Poetics

Praewpetch Unakul Miss Farrah Collette IB English A Language and Literature Standard Level Year 2 14 November 2015 Macbeth as A Tragic Hero “Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell.” - Macbeth (2.1.63-64) Many of Shakespeare’s works are considered as ‘Shakespearean Tragedy” with the protagonists as ‘Tragic Hero’. A character is a prominent noble defected in some way and the flaw causes his downfall. After the punishment of his own action, he comes to…

The famous playwright named William Shakespeare if known for tragedies and comedies to reveal life in a different point of view. He has written many famous plays like, Hamlet, a Mid-Summer Nights Dream and the Tragedy of Macbeth. A tragedy is a staid play that has motivation that leads to death. A comedy is a less tragic play that involves less gruesome death and a lighter ending. One of his most famous tragedies was the “Tragedy of Macbeth”. In the tragedy of Macbeth the playwright, William…

The Misfortune of Poor Decisions Throughout life every person will encounter and experience the intimidating and unmotivating concept of making a poor decision. A profound piece of literature that addresses the topic of poor decision is the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. The story is a tragedy and follows the twists and turns of Romeo and Juliet’s forbidden love that eventually leads to their deaths. Both participants in the relationship partake in risky actions that could…

Introduction A tragic hero refers to an individual of noble birth who is either heroic or has heroic qualities. It is believed supernatural forces or gods determine a person’s fate and the tragic hero is destined to experience great suffering or destruction. Despite the fate that tragic heroes have been assigned to, they struggle against it and it is this conflict that the audience admires. Adade-Yeboah, Kwaku, and Adwoah (p. 12) state that Aristotle defined a tragic hero as a man who is neither…

Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” is a cautionary tale against Man’s attempt to transgress his myopia. Mirroring the Greek traditions of architecture and tragedy, Hardy impassively elevates the catastrophic accident to an cosmic ‘intelligent design’ - an orchestrated ‘convergence of the twain.’ Hardy presents this tragedy of human “vanity” through a detached, almost reportorial tone, developed from an omniscient point of view. Particularly, he uses sophisticated diction and wordplay…

Plot and Character’s Effect on the Experience of Tragic Art The experience of tragic art depends on the plot setup, the type of tragedy, and how the plot appeals to the audience. Distinct rules in Aristotle’s passage stated the arrangement of a plot. A tragedy must contain a “prologue, episode, exode, and a choral portion…” (Aristotle, 2324) according to Aristotle. The plot should have structure, nevertheless it should also flow naturally and freely. If too much planning occurs in the plot,…

"There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man." ~Aristotle Let's face it. We have all said things that were dumb, foolish, and uninspiring. Surprisingly, the reason why so many good leaders say such foolish things is because they often do not recognize them as foolish or unwise. Also, they came up in a culture where the same things were said to them and, just like all of us, they learned how to lead from watching the actions and behaviors of other successful leaders. In this…

“If that was life, then it was twisted.” In Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel “Twisted”, life for the protagonist Tyler Miller wasn’t a perilous adventure, nor was it a piece of cake either. For Tyler, life was in between, a twisted cocktail of good and bad. Yet, the bad always seemed to outweigh the good to him. Which Anderson’s first person narration of the book helps us understand and relate to. In the beginning, Tyler is still a young, naive boy who only wants to be seen when he commits the…

Homeric and Hellenistic Epics and Tragedy are two genres distinct from one another in many ways. Tragedy is more compact than Epic, not wasting time on repetition or embellishments. They also differ in that the purpose of Tragedy is to show the downfall of great heroes and royalty, but Epic focused more on the heroic code and the glory of heroes. One of the things that both genres showcase though, is fate is important in everyone’s lives. Although Greek society’s ideals of heroes have changed…

What characteristics must one possess in order to be regarded as a tragic hero? Arthur Miller describes what he considers to be a tragic hero in his essay “Tragedy and the Common Man.” In this essay, he identifies the criteria and attributes that are suitable for a modern day tragic hero. Moreover, many can agree that John Proctor, the main protagonist of The Crucible, exemplifies Miller’s theory of a modern day tragic hero in numerous ways. By Arthur Miller’s definition, John Proctor is a…