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How important is physical as opposed to verbal comedy/tragedy in your chosen plays?

The unmistakable style of Renaissance Theatre rests on its emphatic speeches and unashamedly
violent portrayals of tragedies presented onstage
...
Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy demonstrates how influential Greek dramatists such
as Seneca and Aristotle influenced writers to channel their classical education into their works, a
ploy to familiarise the stories for the audience
...
Another playwright
who shared similar classical values was William Shakespeare
...
The story parallels the Roman comedy Menaechmi, written by the ancient dramatist Plautus
indicating Shakespeare’s ‘self-conscious classicism’ their works with other classics
...
Therefore, do these plays rely more on physical acts to evoke a response
from the audience, or simply emphatic emotional speech? This essay will challenge if physically
acted tragedies outweigh the language specially crafted to express such events and emotions bound
to them
...
Typical of any Senecan inspired tragedy, ghosts,
chorus figures and speeches of high wrought passion coupled with sensational murders crescendo
towards a chilling finale
...
2 Revenge becomes an embodied human
figure, guiding Don Andrea and sealing the play with the enigmatic last few lines - ‘For here through
death hath end their misery,/I’ll there begin their endless tragedy
...
Yet,
scholars recognise what ignited the play’s popularity and residual ‘stunning appeal’ through its ‘vivid
juxtaposition of romantic intrigue’ revolving around the headstrong Bel-Imperia, and the ‘cosmic
questioning about the nature of the human condition’
...
Kyd instead
writes for an English audience, tempering Seneca’s model to incorporate modes of more popular
entertainment
...


1

Randall Martin, ‘Introduction’ in The Comedy of Errors (London: Penguin Books, 2005) p
...
by David Brevington (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996)
p
...
4
...
130
4
David Brevington ‘Introduction’ in The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, p
...
The relationship between the Bel-Imperia
and Horatio is shared by the audience, and when this becomes brutally severed, a catalyst for
emotional response is lit, maintaining their intrigue throughout the play and hope for a final resolve
...

The Comedy of Errors however entails a different dramatic intention, as its physical action is driven
to provoke humour and laughter for the audience through confusion, mistaken identities, slapstick
and a final entertaining resolve
...

Physicality’s such as distinct character traits, gestures, voice, and attributes recognisable to one
character such as Antipholus, but easily mistakable for his twin
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Bertrand Evans remarks how there is
‘neither character nor language making notable comic contribution’ and that ‘the great[est] resource
of laughter is the exploitable gulf spread between the participants understanding and ours’
...
Dromio of Syracuses’s
misunderstandings surrounding his master’s counterpart and his servant of Ephesus induces
moments of threatening abuse which quickly turns to laughter, thanks to Dromio's artful wit
...
Harold F
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6 A just identification that recognises the greater impact of bodily movements on
stage, as opposed to the extract ‘Thinkest thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that’7 read aloud,
which hugely lacks dramatic impact, regardless of delivery
...
Speech is the fundamental component
in human expression, and it is through the powerful nature of emotive language that we can capture
a glimpse into the emotional sphere of the characters feelings and reflections
...
How could thou strangle virtue
and desert?/ Ay me most wretched, that have lost my joy’
...
The acts of
violence are veiled under the seemingly harmless theatrical guise, yet the full impact of what has
just happened before the King and the audience is only realised through Hieronimo’s powerful
speech
...
by Robert Miola (London:
Routledge, 1997) p
...
Brooks ‘Themes and structure in The Comedy of Errors’ in The Comedy of Errors Critical Essays ed
...
77
7
William Shakespeare The Comedy of Errors (London: Penguin Books, 2005) II
...
23, p
...
4
...
55

treasure, my treasure lost;/Here lay my bliss, and here my bliss bereft;’
...

Comedy can equally resonate and provoke audience response
...
Antipholus of Syracuse’s desire to ‘lose myself’ amongst the town is quickly
answered when the Dromio of Ephesus enters scorning him for not coming home to dine with the
wife of his undiscovered twin, mistaking him for Antipholus of Ephesus
...
Antipholus and Adriana share a thrilling moment expressed through
water imagery, comparing himself to ‘a drop of water/That in the ocean seeks to find another
drop’10 in which Adriana later compares him to ‘a drop of water in the breaking gulf,/And take
unmingled thence that drop again’11
...
12
Sidney Homan marks the shift of Renaissance attitudes showed towards language in accordance to
the physical
...
‘Speech thus
embraces the conceptual – man as a speaking animal able to imagine the divine – and the physical’,
a connection is made to the physical basis of language, ‘the art of speaking’ and delivery
...
Therefore, revealing the vital importance and
mergence between the spoken word and action in theatrical representation
...
Dramatic poetry, typical of Shakespeare’s style, represents
organic emotion which becomes crafted into words and sounds that elevate human feeling in a new
way for the audience to comprehend
...
The relationship between the two inevitably intertwines, but it
appears that for comedy to be at its most entertaining, physical action is etched in memory more
than speech
...


9

Ibid, IV
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92-3, p
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2
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11
11
Shakespeare, II
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135-7 p
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47, No
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331-354, p
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jstor
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25, No
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439-489, p
...
jstor
...
47, No
...
331-354
...
org/stable/4625114> [accessed 14th April 2013]
Edwards, Philip Thomas Kyd and Early Elizabethan Tragedy (London: Longman Group, 1977)
Homan, Sidney ‘Recent Studies in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama’ in Studies in English Literature,
1500-1900 , Vol
...
2 (Spring, 1985), pp
...
jstor
...
by David Brevington (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1996)
Miola, Robert S
...
) The Comedy of Errors Critical Essays (London: Routledge, 1997)
Shakespeare, William The Comedy of Errors (London: Penguin Books, 2005)



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Title: Renaissance and Tragedy in Tudor Plays
Description: An exploration into Renaissance and Tragedy plays in the Jacobean and Elizabethan era. This essay defines 'how important is physical as opposed to verbal comedy/tragedy?', within the tragicomedy arch. Written for a 2nd/3rd year Oxford Brookes Drama with English course, a Level/University standard essay with MHRA referencing with a bibliography. Thomas Kyd's 'The Spanish Tragedy' and William Shakespeare's 'The Comedy of Errors' are analysed. Ideal if you are learning about the Tudor era either in History, English or Drama.

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