Tragic Heros

10 Pages 2560 Words

A hero today is seen as a person who is idolized. Nowadays, a hero does not have to have wealth or certain political beliefs, but instead can be regarded as a hero for his/her actions and inner strength. However, in the plays of Shakespeare, the tragic hero is always a noble man who enjoys some status and prosperity in society but possesses some moral weakness or flaw, which leads to his downfall (Fyre). External circumstances such as fate also play a part in the hero's fall (Bradley). Evil agents often act upon the hero and the forces of good, causing the hero to make wrong decisions. Readers may see this proven in Shakespeare¡¦s most famous tragedies: King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth.
William Shakespeare started writing tragedies because he thought the tragic plots used by other English writers were lacking artistic purpose and form (Bradley). He used the fall of a notable person as the main focus in his tragedies. Suspense and climax were an added attraction for the audience. His work was extraordinary in that it was not of the norm for the time (Rurr). A reader with even little knowledge of his work would recognize one of the tragedies as a work of Shakespeare (Bradley).
Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of a tradesman and Alderman of Stratford, John Shakespeare in 1564. William, the eldest son, and third child (of eight) was baptised on 26th April 1564, and probably educated at Stratford Grammar School, but little is known of his life up to his eighteenth year (Hamlyn). He did not go to university and his younger contemporary and fellow-dramatist, Ben Johnson, would later speak disparagingly of his "small Latin, and less Greek" in the eulogy prefaced to the Firs Folio (Hill). However the Grammar School curriculum would have provided a formidable linguistic, and to some extent literary, education (Rurr).
In 1575 when he was eleven, there was a great plague in the country and Queen Elizabeth journeye...