Introduction
The problem of the genre of tragedy in the work of Shakespeare as a whole still remains open. It is multifaceted and includes both questions from the field of the history of genres and the question of the philosophical content of Shakespeare’s plays in connection with the category of “tragic.” In the tragedies of Shakespeare, there is no place for fate or any other supernatural force that brings misfortune to a person. The only source of tragedy in his dramas is the evil that a person causes by his actions to others or to himself. One of the most acute tragic experiences of the heroes of Shakespeare is the deepest bitterness from the knowledge that they mean nothing to the world. Moreover, the deepest source of the tragic Shakespeare finds in the contradictions arising from the high development of personality.
Main body
Long before Shakespeare, the Greek philosopher Aristotle formulated specific attributes or principles of a tragic hero. Aristotle praised the tragedy as the pinnacle of art. This view corresponds to the leading place that tragedy occupied in ancient art culture. Aristotle sees tragedy as an imitation not of people, but of action and life, happiness and misfortune (Arp and Johnson 1253-1255). Tragedy is of cognitive importance and has an educational moral and aesthetic impact (kalokagatiya). Aristotle raises the question of the character of the tragic hero: “compassion arises for the innocently unhappy, and fear – for misfortune one like us”; the tragic hero is not distinguished by (special) virtue and justice and falls into misfortune not because of his worthlessness and perversity, but by some mistake, whereas before he was in great honor and happiness, such as, for example, Oedipus, Fiesta, and prominent persons of this kind (Kinney 36).
Aristotle notes the synthetic nature of the tragedy, in which stage means are combined with the impressive power of music and other arts (Arp and Johnson 1251-1257). Hamartia (ancient Greek ἁμαρτία, literally “mistake,” “flaw”) is a concept from Aristotle’s Poetics, indicating a tragic flaw in the character of the protagonist of the tragedy, or his fatal mistake, which becomes a source of moral torment and exacerbates extremely self-guilt in him, even if this guilt, according to modern concepts, is absent (Kinney 42). Sometimes, a fatal mistake leads to the hero’s all-consuming desire to be better than others (ambition). In this case, hamartia is the flip side of his arrogance – the “hubris” (Kinney 37-38). For example, Aeschylus in The Persians demonstrates how Xerxes’s arrogance and self-conceit led him to his fatal mistake (“hamartia”) – the invasion in Hellas.
It is important to understand how the words of Aristotle were interpreted during the Renaissance, how these interpretations influenced well-known playwrights and how Shakespeare treated them. A superficial acquaintance with Shakespeare’s most significant tragedies is enough to make sure that regardless of whether the playwright was influenced by Aristotle or not, he understood Aristotle correctly or not, he was not averse to endowing his heroes with any tragic flaw that caused them to fall. This flaw should not necessarily be a deviation from moral standards. For example, Othello’s credulity is a tragic fallacy, in full accordance with the concept of hamartia, although this is not morally damaging.
It should be noted that neither Aristotle, nor most of his followers claimed that the size of the catastrophe should be proportional to the mistake made; they only believed that the catastrophe should be a natural consequence of this error. The playwrights of the New Age also preferred to put at the center of the tragedy a person who, in his abilities, towers above the general mass of people, but is struck by both the hubris and the hamartia (Sipra and Nasir 31-32). This is, for example, Hamlet, who looks down upon mankind, although he himself is corroded by the worm of hamartia – pathological indecision. At Othello, the Moor of Venice, jealousy acts as a fatal flaw.
In a high tragedy, compassion and fear are associated, respectively, with positive and negative moral assessments, which are caused by a tragic action, but are not central to it. The reader of the play Othello sympathizes with Desdemona and is afraid of Iago, but represents Othello as the main tragic figure, and with respect to him the feelings of the reader/viewer are contradictory. What makes a play a tragedy and what happens to a tragic hero does not depend on his moral status. The tragedy as such lies in the inevitability of the consequences of his actions and is in no way connected with their moral assessment, even if the plot is caused by the act or misconduct of the hero. Hence the paradox that tragedy causes compassion and fear, while at the same time trying to get rid of them. The Aristotle’ term hamartia, or mistake, is not related to the injustice of the actions performed, and even more so to the moral weakness of the hero: this can happen to a morally strong person, such as Othello, if he is put in exceptional circumstances.
The exclusivity of the tragic situation, as a rule, is associated with the position of a leader, that is, an exceptional and simultaneously isolated hero. From here, a mixed feeling of inevitability and at the same time disproportion of punishment is born, which a tragedy on the principle of “hero’ error” should cause. However, Shakespeare shows which way a person of a New Time can take: a person could become bright and morally beautiful or base, immoral. The rapid transition from heroism to blindness indicates the vulnerability of a person who is at risk of becoming subject to dark passions and selfish interests. The actions of the tragic heroes of Shakespeare, prominent people, affect the whole of society.
