The Idols of the Tribe: A Study of the Role of the Commentator in Shakespeare's Tragedies

Abstract

General problems concerning Shakespeare's ethical stance are related to the role of the commentator in his drama. A survey of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama indicates that there was a development from formal choric devices toward commentating characters who are absorbed into the dramatic structure. Factors which may have influenced Shakespeare's use of the commentating figure are suggested. After a preliminary study of Shakespeare's methods of presenting commentary in his history plays, the thesis concentrates on the varied ways in which Shakespeare develops the role of the commentator in his major tragedies. The conclusion relates the problems which Shakespeare examines by means of this distinctive feature of his tragic vision to the work of other major Renaissance writers.