In English drama, a domestic tragedy is a

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals. This subgenre contrasts with classical and Neoclassical

, in which the protagonists are of kingly or

aristocratic Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense economic, political, and social influence. In Western Christian co ...

rank and their downfall is an affair of state as well as a personal matter. These plays were in particular contrast to De casibus tragedy like De casibus virorum illustrium by

Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio ( , ; ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian people, Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so ...

The

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

theorist

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

had argued that tragedy should concern only great individuals with great minds and souls, because their catastrophic downfall would be more emotionally powerful to the audience; only comedy should depict middle-class people. Domestic tragedy breaks with Aristotle's precepts, taking as its subjects merchants or citizens whose lives have less consequence in the wider world. In Britain, the first domestic tragedies were written in the

English Renaissance The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement, cultural and Art movement, artistic movement in England during the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginni ...

; one of the first was '' Arden of Faversham'' (1592), depicting the murder of a bourgeois man by his adulterous wife. Other famous examples are '' A Woman Killed with Kindness'' (1607), '' A Yorkshire Tragedy'' (1608), and '' The Witch of Edmonton'' (1621). '' Othello'' can be classified as a domestic tragedy. Domestic tragedy disappeared during the era of Restoration drama, when Neoclassicism dominated the stage, but it emerged again with the work of

George Lillo George Lillo (3 February 1691 – 4 September 1739) was an English playwright and tragedian. He was also a jeweller in London. He produced his first stage work, ''Silvia, or The Country Burial'', in 1730, and a year later his most famous play, ...

and Sir

Richard Steele Sir Richard Steele ( – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright and politician best known as the co-founder of the magazine ''The Spectator (1711), The Spectator'' alongside his close friend Joseph Addison. Early life Steel ...

in the eighteenth century.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Domestic Tragedy Drama Tragedy Literary genres *

See also

References