How Shakespeare Revolutionized Tragedy, with Rhodri Lewis

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shakespeare is often associated with tragedy, but did you know that he changed the genre? In this episode, Rhodri Lewis, professor of English at Princeton University and author of Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, explores how Shakespeare redefined tragedy in ways that still feel modern today. Through a close examination of plays like Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear, Lewis explains how Shakespeare shifted the traditional classical form of tragedy, introducing characters who deceive themselves and struggle to understand their own nature. From the slasher-style Titus to the complex interiority of Juliet, Shakespeare experimented with plot, language, and character to push the boundaries of tragic drama, giving audiences an unsettling yet profoundly human insight into the flawed nature of existence. Rhodri Lewis teaches English at Princeton University. His previous books include Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness (Princeton) and Language, Mind, and Nature: Artificial Languages in England from Bacon to Locke. Outside the academy, he writes for publications including The Times Literary Supplement, Prospect, The Literary Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 21, 2024. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Barbara Bove.
0:08.6	When you hear the words Shakespearean tragedy, you probably think right away of King Lear, Macbeth, or maybe
0:15.2	Hamlet, and a fall from a great height. It's such a common phrase that we all assume we know exactly what it
0:22.4	means. But my guest today, Rodry Lewis, has taken a fresh look at the ways in which Shakespeare
0:28.3	experimented with classical tragedy to put his own spin on tragic drama, a take that today
0:35.1	still resonates as uniquely modern.
0:43.3	Roderie Lewis teaches English at Princeton University, and his latest book is called Shakespeare's tragic art.
0:44.9	Hi, Rodry. Welcome.
0:46.4	Hi, Barbara. Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
0:49.7	I almost feel like apologizing for asking you to do this, but since we're talking about how Shakespeare
0:55.7	experimented with classic tragedy and the tragic form, we have to first make sure we know what the
1:01.4	form is. So in 60 seconds or less, please define our term. What does tragedy go? Well, actually,
1:08.1	it's a really very low bar generically in the 16th century. It's really at this
1:13.5	stage a form of writing, which is usually dramatic, and concerns people of importance and
1:20.2	foremost rank, princes, generals, kings, queens, those sorts of things, and tracks their
1:27.2	sort of rise and fall in some way or another.
1:30.9	In Shakespeare's period, in the early modern period, you're saying?
1:34.0	Exactly so, exactly so.
1:36.0	Okay, first of all, kudos that you were able to do that, and without using any Greek or Latin.
1:41.7	And I want to get into the text because it's in the details that your argument really shines.
1:49.0	But first I do have, I was really interested in this, in one graph, really, in your introduction,
1:56.0	which is about the challenge that Shakespeare took on with his tragedies.
	...

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