...e . His comedies are unsurpassed for the marvellous harmony they establish among so many apparently discordant elements. His tragedies, rightly interpreted, do not reveal a spirit of gloom and disillusionment. Yet, if e ponder carefully, hile the themes of Shakespearetrquote s tragedies are indeed dark and dismal, the message that they impart is that, no matter ho deep the misfortune or ho dreary the circumstances, man is capable of rising from his on ashes, like Phoenix think of Richard II, Henry V, King Lear, or Prospero. Good ill triumph over evil, in the end think of Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar.tpar ttab As the theme and message in Shakespearetrquote s comedies, they can be summed up in to lines from SItitfs24 tldblquote As You Like Ittrdblquote SItfs24 tpar Stpard tqctnoidctlpartidctlpartadjustright Itfs24 tldblquote All the orldtrquote s a stage,tpar And all the men and omen merely playerstrdblquote tpar Stpard tqjtnoidctlpartidctlpartadjustright Itfs24 ttab In his comedies, just as in real life, the protagonists play different parts in the little playlets they have themselves improvised in order to get hat they desire. No one is hurt, no one is denied the opportunity to join in the game, no one is left out. Life is a merry-go-round and each individual may get off the platform as soon as he no longer enjoys the game. As long as all ends ellt85tpar ttab All Samuel Taylor Coleridge maintained, Shakespeare as more interested in character-development than in his plots. Besides, in most cases, he did not invent the plots, he merely borroed them from Holinshed and Hall Chronicles. Yet, his plots follo the classical Aristotelian outlines.tpar ttab Of Shakespearetrquote s tragic characters, Mark Antony is quite outstanding in point of versatility. He does not exactly fit the Aristotelian description of the tragic hero. He is reliable and trustorthy friend, a highly intelligent and tactful man, a good psychologist, a skilful orator. Analysing Antonytrquote s famous speech of act 3, scene 2, e admire its uncanny rhetorical effects and the most persuasive use of the emotional appeal that assist him in disentangling the truth from the pack of lies concerning Julius Caesar that Brutus had just told the Roman citizens. By using the apophatic approach the device by hich one mentions something by saying it ill not be mentioned SItitfs24 tldblquote I come to bury Caesar, not to praise himtrdblquote SItfs24 , and SItitfs24 tldblquote I speak not to disprove hat Brutus spoketrdblquote SItfs24 , Antony manages to do just hat he as not expected or alloed to do praise Caesar and disprove hat Brutus spoke.tpar ttab In a society like Shakespearetrquote s, hich felt secure about hat constituted proper behaviour, social, political and familial roles ere basic sources of order and untroubled adherence to them symbolised the continued existence of order. hat Shakespeare presents in SItitfs24 tldblquote Julius Caesartrdblquote SItfs24 and in other tragedies as SItitfs24 tldblquote Romeo and Juliettrdblquote SItfs24 , SItitfs24 tldblquote Hamlettrdblquote SItfs24 , SItitfs24 tldblquote Othellotrdblquote SItfs24 , SItitfs24 tldblquote King Leartrdblquote SItfs24 , SItitfs24 tldblquote Macbethtrdblquote SItfs24 is not untroubled adherence to the roles of his type but, rather, their constant violation or loss as ell as the subsequent restoration of order, as the masters of deceit ho had thrived on disorder are exposed and destroyed.tpar ttab Antony speech moves coherently from one idea to another, from one image to another, as he places the Roman citizens in relation to reality and forces them to identify the real traitor. Thus, order is being restored and, as Edmund remarks in SItitfs24 tldblquote King Leartrdblquote SItfs24 SItitfs24 tldblquote The heel is come full circletrdblquote SItfs24 .tpar ttab SItbtitfs24 Style and imagerytpar SItfs24 ttab In Renaissance literature the idea that the poet, insofar as he creates a orld of his on, can be compared ith God, ho created the orld, as already a commonplace by Shakespearetrquote s time. The fact that St. Augustine compared the orld ith a poem and a discourse as crucial for the ay in hich the Renaissance riters conceived of style and imagery.tpar ttab The development of poetic language, of style and imagery, as the main concern of 16SItfs24tsuper thSItfs24 century Renaissance riters ho probed the nature of language and its ingredients as ell as potential relationships beteen ords and reality SItitfs24 tldblquote brutish beaststrdblquote SItfs24 is intentionally used by Antony in his speech in order to imply that, by murdering Caesar, Brutus acted like a brute, beteen ords and signs as containers of meanings.tpar ttab Shakespearetrquote s preoccupation ith language as not confined to ords as rhetorical ornaments of thought but, rather, reflects the belief in the magic of language that thrives on an inter-referentiality among ords, concepts, and things the ord tldblquote Brutustrdblquote , the concept of brutishness, and the brutish thing that Brutus did, i.e. Caesar assassination.tpar SS...
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