Shakespeare’s Mixed Genres
Abstract
The problem of generic transformations to which Shakespeare’s plays bear witness is discussed against the ancient and early renaissance definitions and discussions of dramatic genres, from Aristotle through Plautus, Cintho, Castelvetro, Guarini to Sidney. The point of interest is located in the fuzziness in which comedy melts with tragedy (or the other way round) and yields in effect a new creation – tragicomedy. The wide range of Shakespearean comedy, tragedy, histories and Roman plays is briefly discussed in order to illustrate Shakespeare’s generic transformations, proving that traditional construction of dramatic genres, i.e., of tragedy, comedy and tragicomedy, was too narrow and too constraining for the early modern understanding of the condition of man.
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