There is no way to ignore the fact that Shylock's character reflects some very nasty stereotypes about Jews. ... Shakespeare manages to rise above the anti-Semitism of his time to make Shylock a fully developed, even sympathetic character. A more immediate model for the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice was probably the character of Barabas in the play The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe. ... Nevertheless, Barabas is a thoroughly evil character. ... We are left with one of the most original literary creations of Shakespeare or of any one else, and Shylock remains a great...

• Word Count: 1366
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography

Aristotle's Poetics is considered the first work of literary criticism in our tradition. ... Such elements are: plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. ... Then there is the spectacle, which is the "manner", and the remaining three, the plot, character and thought are the "objects" that are imitated. ... At the same time, he says that among the actions that a character performs there are many that may be irrelevant to one another, but yet they form a unified action. ... In the play Oedipus Rex, Sophocles portrays the main character, Oedipus, as a good- natured ...

• Word Count: 1309
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Aristotle's Poetics is considered the first work of literary criticism in our tradition. ... Such elements are: plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. ... Then there is the spectacle, which is the "manner", and the remaining three, the plot, character and thought are the "objects" that are imitated. ... At the same time, he says that among the actions that a character performs there are many that may be irrelevant to one another, but yet they form a unified action. ... In the play Oedipus Rex, Sophocles portrays the main character, Oedipus, as a good- natured ...

• Word Count: 1311
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Next, the character recognizes their hamartia, or mistake, and overcome it; the recognition phase of a tragedy. ... Another aspect of what Aristotle believed made a perfect tragedy is character, obviously, that of the tragic hero. ... Both Willy Loman and Oedipus suffer from a major flaw in their character, which is the primary factor in drawing the course of their respective fates. ... He knows our lower middle class as few others do, and Willy Loman is his supreme character creation. ... His remarkable similarity to Oedipus classifies him as a tragic hero, yet leaves the reader questioni...

• Word Count: 1343
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Perhaps I could ask you to suspend your judgements until the end of my lecture to weigh your opinion in light of well-known literary critics both ancient and modern such as Aristotle, A.C. ... First of all there is a tragic hero of high status, who is noble but eventually undone by character flaw- hamartia. ... The order is obtained as the nation is now ruled by the three noble, loyal characters of the play- Albany, Kent and the new found King, Edgar, setting the nation into orderliness and initially Lear earns respect from the audience before he dies, leaving the final mood optimistic. ... ...

• Word Count: 1659
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

The actors - all men - wore theatricalized versions of everyday dress, but, most important, they wore larger-than-life masks, which aided visibility and indicated the nature of the character to the audience. ... THEMES OF PLAYS As Greek culture spread in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the topical, literary comedies and philosophical tragedies became inappropriate, and domestic comedy - called Middle and New Comedy - proliferated. ... The characters are stock - identifiable, simplified social types, such as a miserly father or a nagging mother-in-law. ...

• Word Count: 2321
• Approx Pages: 9