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    Jacobean Comedy and Tragedy

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    Muqaddas Akram
    During the Jacobean period in England, plays grew increasingly popular. Comedies were a popular genre, often satirizing life in London, and playwrights like Ben Jonson wrote comedies like "Every Man Out of His Humour." Tragedies also became popular and developed further during this period. Revenge tragedies, where the protagonist seeks vengeance after suffering a loss, were especially common, such as in "The Spanish Tragedy" and "Hamlet." Playwrights like Shakespeare and Middleton wrote both comedies and tragedies, while some plays combined elements of both in a "tragicomedy" genre.

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    Jacobean Comedy and Tragedy

    Uploaded by

    Muqaddas Akram
    154 views3 pages
    During the Jacobean period in England, plays grew increasingly popular. Comedies were a popular genre, often satirizing life in London, and playwrights like Ben Jonson wrote comedies like "Every Man Out of His Humour." Tragedies also became popular and developed further during this period. Revenge tragedies, where the protagonist seeks vengeance after suffering a loss, were especially common, such as in "The Spanish Tragedy" and "Hamlet." Playwrights like Shakespeare and Middleton wrote both comedies and tragedies, while some plays combined elements of both in a "tragicomedy" genre.

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    During the Jacobean period in England, plays grew increasingly popular. Comedies were a popular genre, often satirizing life in London, and playwrights like Ben Jonson wrote comedies like "Every Man Out of His Humour." Tragedies also became popular and developed further during this period. Revenge tragedies, where the protagonist seeks vengeance after suffering a loss, were especially common, such as in "The Spanish Tragedy" and "Hamlet." Playwrights like Shakespeare and Middleton wrote both comedies and tragedies, while some plays combined elements of both in a "tragicomedy" genre.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    154 views3 pages

    Jacobean Comedy and Tragedy

    Uploaded by

    Muqaddas Akram
    During the Jacobean period in England, plays grew increasingly popular. Comedies were a popular genre, often satirizing life in London, and playwrights like Ben Jonson wrote comedies like "Every Man Out of His Humour." Tragedies also became popular and developed further during this period. Revenge tragedies, where the protagonist seeks vengeance after suffering a loss, were especially common, such as in "The Spanish Tragedy" and "Hamlet." Playwrights like Shakespeare and Middleton wrote both comedies and tragedies, while some plays combined elements of both in a "tragicomedy" genre.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Jacobean Comedy

    During the Jacobean period, plays were extremely popular. One of the reasons for its
    popularity was that different genres were used to make the plays interesting to the
    audience. These genres included comedy, tragedy, romance, history, etc.

    Jacobean Comedy Plays


    Comedy plays were also famous by the name of City Comedy. Comedies were nothing
    but a satire which portrayed the life in the busy city of London. Ben Jonson was well-
    known for his comedy plays. His earliest work includes plays like ‘Every Man Out of his
    Humour’.

    Jacobean Tragedy
    The tragedy was one of the genres which were popular in plays during this period.
    These plays had a dark mood in the drama. Although tragedy plays were written and
    performed even before the Jacobean period, it was during the reign of King James I that
    tragedy plays actually developed.

    Jacobean Tragedy
    In a typical tragedy, the protagonist or the lead character suffers an emotional loss like
    death of a person he/she loved or betrayal. The protagonist then seeks to avenge the
    loss. This type of tragedy was also known as Revenge Tragedy and was extremely
    popular in the Jacobean era.

    Finest examples of revenge tragedy were ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ by Thomas Kyd and
    ‘Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare. Other famous revenge tragedies included plays like
    ‘The White Devil’, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’ and ‘The Challenging’.

    Revenge Tragedy Elements


    Another kind of tragedy plays written during this period were known as ‘Tragicomedy’. In
    this type of a play, both elements like tragedy and comedy were included. One of the
    best examples of this type of plays was ‘The Winter’s Tale’.
    Of the many playwrights of that time, William Shakespeare and Thomas
    Middleton can be said to be the playwrights who were successful not only in writing
    comedy, but also tragedy.

    Finest examples of revenge tragedy were ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ by Thomas Kyd and
    ‘Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare. Other famous revenge tragedies included plays like
    ‘The White Devil’, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’ and ‘The Challenging’.

    Revenge Tragedy Elements


    Another kind of tragedy plays written during this period were known as ‘Tragicomedy’. In
    this type of a play, both elements like tragedy and comedy were included. One of the
    best examples of this type of plays was ‘The Winter’s Tale’.

    Of the many playwrights of that time, William Shakespeare and Thomas


    Middleton can be said to be the playwrights who were successful not only in writing
    comedy, but also tragedy.

    He also wrote other comedy plays titled ‘Epicone’ and ‘Volpone’. Thomas


    Middleton also wrote famous comedy plays like ‘A Trick To Catch the Old One‘
    and ‘A Chaste Maid in Cheapside‘. Apart from Thomas Middleton, William
    Shakespeare was a successful playwright who produced comedy and tragedy. During
    the initial few years of his career, Fletcher wrote ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’, one
    of the finest piece of comedy of those times in collaboration with Francis Beaumont.

    Jacobean Comedy
    Along with pure comedy which had elements of satire
    and humor, another kind of comedy plays were written
    during this period. These were known as
    ‘Tragicomedy’. In this type of a play, both elements
    like tragedy and comedy were included. One of the
    best examples of this type of plays was ‘The Winter’s
    Tale’. Of the many playwrights of that time, William
    Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton can be said to be
    the playwrights who were successful not only in writing
    comedy, but also tragedy.

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