Essay On Medieval Tragedy

During the Renaissance period, which spanned between 14th century and 17th century, an old genre of literature was reinvented into a newer form that was closer to the mentality and the social development of the time, that being the tragedy. This type of literature has its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman tragedy, which emerged around 2,500 years ago, in the 6th century BC. Tragedy, by its definition, is “a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences” (qtd. in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy).

Tragedy is considered to have been invented for the worshiping of Dionysus , which they considered to be one of their deities . In Greek, “tragedy” is called “tragodia”, which means goat song, being composed of the words “tragos” which means “he-goat” and “aeidein” which means “to sing” which is believed to make a reference to an old custom of offering a goat in competitions of choral dancing or using it for ritual sacrifices, but not before dancing around it.

The three big representatives of Ancient tragedy are Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Their work further represented the inspiration for the medieval tragedy which developed during 14th century Middle Age, inside cathedrals, a highly

The same mention cannot be made about the Shakespearean tragic hero, as he was not always proving the possession on noble qualities with characters like Macbeth and Richard III who make use of their position to reach their goal of becoming kings, even if it meant that they brought mishaps to the one’s around, that including family and