Conversation:

I was sure that my personal favourite: "Cymbeline" was classed as one of the Tragedies, not a comedy.

Yes, I know it has a happy ending - but for most of it's course it is definitely a tragedy, only 'righting itself' in the last five-minutes or so. And of course, that's why I like it - it plumbs the depths of despair, until all hope seems to be gone, and then revives the fortunes of the heroes at the very last scene. Of course it's full of some of those Shakespearean plot-twisting devices - which may seem improbable, but they do seem to work well.

'tis a Tragedy in my book too!

Alji (Join The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Well in the references I used it was classed as a Comedy, then again I could be very wrong

See the First Folio edition of The Tragedie of Cymbeline. @

http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/Texts/Cym/Cym_FT/Cym_FTPages/Cym_Fzz3r.html

Alji (Join The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Knowing me Alji...it was probably a typo that slipped through the net

I did find it decribed as a tradgi-comedy on one site, Em.



Alji (Join The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Cool, so we all might be right?

I seem to remember that the defining difference between a classical comedy or tragedy isn't whether it's funny or sad. It's all to do with strict dramatic structures that were first introduced in ancient Greek drama.

In a comedy; the protaganist lives through an ordeal, attaining some degree of spiritual growth or enlightenment at the end.

In a tragedy; the protaganist usually achieves a degree of success or power, but has a weakness - a fatal flaw - that ultimately leads to his downfall and death.

Something like that anyway!

I haven't seen Cymbeline so I don't really know.

There seems to be a consensus here, Em. Would you mind if we make that little correction - comedy > tragedy?



(Glad to see this getting so much attention!)

Jims

Go for it Jimster, give the masses what they want

(and then Jimster remembers a lecture seven years ago that explains it all! )

Er... it's neither. There are three plays that defy categorisation, A Winter's Tales, Cymbeline, Pericles and The Tempest, which are generally known as the 'later' plays. Generally (he says now that he's looked this up ) scholars refer to these as 'Romances', so I've amended these to reflect that.

Phew!

you're so knowledgable

Shakespeare broke all the classical "rules" regarding tragic and comic forms. It may be that he never really thought of his plays as belonging to any particular genre or classification (remember, he is writing in the days before literary criticism or even standardised spelling!) Or maybe he was well aware of different genres and simply loved to have a joke at their expense (have a look at the way the genres are mocked in Hamlet - "pastoral, comical, pastorical-comical, pastoral-historical..." I'm paraphrasing, please forgive me).

However, in the 21st century we feel the need to pigeonhole, and where's the harm in that? Other researchers have suggested that Cymbeline could accurately be referred to as a "late" play - I've definitely seen that classification many times, to refer to the three difficult-to-describe late plays (Cymbeline, Winter's Tale and Tempest). I've also heard the classification "problem play" for this and for Measure for Measure.

The French have tragi-comedy as a respectable genre in itself (read Le Cid by Corneille, it's breathtakingly good) so maybe we could appropriate that term?

that's a lot of new information, it may be worth altering my entry but I'm not altogether sure how to get that done to include a different classification...

I didn't know about those other classifications

I think it's sufficient that the threads are attached to the entry itself, to be honest. All neat, so other Researchers can follow the discussion. It's for good reason these are also known as 'problem plays', after all

this my friend is a very good point