The seriousness of their love results from the lovers’ disrepudance (?) of artificial language of ‘love’ and superficial code they had tired by at the beginning of the play. This is seen through the development of language form beginning with rhyme (Levin- “Comedy set the pattern of courtship embodied in dance (rhyme)) heavily used in the first act to its replacement of Blank verse which representative of a for more logical and realistic tone. This also reflects a common Shakespearean comment on Appearance versus Reality which is often a deeper theme discussed in tragedy. Tragedy is said to be further represented in Shakespeare’s use of opposites or antithesis.
Of course MAAN follows Shakespeare’s traditional comedy structure but modern critics have their own agenda that a comedy, being such a complex genre, should conform to. Since the time of the ancient Greeks critics have struggled to define it, Plato described it as a series of events you would ‘blush to practice yourself’. Susan Snyder who writes for the Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Company, states that - ‘Comedy involves men of middling estate, its perils are small scale, its outcomes peaceful’. This is an excellent summary for the majority of Shakespeare’s plays; however it is not necessarily accurate in relation to MAAN. It is true to say that a comedy involves ‘men of a middling estate’, in MAAN the protagonists share the company of the Prince Don Pedro, and are socially superior to the watchmen such as Dogberry and Verges.
How does Shakespeare successfully create comedy in Act 1 of Twelfth Night? Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night takes place during celebrations when the social hierarchy seems to be nearing towards non-existent and rankings seem to be overrun by excess partying. Tricking each other and speaking in puns was common at this time meaning Shakespeare could easily incorporate humour into the play. Through physical comedy, wit and wordplay and the use of dramatic irony, Shakespeare brings out the elements of comedy to the audience, keeping them entertained throughout. In Act 1 Scene 1 we are introduced to the Duke, Curio and Valentine.
Devices that are used by Benedick and Beatrice are Bawdy language, word play and puns, which are very different compared to Dogberry’s According to Aristotle the idea of comedy comes from speculation concerning men dancing, signing and cavorting around the image of a phallus. True or not this idea of high-spirited celebration of sexuality and love, tragedies happen on the battle field more than likely comedy would be staged in the bedroom. Although not all literary works must involve crude humor, simply a happy ending is enough, with expectations and conventions of plot and characters. The language of prose has a particularly prominent place in Much Ado About Nothing; nearly three quarters of the play is written in prose. The pragmatic and realistic views of central characters like Benedick suit the prose style that Shakespeare uses in Much Ado About Nothing, much of the humor that is generated by Benedick and Beatrice’s ‘merry war’ is delivered in prose.
"I am satisfied in nature, / Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most / To my revenge: but in my terms of honour / I stand aloof" Act V sc. ii. What Laertes calls honor is actually the desired vengeance, which he needs as a way to seal the death of his father and carry on with his life. Hamlet, on the other hand, acts, or better said, refrains from acting because of the conclusions he draws from his reflections and speculations. A great example of Hamlet’s complicated and elaborate ways of obtaining what he wants is the plot of the “Mouse Trap” for catching the King’s conscience.
Deception and overhearing is a device commonly deployed in typical Shakespearian comedies such as ‘Twelfth Night’ and ‘The Comedy of Errors’, and both play a vital role in the play ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’ The title of the play is reflective of the content as the word ‘nothing’, when it was first performed in 1598 would have been pronounced ‘noting’ which had several meanings; it can mean to take notice, eavesdrop, or to observe, however, these aren’t necessarily accurate. A character can misunderstand a meaning, mishear, or misreport something, in the process of noting, too which can lead to tragedy or comedy depending on the actions a character takes. The situations that result from noting, significant comedic features, are the basis on which the entirety of Much Ado about Nothing is built upon. When the character Claudio is introduced he is said to have performed ‘in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion’ which instantaneously presents his unstable nature and his potential for violence and foreshadows the denunciation of Hero in Act 4 Scene 1. He is a young character and therefore impressionable, easily manipulated and naïve.
Do “Sponges” Deserve Sympathy The roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are relatively minor in the overall plot of Hamlet. However, the insertions of these two characters that ended their lives with tragic or absurd death by Shakespeare was significant as these two minor characters’ falls are not direct consequences of their actions to fulfill their intentions as. They are neither political players in the Danish court who need to struggle or to conspire to get the grasp of power nor those people who feel compelled to revenge for their fathers like Hamlet and Laertes. The fact that their deaths are actually their mission to accomplish is both comic and tragic. Today, name of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are closely associated with betrayal of friendships as these two former friends of Hamlet is doing everything in favor of Hamlet’s top enemy, Claudius to destroy Hamlet’s influence.
In the play Romeo and Juliet, the audience often leaves thinking “if only… then…” they remember back to the parts that could have easily been avoided which would have made the ending turn out differently, and perhaps Romeo and Juliet would not have suffered such a tragic end. Shakespeare purposely wrote the prologue, which clearly states the end, “[a] pair of star-crossed lovers take their life… Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife,” (Prologue 6, 8), to send a message to the audience. There is a common misconception that the prologue is a foreshadowing of the two lovers’ end because foreshadowing is when there is a hint, but the prologue declares the ending, so it is not a forshadow. Shakespeare’s purpose of the prologue is to
Beckett challenged the traditional structure of comedy developed by the Greeks which was order, disorder, new restored order. Living in a post war generation and a time where modernism was evolving literature he utilised certain elements to reform traditional comedies. He incorporated elements of Vaudeville and Absurdity to transform the repetitive and comparable nature of the comedies that preceded Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot contains two identical acts in which ‘nothing happens...twice’ however the literary devices that Beckett uses often creates drama and excitement within the dialogue and stage directions rather than the action itself. He writes using a long stream of consciousness causing the language to lack any real sense of coherent structure when it is first read.
Dramatic Devices In “Othello” Shakespeare’s “Othello” is a classic example of dramatic devices at work, and while so many devices were identifiable in the play, I am going to focus on two. First, Othello is a paradigm of a tragic character, with several traits presented in evidence of his catharsis, although I shall spotlight upon his hubris. The love shared between Othello and Desdemona is a rare and brilliant one, but ends wretchedly because of Othello’s unwillingness to act out of love instead of conceit. “Othello” is one of the most famous tragedies in all of literature, and with good reason; a few of which will be given here. As evidenced by other great tragedies, the main character, that the audience has come to feel a connection with, must experience a downfall, and lose all he has worked for in life.