Editing Tragedy (section)

==Renaissance==
===Influence of Greek and Roman===
Classical Greek drama was largely forgotten in Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 16th century. [[Medieval theatre]] was dominated by [[mystery play]]s, [[morality play]]s, [[farce]]s and [[miracle play]]s. In Italy, the models for tragedy in the later Middle Ages were Roman, particularly the works of Seneca, interest in which was reawakened by the [[Padua]]n [[Lovato Lovati|Lovato de' Lovati]] (1241–1309).<ref name="lovati">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Lovati, Lovato de' |encyclopedia=Enciclopedia on line |publisher=Treccani |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/lovato-de-lovati |access-date=23 March 2013 |language=it-IT}}</ref> His pupil [[Albertino Mussato]] (1261–1329), also of Padua, in 1315 wrote the [[Latin verse]] tragedy ''Eccerinis'', which uses the story of the tyrant [[Ezzelino III da Romano]] to highlight the danger to Padua posed by [[Cangrande della Scala]] of [[Verona]].<ref name="muss">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Mussato, Albertino |encyclopedia=Enciclopedia on line |publisher=Treccani |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/albertino-mussato |access-date=23 March 2013 |language=it-IT}}</ref> It was the first secular tragedy written since Roman times, and may be considered the first Italian tragedy identifiable as a Renaissance work. The earliest tragedies to employ purely classical themes are the ''Achilles'' written before 1390 by [[Antonio Loschi]] of [[Vicenza]] (c.1365–1441) and the ''Progne'' of the [[Venice|Venetian]] [[Gregorio Correr]] (1409–1464) which dates from 1428 to 1429.<ref name="eb">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Drama |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |edition=11th |volume=VIII |page=503}}</ref>

In 1515 [[Gian Giorgio Trissino]] (1478–1550) of Vicenza wrote his tragedy ''Sophonisba'' in the [[vernacular]] that would later be called Italian. Drawn from [[Livy]]'s account of [[Sophonisba]], the [[Carthage|Carthaginian]] princess who drank poison to avoid being taken by the Romans, it adheres closely to classical rules. It was soon followed by the ''Oreste'' and ''Rosmunda'' of Trissino's friend, the Florentine [[Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai]] (1475–1525). Both were completed by early 1516 and are based on classical Greek models, ''Rosmunda'' on the ''[[Hecuba (play)|Hecuba]]'' of [[Euripides]], and ''Oreste'' on the ''[[Iphigenia in Tauris]]'' of the same author; like ''Sophonisba'', they are in Italian and in blank (unrhymed) [[hendecasyllable]]s. Another of the first of all modern tragedies is ''A Castro'', by Portuguese poet and playwright [[António Ferreira (poet)|António Ferreira]], written around 1550 (but only published in 1587) in polymetric verse (most of it being blank hendecasyllables), dealing with the murder of [[Inês de Castro]], one of the most dramatic episodes in Portuguese history. Although these three Italian plays are often cited, separately or together, as being the first regular tragedies in modern times, as well as the earliest substantial works to be written in blank hendecasyllables, they were apparently preceded by two other works in the vernacular: ''Pamfila'' or ''Filostrato e Panfila'' written in 1498 or 1508 by [[Antonio Cammelli]] (Antonio da Pistoia); and a ''Sophonisba'' by [[Galeotto del Carretto]] of 1502.<ref name="hallam">{{Cite book |last=Hallam |first=Henry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M8JMAAAAcAAJ |title=Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries |date=1837 |publisher=Baudry's European Library |page=212 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="gal">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Del Carrétto, Galeotto, dei marchesi di Savona |encyclopedia=Enciclopedia on line |publisher=Treccani |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/del-carretto-galeotto-dei-marchesi-di-savona |access-date=23 March 2013 |language=it-IT}}</ref>

From about 1500 printed copies, in the original languages, of the works of [[Sophocles]], [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]], and [[Euripides]], as well as comedic writers such as [[Aristophanes]], [[Terence]] and [[Plautus]], were available in Europe and the next forty years saw [[Humanism|humanists]] and poets translating and adapting their tragedies. In the 1540s, the European university setting (and especially, from 1553 on, the Jesuit colleges) became host to a Neo-Latin theatre (in Latin) written by scholars. The influence of Seneca was particularly strong in its humanist tragedy. His plays, with their ghosts, lyrical passages and rhetorical oratory, brought a concentration on rhetoric and language over dramatic action to many humanist tragedies.

