedy of Hamlet; Prince of Denmark that Hamlet was simply a man of inaction, which is incorrect in that Hamlet did not act because of his religious stance on the topic of murder at the time the play was written, and this had a great deal of consequences. The Tragedy of Hamlet; Prince of Denmark, is a tragedy play written by William Shakespeare, published in 1603. The religious teachings of the time were against murder, which…

(Add hook) Aristotle 's Theory of Tragedy consists of seven areas that a tragedy must fully consist of: each area breaking into even smaller criteria. Characters, the second category, touches on what the protagonist of a tragedy must have in order to be considered as such. Some of the most noteworthy categories are hamartia, consistency, and tragic downfall. When analyzing the characters of Antigone, the Greek Tragedy written by Sophocles, there a few characters that could appropriately fit into…