William Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' and John Dryden's 'All For Love' in Light of Aristotle's Discourse of 'Tragedy' in His 'Poetics.'

☆ A Brief Introduction to Aristotle's 'Poetics' :

The Poetics is primarily concerned with drama, and the analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although the text is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, "almost every detail about [t]his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions". Among scholarly debates on the Poetics, the three most prominent have concerned the meanings of catharsis and hamartia (these being the best known), and the question why Aristotle appears to contradict himself between chapters 13 and 14.

(Source : Wikipedia)

The Poetics of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) is a much-disdained book. So unpoetic a soul as Aristotle’s has no business speaking about such a topic, much less telling poets how to go about their business. He reduces the drama to its language, people say, and the language itself to its least poetic element, the story, and then he encourages insensitive readers like himself to subject stories to crudely moralistic readings, that reduce tragedies to the childish proportions of Aesop-fables. Strangely, though, the Poetics itself is rarely read with the kind of sensitivity its critics claim to possess, and the thing criticized is not the book Aristotle wrote but a caricature of it. Aristotle himself respected Homer so much that he personally corrected a copy of the Iliad for his student Alexander, who carried it all over the world. In his Rhetoric (III, xvi, 9), Aristotle criticizes orators who write exclusively from the intellect, rather than from the heart, in the way Sophocles makes Antigone speak. Aristotle is often thought of as a logician, but he regularly uses the adverb logikôs, logically, as a term of reproach contrasted with phusikôs, naturally or appropriately, to describe arguments made by others, or preliminary and inadequate arguments of his own. Those who take the trouble to look at the Poetics closely will find, I think, a book that treats its topic appropriately and naturally, and contains the reflections of a good reader and characteristically powerful thinker.

(Source : https://iep.utm.edu/aris-poe/)

☆ 'Julius Caesar' in Light of the Aristotelian Concept of Tragedy :

Question 2. : With reference to the literary texts you have studied during B.A. programme, write brief note on the texts which followed Aristotelian literary tradition (i.e. his concept of tragedy, catharsis, tragic hero with hamartia etc)

Answer : I have studied 'Julius Caesar' written by William Shakespeare during my Under Graduation programme.

'Julius Caesar' is a tragedy written in 1599 by the Elizabethan Dramatist William Shakespeare. The tragedy was first published in the 'First Folio' in 1623. It has 5 acts and 18 scenes divided into 5 acts of the play. Let us have a look towards the tragedy in light of the Aristotelian concept of 'Tragedy' and see how far it conforms with the theory given by Aristotle in his 'Poetics.'

(1) Action : In 'Julius Caesar,' we find that the 'seriousness of action' is maintained throughout the play. In the beginning scene, the seriousness is hearkened when two tribunes, namely, Flavius and Marullus are shown to be feeling aversion of the recent victory of Julius Caesar over Pompey :

MARULLUS :

Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
(Act 1, Scene 1)

(2) Language Embellished with Each Kind of Artistic Ornaments :

When it comes to the use of the literary devices in the tragedy, we can find several ornaments being employed in the play, for instance :

Personification is used when Caesar calls 'Death' as his brother both born on the same day, but he is elder than the 'death' thus does not have fear for it but he haunts it :

CAESAR :

The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
Caesar should be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home to-day for fear.
No, Caesar shall not: danger knows full well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he:
We are two lions litter'd in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible:
And Caesar shall go forth. (Act 2, Scene 2)

Foreshadowing is seen when Soothsayer bewares Caesar of the calamity lying in forward course of his tragedy :

Soothsayer :

Beware the Ides of March. (Act 1, Scene 2)

Soliloquy occurs in Brutus' pondering over the scheme offered by Casisus and Casca to assasinate Caesar in the 'egg shell' for Caesar was thought of as a tyrant and the underlying dander for the Republic of Rome :

BRUTUS :

It must be by his death: and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown'd:
How that might change his nature, there's the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?--that;--
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round.
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell. (Act 2, Scene 1)

(3) Tragic Heroes : Julius Caesar & Marcus Brutus :

In Poetics, Aristotle suggests that the hero of a tragedy must evoke a sense of pity and fear within the audience, stating that “the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity." In essence, the focus of the hero should not be the loss of his goodness. He establishes the concept that pity is an emotion that must be elicited when, through his actions, the character receives undeserved misfortune, while the emotion of fear must be felt by the audience when they contemplate that such misfortune could possibly befall themselves in similar situations. Aristotle explains such change of fortune "should be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad.” Such misfortune is visited upon the tragic hero "not through vice or depravity but by some error of judgment." This error, or hamartia, refers to a flaw in the character of the hero, or a mistake made by the character.

Therefore, the Aristotelian hero is characterized as virtuous but not "eminently good," which suggests a noble or important personage who is upstanding and morally inclined while nonetheless subject to human error. Aristotle's tragic heroes are flawed individuals who commit, without evil intent, great wrongs or injuries that ultimately lead to their misfortune, often followed by tragic realization of the true nature of events that led to this destiny. This means the hero still must be – to some degree – morally grounded. The usual irony in Greek tragedy is that the hero is both extraordinarily capable and highly moral (in the Greek honor-culture sense of being duty-bound to moral expectations), and it is these exact, highly-admirable qualities that lead the hero into tragic circumstances. The tragic hero is snared by his own greatness: extraordinary competence, a righteous passion for duty, and (often) the arrogance associated with greatness (hubris).

(Source for 'Tragic Heroes' : Wikipedia)

The question being dealt with several times by critics is that who can be the tragic hero of the tragedy in a true sense, for it is difficult for a reader as well as a critic to demonstrate one of the two chief protagonists as a tragic hero of the play.

Julius Caesar can be considered the Primary Protagonist for he shows the traits of a tragic hero delineated by Aristotle in his 'Poetics.'

Question 4. : Have you studied any tragedies during B.A. programme? Who was/were the tragic protagonist/s in those tragedies? What was their ‘hamartia’?

Answer : Another tragedy I have studied is the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra which is titled as 'All for Love, or the World Well Lost' which was written in 1677 by the important literary figure of the Neo-classical age John Dryden.

Although it is the Heroic Play which was mastered by Dryden, but involves the characteristics of 'Tragedy' treatised by Aristotle, especially in terms of 'Hamartia' (the Tragic Flaw in the Protagonist of the Tragedy.)

Antony is the tragic hero and his 'Hamartia' is that he wanted to remain a fearless soldier and at the same time wanted to live an insouciant life with Cleopatra.

Question 5. : Did the ‘Plot’ of those tragedies follow necessary rules and regulations proposed by Aristotle? (Like chain of cause and effect, principle of probability and necessity, harmonious arrangement of incidents, complete, certain magnitude, unity of action etc)

Answer : 'Julius Caesar' follows the chain of cause and effect which can be seen when Caesar shows too much trust upon his faithful and loyal friend and companion Marcus Brutus which eventually leads him to his own decadence. The victory of Caesar over Pompey can be seen as the superficial cause for the effect as his eventual assasination, for the victory had roused the green-eyed monster, i.e., jealousy amongst the fellow Capital members of Caesar such as Cassius and Casca.

In 'All for Love,' the law of probability and necessity takes place when Dolabella - an appointed teacher of Antony and a former lover of Cleopatra whom Antony is in love with now - reminds him of that he has already got a wife named Octavia - the sister of Octavius Caesar - and further he has reached the age of 40, so he should return to the Rome again and shake off Cleopatra's affection towards him, but upon this, Antony is not ready to yield to Dolabella's plea, and instead tells him that he will die but will not turn his back to his true love who is the queen of Egypt - Cleopatra. 

Thank You!