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Iwona Burzyńska, 2017-05-09
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Język angielski, Artykuły

Characteristic of Shakespeare

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Shakespeare is known as one of the world's greatest playwrights. He has written tragedies, histories, and sonnets. From famous tragedies like Macbeth and King Lear to tragic love stories such as Romeo and Juliet to epic historic plays like Antony and Cleopatra, enlighten, sadden, teach and most important of all, entertain. But one of Shakespeare's greatest talents was writing comedies.
His comedies can be divided into early and late. The early comedies share the popular and romantic forms used by the university wits but overlay them with elements of elegant courtly revel and a sophisticated consciousness of comedy's fragility and artifice. Shakespeare’s comedies celebrate human social life even as they expose human folly. By means that are sometimes humiliating, even painful, characters learn greater wisdom and emerge with a clearer view of reality. Some of his early comedies can be regarded as light farces in that their humor depends mainly upon complications of plot, minor foibles of the characters, and elements of physical comedy such as slapstick. The so-called joyous comedies follow the early comedies and culminate in As You Like It. Written about 1600, this comedy strikes a perfect balance between the worlds of the city and the country, verbal wit and physical comedy, and realism and fantasy. After 1600, Shakespeare’s comedies take on a darker tone, as Shakespeare uses the comic form to explore less changeable aspects of human behavior. All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure test the ability of comedy to deal with the unsettling realities of human desire, and these plays, therefore, have usually been thought of as “problem comedies,” or, at very least, as evidence that comedy in its tendency toward wish fulfillment is a problem. These are festive comedies, giving access to a society vigorously and imaginatively at play. Shakespeare, whose comedies ranged from the farcical to the tragicomic, was the master of the romantic comedy.
The language was evidently the main reason why Shakespeare's comedies were more amusing than other comedies of his time. He used many techniques to illustrate humor, and sometimes we have to know the inner meanings to find it comical. He used many techniques in them and some of these seem to be consistent throughout his plays. Shakespeare's comedies often use puns, metaphors, and insults to provoke "thoughtful laughter." The plot is very important in Shakespeare's comedies. They are often very convoluted, twisted and confusing, and extremely hard to follow. Shakespeare always uses love and marriage as the content for his comedies. Love provides the main ingredient for the plot. There is love between lovers, friends and between members of the family. Shakespeare shows that love can be very logical but also very passionate. This can be seen in the comedies Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Taming of The Shrew, where the characters fall in love and get married. One of the well-known devices is mistaken identity. In Shakespeare's first comedy, The Comedy of Errors, mistaken identity is the sole impetus behind the action, as it had been with its original sources. The germinal idea of asking how one really knows who one is is introduced, but the conflicts that occur between appearance and reality are not totally realized. This will be accomplished by Shakespeare's maturing comic style as he begins to recognize all the varying aspects presented by the ploy of mistaken identity.
Another technique that Shakespeare incorporates into his comedies is the use of the lower class for comedy. Shakespeare tends to poke fun at the lower class and make them into fools in his comedies. An example of this is in Much Ado About Nothing, where Shakespeare has the constable Dogberry and his foolish assistant Verges run around acting like they are riding horses. Another example of Shakespeare's use of the lower class for comedy is in The Taming of The Shrew. In that comedy Shakespeare makes Petruchio's servants bumbling and incompetent.
The last technique is the one everyone knows and loves, the happy ending. They have happy endings are based on funny characters or situation or both. Shakespeare consistently has a happy ending in his comedies. These happy endings usually involve the lovers finally getting together and getting married after they have solved the problem that had been keeping them apart. This can be seen in Much Ado About Nothing where the situation between Claudio and Hero was cleared up and they were able to marry. Also Benedick and Beatrice was able to marry with the help of their friends who showed them how they truly felt about each other. Similar situations occur in Shakespeare's other plays. The overall result being a touching and enjoyable ending to the comedy. The main characters in the play are all developed to a point where the audience can identify with them. We learn things about them individually so we can feel happy or sad when things happen in their life. We felt sad for Hermia when she was jolted by Lysander because their love for each other had seemed so strong and she was so confused by his behavior. Even though the audience knows the truth it is easy to feel sad for her. Most of the characters are fully developed, except Hero, so we can identify with their grief and then their joy. As the play comes to an end everything is wrapped in a neat package.
The main role of Shakespeare’s comedies is to entertain the audience. They can find a real portrait of themselves. Characters are moved from discord and unhappiness to peace and unity. The Shakespeare’s comedies are hymns to the victory of the true love, it is because there is a good deal of hesitation in the plays about the whole matter of sexual attraction. The love here is a fulfillment of the self in a relationship which is not exclusively or primarily a sexual relationship. There is love between members of a family, love between friends of the same sex. In the Shakespeare’s last plays The Two noble Kinsmen, sexual love is a tyranny which breaks up the ideal companionship of Palamon and Arcite, and Theseus and Pirithous. There are some striking hymns to friendship in the last plays, but the earlier comedies also contain many gestures indicating the strength and the rights of friendship, particularly like Hermia and Helena.
Shakespeare learned to use (and sometimes reverse) certain stock characters, e.g. the youthful lovers; "blocking figures" who provide the obstacle to be overcome, a parent or guardian of the hero or heroine (who may be in love with him/her himself). Other stock characters include the shrewish wife, the pedant, the braggart soldier, the parasite, clowns or "fools," outlaws, clever servants. In classical and Shakespearean comedies, the hero and heroine may have socially inferior helpers. The hero and heroine's supporters are frequently led by a jester, fool or buffoon. Pompous sour types (doctors, lawyers, clergymen, police) uphold the dignity of the institutions they represent and are frequently mocked for their self-importance. Shakespeare's youthful works make extensive use of stock characters; they also appear in the works of his dramatic maturity.
Even though William Shakespeare died many years ago, his works are still remembered and cherished. His plays are popular and are still performed all over the world. As it can be seen Shakespeare was an excellent comedic writer. He used many techniques in his comedies and often these techniques would be reused in other comedies. With such skill in writing these plays and the intuitive use of these techniques it is no wonder why we treasure Shakespeare's comedies. The structure, the language, the ideas and concepts are all important parts of a Shakespeare comedy and with these apparent characteristics it is quite easy to distinguish a Shakespeare play from another.


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