Titus und kein Ende

As part of the discussion on the poetics of endings, this paper looks at Shakespeare’s early Roman revenge tragedy as a particularly rich case study. Readers, spectators, and critics of Titus Andronicus have long been puzzled and sometimes annoyed by the sense of uncertainty and irresolution which this play seems to leave us with, even though its final speeches take us through the motions of a strong conclusion. Recent criticism has especially focussed on the figure of the new emperor, whose words close the tragedy with traditional burial orders but whose authority remains in doubt. My paper reopens the case by drawing also on two German adaptations, Heiner Müller’s Anatomie Titus Fall of Rome (1984) and Botho Strauß’s Schändung (2005), as heuristic texts to highlight fundamental ruptures that are at stake here. Trying to put the question of endings also into the religious context of the English Reformation and into the culture of the playhouse, the paper argues that Shakespeare’s dramatic non-ending in Titus may indeed be quite productive.

Reading Ahmed Yerima’s Hard Ground as Tragedy of Blood

Niger Delta oil crisis has been one of the major social, political and economic problems confronting Nigeria. As a result, Nigerians of different arts and professions have been showing concern about this persistent confrontation between the federal government and Niger Delta militant youths. Literary writers have been reflecting this oil crisis in their literary creativity in any of the genres of poetry, drama and prose. Ahmed Yerima is one of the literary writers who have reflected the Niger Delta oil crisis in their literary creativity with the publication of his Niger Delta trilogy (Hard Ground, Little Drops and Ipomu). Hard Ground, the first of the plays in the trilogy is this paper’s primary text. The play uses dramatic device of irony to advance its plot and theme as the tragedy of blood. With critical reading, the play presents tragedy of blood/ revenge tragedy from two levels of interpretation: denotative and connotative/metaphorical. The play’s success is reflected in the playwright’s use of characterisation (as seen in Baba and Nimi) and creative use of irony to advance the plot and to complicate the play’s conflicts.

Succession and confessional politics combined

This chapter focuses on the play “Titus Andronicus,” which is considered not merely a revenge tragedy. It explains how Titus is suffused with evocations and references to the Aeneid and central elements in the plot that are taken from Ovid. It also mentions how Titus was described as a “noble Roman history” when it was entered in the stationer's register. The chapter discusses the Titus' central concerns: succession, tyranny, resistance and the nature and origins of monarchical legitimacy. It shows how Titus contains echoes of and parallels with the Henry VI and Richard III plays and how it was set within a meticulously evoked and entirely fictional version of Romanitas.

Hamlet with the confessional and succession politics left in

This chapter concentrates on the play “Hamlet,” which is conventionally regarded as a revenge tragedy. It reviews the critical commentary that that centred on the topos of Hamlet's “delay” that was predicated upon that assumption. It also mentions the introduction of the genre called the Histories, in which the Folio dissolved the kinship between tragedy and history. The chapter examines how Hamlet speaks to contemporary political concerns and circumstances. It also describes staging of Hamlet from a crucial moment of dynastic change in Danish history, in which Denmark is portrayed as an elective monarchy. It also talks about the English monarchy that was essentially elective in its structure or considered as a free hereditary monarchy.

The generic matrix Revenge tragedy, history play, murder pamphlet and conversion narrative

This chapter processes a variety of different sorts of contemporary concerns, such as political, confessional and religious issues. It examines how William Shakespeare's plays elicit from its audience and then manipulates a series of narrative expectations derived from a range of different contemporary genres. It also looks into the irruptive intervention of the ghost that has cut Hamlet off from the values and traditions out of which the narrative quest for life is sustained. The chapter points out how the play has utterly undermined all the canons of Renaissance humanist assumption that had hitherto underpinned Hamlet's existence and sense of himself as an actor or social, political and moral agent in the world. It also explains how Hamlet exploits the void by offering the audience a variety of different sorts of story or narrative template with which to make sense of what is happening to the characters.

The Representation of the Jews and Others in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s the Merchant of Venice on the Elizabethan Stage: Convention, Rhetoric , Sources and the Spirit of the Age

Jews were represented on the Elizabethan stage as characters of evil deeds, motivated by money to control others and would project hatred towards those who inflict pain on them whether physical or psychological. Themes of money, hatred, love, assuming control over others are archetypal issues, which can be found in almost all dramas of the world. On these common grounds of the representations of characters in plays like those portrayed in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (1633) and Shakespeare’s the Merchant of Venice (1600), these topics permeate the old and ancient dramas, of the Greeks and Romans and up to the present times. Such everlasting- themes have always been tackled on the world’s stage. The core issue in drama is whether the audience, watching any play in its time or at any age, enjoy the performance of the play. Marlowe’s Barabas or Shakespeare’s Shylock, for example, these characters have inspired many critics who always converge and diverge about such characters. This article, however, argues that one should first read these plays from definite perspectives like convention, rhetoric, sources and the spirit of the age in order to understand the reality of some circumstances during that era, Elizabethan times. Another perspective, equally important, is the fact that the Jews, the Turks and Christians were represented on the Elizabethan stage as objects of entertainment and instruction. Finally, one should read closely the Elizabethan and the reception of the plays above mentioned to understand them in the proper context. Interestingly enough, Marlowe’s play is a revenge tragedy, while Shakespeare is a comedy.