Cain, from the Bible, is the person who brought the evil of fratricide into the world. He opened the gates for two very evil characters in Grendel of Grendel and King Claudius of Hamlet. Throughout their respective epic poem and play, these characters portray the utmost evil within our society. &quo...

Tragedy was performed in Athens at the annual festival of Dionysus, the Great, or the City, Dionysia in late March. Competition was held on three successive mornings of the festival. Three tragic poets, who had been selected earlier in the year, each presented a tetralogy, consisting of three traged...

Aristotle could be considered the first popular literary critic. Unlike Plato, who all but condemned written verse, Aristotle breaks it down and analyses it so as to separate the good from the bad. He studies in great detail what components make a decent epic or tragedy. The main sections he com...

A tragic hero is a man who "... is highly renown and prosperous, but One who is not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, However, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity, but by some Error in judgment or frailty (hamartia)..." (Aristotle). As defined in Poetic...