Romeo and Juliet | Adherence to the Rules of Tragedy
In the first excerpt, G.H. Durrant describes a fictional dicussion by three students (A, B, and C), guided by their teacher (Lecturer or Mr. X), debating whether or not Romeo and Juliet adheres to the guidelines of Aristotelian tragedy. In the second excerpt, Clifford Leech asserts that the drama diverges from tragedy because it fails to fully establish an element of "mystery" in the action, thereby forcing the reader to attribute the progression of events to the operation of fate.
G. H. Durrant
[In the following excerpt, three students (A, B, and C), guided by their teacher (Lecturer or Mr. X), debate whether or not Romeo and Juliet adheres to the guidelines of Aristotelian tragedy; that is, in the instructor's words, "does it show the fall of a good and great man, brought about by a flaw in his own nature, enforced by Destiny or by the law of Nature, and arousing Pity and Terror, and so bringing about a state of tragic purgation?" Students A and B consider the question in light of scholarly essays by H. B. Charlton, A C. Bradley, Edward Dowden,...
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