Saturday, August 30, 2014

What genre is Othello?

There are six major genres of literature: fiction, nonfiction, short story, poetry, drama, and folktale/mythology. Within these genres are many subgenres, such as romance, fairytale, comedy, tragedy, and the like.

Shakespeare's play "Othello," simply because it is a play, falls into the genre of drama. More specifically, it belongs in the subgenre of tragedy. The Guide to Literary Terms defines tragedy as

a serious play in which the chief figures, by some peculiarity of character, pass through a series of misfortunes leading to the final catastrophe. In contemporary theater, tragedy often has the evils of society as the cause of this downfall.... In literature, tragedy refers to any composition with a somber theme carried to a disastrous conclusion....

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