The Thematic Study Of "Death" In Shakespeare's Five Tragedies

With the philosophical proposition of death as a starting point, this dissertation is a comparative study of the treatment of death addressed in Shakespeare's five tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet. Through the systematic and comprehensive textual analysis, I attempt to reveal that the theme of death is more than a literary motif embraced in any one tragedy. Actually, in Shakespearean tragedies this theme achieves its spiritual dimensions to the great possibility in width and depth. In the five tragedies under examination, death is the affirmative annotation to"love"and"life", and our interpretation to it is the key to the presentation of"the possibilities of human nature".The dissertation is designed within the theoretical framework of"Humanist Criticism". I approach the theme of death by adopting Freudian psychoanalysis of Eros and the death instinct. A. C. Bradley's"character-centered criticism"is also applied for reference. By establishing the dissertation on the basis of theoretical framework and critical pattern, I explore in the article three research questions that are linked to the theme of death: 1) Is it the denial of death or the longing for death? 2) Is it the dissolution of individuality in death or the achievement of love in death? 3) Is it the death-in-life or the life-in-death?The dissertation consists of five chapters. In the first chapter of Introduction, I make a brief mention of the sixteenth-century Elizabethan Age as a background factor that influences the shaping of the Shakespearean art. Then a compelling overview of the concept of"tragedy"is done to examine the beginning and the maturity of this great literary genre. Before further interpreting and justifying the substance of Shakespearean tragedies, I make a brief review of the major visions on death in Chinese and Western thoughts; the Freudian concepts of Eros and the death instinct are also induced in this chapter as a theoretical device to enter the discussion of the theme of death.Chapter Two attempts to solve the question of"Is it the denial of death or...