The most important sources for French tragic theatre in the Renaissance were the example of [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] and the precepts of [[Horace]] and [[Aristotle]] (and contemporary commentaries by [[Julius Caesar Scaliger]] and [[Lodovico Castelvetro]]), although plots were taken from classical authors such as [[Plutarch]], [[Lives of the Twelve Caesars|Suetonius]], etc., from the Bible, from contemporary events and from short story collections (Italian, French and Spanish). The Greek tragic authors ([[Sophocles]] and [[Euripides]]) would become increasingly important as models by the middle of the 17th century. Important models were also supplied by the [[Spanish Golden Age]] playwrights [[Pedro Calderón de la Barca]], [[Tirso de Molina]] and [[Lope de Vega]], many of whose works were translated and adapted for the French stage.

===Britain===
[[File:Edwin Austin Abbey King Lear, Act I, Scene I The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumbnail|[[Edwin Austin Abbey]] (1852–1911) ''[[King Lear]]'', Cordelia's Farewell ]]
{{see also|English Renaissance theatre|Heroic drama|Shakespearean tragedy|Revenge play}}
{{Reformationliterature |expanded=british}}British tragedy, particularly in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, diverged from classical models in both form and theme.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blevins |first=Jacob |date=2004 |title=Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries by Jonathan Dollimore |url=https://doi.org/10.1353/itx.2004.0008 |journal=Intertexts |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=201–203 |doi=10.1353/itx.2004.0008 |issn=2156-5465|url-access=subscription }}</ref> While influenced by Senecan drama, British tragedies frequently defied the unities of time, place, and action, favoring a more flexible dramatic structure.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bushnell |first=Rebecca Weld |url=https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501745577 |title=Tragedies of Tyrants |date=2019-12-31 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1-5017-4557-7 |location=Ithaca, NY}}</ref> This allowed for a deeper exploration of psychological complexity, political instability, and moral ambiguity.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kasten |first=David Scott |date=1982 |title=Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time |journal=Macmillan}}</ref>

Rather than adhering to neoclassical ideals, British tragedies frequently blended high and low characters and adopted tragicomic tones, contributing to the development of a distinct national tradition.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kermode |first=Frank |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195136128.001.0001 |title=The Sense of an Ending |date=2000-04-06 |publisher=Oxford University PressNew York, NY |isbn=978-0-19-513612-8}}</ref> The chaotic structure and social hybridity of many of these plays mirrored the turbulent political and religious transformations of the time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Greenblatt |first=Stephen |url=https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226027043.001.0001 |title=Renaissance Self-Fashioning |date=2005 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-30659-9}}</ref>[[File:Romeo and juliet brown.jpg|thumb|''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', the classic tragedy by English playwright [[William Shakespeare]]]]
The common forms are the:
* ''Tragedy of circumstance'': people are born into their situations, and do not choose them; such tragedies explore the consequences of birthrights, particularly but not always for monarchs. (This particular variant of tragedy was the genre's first shift away from stories about characters suffering due to their own faults, but rather due to circumstances out of their control.)
* ''Tragedy of miscalculation'': the [[protagonist]]'s error of judgement has tragic consequences
* ''[[Revenge play]]''
In English, the most famous and most successful tragedies are those of [[William Shakespeare]] and his [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]] contemporaries. Shakespeare's tragedies include:
* ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]''
* ''[[Coriolanus]]''
* ''[[Hamlet]]''
* ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]''
* ''[[King Lear]]''
* ''[[Macbeth]]''
* ''[[Othello]]''
* ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''
* ''[[Timon of Athens]]''
* ''[[Titus Andronicus]]''
* ''[[Troilus and Cressida]]''
William Shakespeare expanded the tragedy genre further by integrating elements of comedy, history, and philosophy into his tragedies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clifford |first=Catherine |date=2017-12-16 |title=Dutton, Shakespeare, Court Dramatist (Oxford University Press, 2016) |url=https://doi.org/10.21039/rsj.v4i2.171 |journal=Royal Studies Journal |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=263 |doi=10.21039/rsj.v4i2.171 |issn=2057-6730|doi-access=free }}</ref> His works such as ''King Lear'', ''Hamlet,'' and ''Macbeth'' are noted for their interiority use of soliloquy, and exploration of fate, madness and human agency.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Burke |first=John J. |last2=Bloom |first2=Harold |date=1999 |title=Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/3201503 |journal=South Atlantic Review |volume=64 |issue=4 |pages=115 |doi=10.2307/3201503 |issn=0277-335X|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

