Despite their diversity in tone and subject matter, Shakespeare's four mature tragedies--Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth--all have an essential experience in common. Bernard McElroy defines this experience as the collapse of the subjective world of the tragic hero. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The theory considers human behavior in terms of functional equilibrium between the stable properties of the mind, independent from the pressures of the sociocultural environment and the immediate situational context. What we call "character" thus denotes an autonomous configuration of psychological elements, which remains stable despite the changing external circumstances.

Shakespeare's tragedies contain an astonishing variety of suffering, from suicides and murders to dismemberments and grief. Stanley Wells considers how the bard's tragic plays drew on the literary and theatrical conventions of his time. Discussing the individual plays, he also explores why tragedy is regarded as a fit subject for entertainment.

Macbeth clutches an imaginary dagger; Hamlet holds up Yorick's skull; Lear enters with Cordelia in his arms. Do these memorable and iconic moments have anything to tell us about the definition of Shakespearean tragedy? Is it in fact helpful to talk about 'Shakespearean tragedy' as a concept, or are there only Shakespearean tragedies? What kind of figure is the tragic hero? Is there always such a figure? What makes some plays more tragic than others? Beginning with a discussion of tragedy before Shakespeare and considering Shakespeare's tragedies chronologically one by one, this 2007 book seeks to investigate such questions in a way that highlights both the distinctiveness and shared concerns of each play within the broad trajectory of Shakespeare's developing exploration of tragic form.

Enjoy four of Shakespeare’s tragedies told with LEGO bricks. Here are Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar enacted scene by scene, captioned by excerpts from the plays. Flip through one thousand color photographs as you enjoy Shakespeare’s iconic poetry and marvel at what can be done with the world’s most popular children’s toy. Watch the brick Hamlet give his famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy, and feel brick Ophelia’s grief as she meets her watery end. Lady Macbeth in brick form brings new terror to “Out, out, damn spot!” and brick Romeo and Juliet are no less star-crossed for being rectangular and plastic. The warm familiarity of bricks lends levity to Shakespeare’s tragedies while remaining true to his original language. The ideal book for Shakespeare enthusiasts, as well as a fun way to introduce children to Shakespeare’s masterpieces, this book employs Shakespeare’s original, characteristic language in abridged form. Though the language stays true to its origins, the unique format of these well-known tragedies will give readers a new way to enjoy one of the most popular playwrights in history.

Twelve plays are examined individually regarding their origins, stage and critical histories and the problems associated with their categorization as tragedy.

First published in 1963. When originally published this book was the first to treat at full length the contribution which music makes to Shakespeare's great tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. Here the playwright's practices are studied in conjunction with those of his contemporaries: Marlowe and Jonson, Marston and Chapman. From these comparative assessments there emerges the method that is peculiar to Shakespeare: the employment of song and instrumental music to a degree hitherto unknown, and their use as an integral part of the dramatic structure.

Contains Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

A major rethinking of the European novel and its relationship to early evolutionary science The 120 years between Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871) marked both the rise of the novel and the shift from the presumption of a stable, universal human nature to one that changes over time. In Human Forms, Ian Duncan reorients our understanding of the novel's formation during its cultural ascendancy, arguing that fiction produced new knowledge in a period characterized by the interplay between literary and scientific discourses—even as the two were separating into distinct domains. Duncan focuses on several crisis points: the contentious formation of a natural history of the human species in the late Enlightenment; the emergence of new genres such as the Romantic bildungsroman; historical novels by Walter Scott and Victor Hugo that confronted the dissolution of the idea of a fixed human nature; Charles Dickens's transformist aesthetic and its challenge to Victorian realism; and George Eliot's reckoning with the nineteenth-century revolutions in the human and natural sciences. Modeling the modern scientific conception of a developmental human nature, the novel became a major experimental instrument for managing the new set of divisions—between nature and history, individual and species, human and biological life—that replaced the ancient schism between animal body and immortal soul. The first book to explore the interaction of European fiction with "the natural history of man" from the late Enlightenment through the mid-Victorian era, Human Forms sets a new standard for work on natural history and the novel.

"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.