Discuss Shakespeare’s contribution to English drama.
—————————————————-
Ans. In the history of English literature, William Shakespeare is regarded as one of the greatest dramatists. During the Elizabethan period, there was no dramatist like Shakespeare as he introduced a new kind of drama.
Shakespeare is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”. His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
The distinction between tragedy and comedy was particularly important in Shakespeare’s time. Elizabethan tragedy was the familiar tale of a great man or woman brought low through hubris or fate. Tragedies and comedies are two of the genres into which the First Folio of Shakespeare divides the plays; the third category is Histories, comprising plays that chronicled the lives of English Kings, but these plays themselves often tended toward the tragic (‘Richard II’ or ‘Richard Ill’, for instance) or the comic (the Falstaff subplots of both parts of ‘Henry IV’ and the Pistol – Fluellin encounters of ‘Henry V’).
Thus, almost from the start, Shakespeare’s method was to mingle the heretofore antagonistic visions of comedy and tragedy in ways that still seem novel and startling. There is more to laugh at in the tragedy of ‘Hamlet’ than there is in a comedy like ‘The Merchant of Venice’, and some modern critics go so far as to consider ‘King Lear’ at once the pinnacle of Shakespeare’s tragic achievement and a kind of divine comedy or even absurdist farce. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a tragedy assembled from comic materials (a story of young lovers struggling to overcome the obstacle of parental disapproval), and in Shakespeare’s later tragedy of romantic love, ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, there is much poignant humour at the expense of middle – aged lovers attempting with difficulty to sustain the passion usually associated with adolescence. Indeed, some of Shakespeare’s comedies – ‘Measure for Measure’ and ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ are the most notable seem so far removed from the optimism usually associated with that genre that they have acquired the qualifying title of “problem comedies.”
However, William Shakespeare created a new epoch in world literature. The idea set forth by the Renaissance, the ideology of Humanism is expressed by him in the most realistic way. Shakespeare has faith in Man. He hates injustice. His plays have become popular throughout the world because of his realistic characters. The development of his characters makes him different from his predecessors (Marlowe and others). Shakespeare’s characters don’t remain static, they change in the course of action.
It is significant that Shakespeare wrote successful tragedies. His language was understood even by the common people of those times. The soliloquies in his plays are not long and the dialogues are true to life. Many well-known English sayings come from his works.
Therefore, Shakespeare’s contribution to English drama is incalculable. In Elizabethan period, he brought a huge change In English drama. He breaks the Aristotle’s view of drama and tragedy. He wrote in his own style. He wrote the great tragedy without maintaining any classical rule. That’s why, he is also called the father of English Drama.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Copyright 2019 © EDNOUB
