The Medieval Inheritance

This chapter discusses the medieval inheritance in Shakespearean tragedy in two ways. First it describes how the literary genre of tragedy in late medieval England was distinct from classical definitions of tragedy as outlined in Aristotle’s Poetics. Rather the early English conception of the genre as found in Chaucer, Lydgate, and others, was informed by the exempla of the De Casibus tradition, with sudden reversals of fortune understood as part of a grand plan of the execution of God’s divine will. Late medieval religious drama (hagiographical plays, mysteries, moralities) also greatly influenced the secular form of tragedy that emerged. The second part of the chapter describes how Shakespeare uses and adapts recognizably ‘medieval’ details in his tragedies. Eschewing a critical path that emphasizes Shakespeare’s early modernity, the chapter concludes with close readings from Hamlet and Titus Andronicus to consider what is inherited and retained rather than discarded.