A contemporary of Shakespeare, [[Christopher Marlowe]], also wrote examples of tragedy in English, notably:
* ''[[The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus]]''
* ''[[Tamburlaine (play)|Tamburlaine the Great]]''
Christopher Marlowe's ''Doctor Faustus'' merges medieval morality traditions with Renaissance humanism, portraying a tragic protagonist who seeks knowledge and power at the expense of salvation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=Christopher D. |date=2010 |title=Patrick G. Cheney. Marlowe's Republican Authorship: Lucan, Liberty, and the Sublime. Early Modern Literature in History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. xiii + 248 pp. index. bibl. $75. ISBN: 978–1–4039–3341–6. |url=https://doi.org/10.1086/652624 |journal=Renaissance Quarterly |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=318–319 |doi=10.1086/652624 |issn=0034-4338|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[John Webster]] (1580?–1635?), also wrote famous plays of the genre:
* ''[[The Duchess of Malfi]]''
* ''[[The White Devil]]''

===Domestic tragedy===
{{Main|Domestic tragedy}}

Domestic tragedies are tragedies in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals. This subgenre contrasts with [[classical antiquity|classical]] and [[Neoclassicism|Neoclassical]] tragedy, in which the protagonists are of kingly or [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocratic]] rank and their downfall is an affair of state as well as a personal matter.

The [[Ancient Greek]] theorist [[Aristotle]] had argued that tragedy should concern only great individuals with great minds and souls, because their catastrophic downfall would be more emotionally powerful to the audience; only comedy should depict middle-class people. Domestic tragedy breaks with Aristotle's precepts, taking as its subjects merchants or citizens whose lives have less consequence in the wider world.

The advent of the domestic tragedy ushered in the first phase shift of the genre focusing less on the Aristotelian definition of the genre and more on the definition of tragedy on the scale of the drama, where tragedy is opposed to comedy i.e. melancholic stories. Although the utilization of key elements such as suffering, hamartia, morality, and spectacle ultimately ties this variety of tragedy to all the rest. This variant of tragedy noticeably had a larger number of stories that featured characters' downfalls being due to circumstances out of their control - a feature first established by the tragedies of Shakespeare - and less due to their own personal flaws.

This variant of tragedy has led to the evolution and development of tragedies of the modern era especially those past the mid-1800s such as the works of [[Arthur Miller]], [[Eugene O'Neill]] and [[Henrik Ibsen]]. This variant of tragedy is especially popular in the modern age due to its characters being more relatable to mass audiences and is the most common form of tragedy adapted into modern day [[Television show|television programs]], [[books]], [[films]], [[Play (theatre)|theatrical plays]], etc. Newly dealt with themes that sprang forth from the Domestic tragedy movement include: wrongful convictions and executions, poverty, starvation, [[addiction]], [[alcoholism]], debt, [[structural abuse]], [[child abuse]], [[crime]], [[domestic violence]], [[shunning|social shunning]], [[Major depressive disorder|depression]], and loneliness.

Classical Domestic tragedies include:
* ''[[Arden of Faversham]]'' (1592)
* ''[[A Woman Killed with Kindness]]'' (1607)
* ''[[A Yorkshire Tragedy]]'' (1608)
* ''[[The Witch of Edmonton]]'' (1621)

===Opera===
Contemporary with Shakespeare, an entirely different approach to facilitating the rebirth of tragedy was taken in Italy. [[Jacopo Peri]], in the preface to his ''[[Euridice (Peri)|Euridice]]'' refers to "the ancient Greeks and Romans (who in the opinion of many sang their staged tragedies throughout in representing them on stage)."{{Sfn | Headington | Westbrook | Barfoot | 1991 | p = 22}} The attempts of Peri and his contemporaries to recreate ancient tragedy gave rise to the new Italian musical genre of opera. In France, tragic operatic works from the time of [[Jean-Baptiste Lully|Lully]] to about that of [[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]] were not called opera, but ''tragédie en musique'' ("tragedy in music") or some similar name; the ''tragédie en musique'' is regarded as a distinct musical genre.<ref name="grove">{{Cite journal |last=Sadler |first=Graham |date=2001 |title=Tragédie en musique |url=http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000044040 |journal=Grove Music Online |publisher=Oxford University Press |volume=1 |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.44040 |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0 |url-access=subscription |access-date=23 March 2013 |archive-date=13 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180413032000/http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000044040 |url-status=live }}</ref> Some later operatic composers have also shared Peri's aims: [[Richard Wagner]]'s concept of ''[[Gesamtkunstwerk]]'' ("integrated work of art"), for example, was intended as a return to the ideal of Greek tragedy in which all the arts were blended in service of the drama.{{Sfn | Headington | Westbrook | Barfoot | 1991 | p = 178}} [[Nietzsche]], in his ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]'' (1872) was to support Wagner in his claims to be a successor of the ancient dramatists.