Shakespearean Versus Post Shakespearean Tragedy

Abstract

Jacobean drama, unlike its Elizabethan maturity, does not obey the normal Aristotelian pattern where there is only one action and everything conduces to that action. In order to simplify dramatic symbols, commentators ignore various areas of symbolic effect. Deconstruction chooses not to ignore those because its goal is not clear prosaic statements of the author's apparent intention but an understanding of how we project our desires for coherence onto their literary texts. Literary texts have symbolic existence rather than an actual or prosaic existence. Therefore, deconstructionists are always on the look out for irony where the manifest meaning of one scene or one speech is always undermined by the total effect of the whole document.

Thus, a moment of "aporia" becomes an impasse for the commentator who wishes to simplify; it is also an opportunity to grant the dramatic text its own unprosaic power. For there to be clear distinctions between Good and Evil, there must be a simplification of the human condition. The revenger, however, in carrying out his purpose seeks his own demise in a deep sense, not consciously but as part of a mechanism over which he/she has no control.