Tragedy in Romeo and Juliet

In his discussion of dramatic structure, H.D.F. Kitto distinguishes between Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, noting that "Greek tragedy presents sudden and complete disaster, or one disaster linked to another in linear fashion, while Shakespearean tragedy presents the complexive, menacing spread of ruin" (Kitto 337). Kitto applies this analysis to such Shakespearean plays as Hamlet and Macbeth, but it seems applicable as well to Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, inasmuch as the "contagion" in these plays "gradually spreads over [the] whole spirit [of the principal characters] and all [their] conduct" (Kitto 337). In each play, the characters' response to unfolding action defines their psychological reality and sights the scope and limit of their stature as heroic beings. This is the case even though heroism in the tragic context has less to do with moral nobility than with a self-aware ability to encounter, arrive at, or embrace the crisis that is the consequence of the contagion, with an attitude that transcends experience of consequences.

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of young love, less philosophical t

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n short supply. Shakespeare's principal source was undoubtedly Plutarch, and the core of the story is the assassination conspiracy formed by political rivals of Julius Caesar, who engage Caesar's longtime friend Brutus in their plot. The falling-out of the conspirators, notably Brutus and Cassius, is one line of tragic action, with the characters' self-perception the principal agent of their fall. Consider Cassius's characterization of himself and his fellow conspirators as the heroes of the age and of civilization itself, arrayed as they are against Caesar's imperial ambition: "So often shall the knot of us be called / The men that gave their country liberty" (III.i). In fact, the truth is more complex than this. Caesar's judgment of Cassius as a particular "type" of political man, with a lean and hungry look, is apt, to be confirmed by the later power struggle with Brutus. For Brutus, matters are more complex. His analysis is that Caesar's death answers Caesar's wish to be crowned, which is a threat to the commonwealth: "The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins / Remorse from power . . . 'tis a common proof / That lowliness is young ambition's ladder / . . . scorning the base degrees / By which he did ascend" (II.i). As the
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Approximate Word count = 2875
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)