In English drama, a domestic tragedy is a tragedy in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals. This subgenre contrasts with classical and Neoclassical tragedy, in which the protagonists are of kingly or aristocratic rank and their downfall is an affair of state as well as a personal matter. These plays were in particular contrast to De casibus tragedy like De casibus virorum illustrium by Giovanni Boccaccio
Facts
Place of Origin Notable ExampleArden of Faversham (1592) 1 Defining TraitTragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals, not kings or aristocrats 1 FAQs
Why does domestic tragedy break with Aristotle?
It takes ordinary merchants and citizens as its subjects instead of great individuals.
Aristotle argued that tragedy should concern only great individuals, because their catastrophic downfall would be more emotionally powerful for the audience, and that only comedy should depict middle-class people. Domestic tragedy breaks with those precepts by taking merchants or citizens as its subjects, people whose lives have less consequence in the wider world.
Connections
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Originated In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.
Sources
1. Domestic Tragedy (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Lead section, second paragraph (Britain, English Renaissance)
In Britain, the first domestic tragedies were written in the English Renaissance; one of the first was Arden of Faversham (1592), depicting the murder of a bourgeois man by his adulterous wife.
Lead section, second paragraph
one of the first was Arden of Faversham (1592), depicting the murder of a bourgeois man by his adulterous wife.
Lead section, opening sentence
In English drama, a domestic tragedy is a tragedy in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals.
In Group: Tragedy and History Plays, Lead section
In English drama, a domestic tragedy is a tragedy in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals.
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