The heroes are so significant that each of them is a whole world, and the death of these heroes shock everyone: “He was a great soul in everything” (Cassio). Shakespeare’s tragedy is far from “poetic justice” (vice is punished, virtue triumphs) (Bradley 46). Evil is punished, but good experiences tragic suffering immeasurably greater than the hero’s mistake deserves. The tragedies of Shakespeare affirm the value of the human person, the uniqueness and individuality of a person’s character, the wealth of his inner world. Errors and mistakes did not change the foundations of a noble character, but in a world of evil and injustice led to tragic consequences.
It should also be noted that Shakespeare has always felt a great difference between the reflections of people and events and their true meaning. This difference is almost always sad, it is to the detriment and damage of genuine things and persons – they enter the outside world of human opinion naively or intentionally distorted; almost always, the images of a person, things, events are smaller, poorer, rougher than they really are (Nafi 48-49). Venice’s treatment of Othello create this conditional, crude, distorted image in which the internal, real Othello appears before the official outside world. There is a genuine Othello, and there is Othello, as he was adopted in Venice, and this accepted Othello is a replaced, truncated creature. The fact that Othello cannot fully, with everything that his personality carries, to graft into Venice is the beginning of the tragedy (Dutton and Howard 162-163). However, Shakespeare doesn’t have a single tie, there isn’t the only relationship with which the tragedy would definitely begin. One could say that Shakespeare’s tragic plot is everywhere, that it is endlessly reproduced in each of his works throughout its space, and that the plot, as such, or this or that factual relation only thickens the tragic spectacle scattered throughout the field.
Othello, in front of the Venetian Senate, exists in his incomplete form, in a rough profile of a mercenary. However, always and everywhere, Othello could complain that the world is deaf to him, that the world does not care about his, Othello’s, real essence. Even before Othello appears on stage, he already exists for the viewer in the image of him that arises from the vicious and mocking conversations of Iago and Rodrigo – they are envious: one is the envious of Othello for political and professional reasons, while the other is an unsuccessful rival to Othello in love. In the tragedy, the slander against Othello precedes his first appearance on the stage – first a black cloud about a person, and then the person himself. In Shakespeare’s tragedy, the ‘law’ of damaged image applies more than only to Othello. This law applies to Desdemona, and to her love for Othello, and even for Cassio. Shakespeare presented not one or another tragic plot – the source of his tragedies is that the world, contemporary to him, is completely tragic.
Nevertheless, this work leaves no conviction that good is initially and inevitably doomed to defeat with evil. Before his death, Othello regains his real sight; faith in high ideals, devotion, honesty, selflessness, love returns to him again. Drawing an analogy with the Aristotelian concept, recognition of the “mistake” and retribution prompts self-awareness, expansion of personal horizons, causes spectator compassion, and potentially catharsis, purification, because the tragic is impossible without communication and empathy. Thus, Shakespeare’s characters often express regret immediately after a misdeed, such as when Othello describes Desdemona’s death as “horrible and grim” (Othello 5.2.236).
Conclusion
The essence of Shakespeare’s tragedy always lies in the clash of two principles – humanistic feelings, that is, pure and noble humanity, and vulgarity or meanness, based on self-interest and selfishness. According to Shakespeare, the fate of every person is the result of the interaction of his character and surrounding circumstances – as Aristotle combines the concept of hamartia (error) – possibly due to credulity or jealousy – and exceptional circumstances. Shakespeare’s tragedy arouses hatred among readers (viewers) to the society where Iago reigns, but also instills pride in humanity, which can give rise to people like Othello and Desdemona. This is the great power of Shakespeare’s tragedy, which opened before it a centuries-old triumphal path through the scenes of the whole world.
Works Cited
Arp, Thomas R. and Greg Johnson. Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound & Sense. Wadsworth Publishing, 2012.
Bradley, Andrew. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Penguin Classics, 1991.
Dutton, Richard and Jean E. Howard. A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, Volume I: The Tragedies. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.
Kinney, Arthur F. Shakespeare and Cognition: Aristotle’s Legacy and Shakespearean Drama. Routledge, 2006.
Nafi, Jamal. “Art and Artifice of Shakespearean Tragedy: A Critical Approach.” International Journal of Language and Literature, vol.6, no.1, 2018, pp. 46-53.
Shakespeare, William. Othello, The Moor of Venice. Forgotten Books, 2008.
Sipra, Muhammad Aslam and Muhammad Haseeb Nasir. “Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Shakespearean Tragedies.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies, vol.5, no.1, 2014, pp. 31-34.