A Study Of Artistic Justice In Shakespearian Plays

Ethical narrative is the eternal theme of narrative art works.In ancient and modern art history,countless narrative art works have chosen "the conflict between good and evil" as the theme of expression,and ethical criticism has become an important part of the history of art criticism.However,when confronted with the moral expression in Shakespearian Plays,many important thinkers,artists and critics in Western history have come to different or even opposite conclusions.The theoretical tool they used was the theory of Poetic Justice founded by the English critic Thomas Rymer in 1678.18 th century English critic Samuel Johnson believed that many of Shakespearian Plays lacked poetic justice or lacked the ability to show Poetic Justice.Samuel Johnson,an18th-century English critic,argued that many of Shakespearian Plays lacked poetic justice or the plot of rewarding the good and punishing the bad,and thus "his writing seems to have no moral purpose".As for Johnson’s assertion,some later Western critics have agreed or concurred with it with different remarks,while some critics have derided or criticized it from different perspectives,and some critics have even taken the blame and opposed to interpreting Shakespeare’s plays from ethical perspectives,such as justice.Although there are many different opinions,they are not unanimous: the question of whether Shakespearian Plays manifest artistic justice remains unanswered after all.The author,however,takes the theory of Artistic Justice as the perspective and narrative analysis as the main research method to re-examine and reorganize Shakespearian Plays,in an attempt to clarify Shakespeare’s ethical standpoints in his works.The author tries to let people see more clearly the colorful world of justice in Shakespearian Plays,to see more clearly the inaccuracies of the historical criticisms on the attributes of justice in Shakespearian Plays,to recognize afresh the moral attributes of Shakespearian Plays,especially the attributes of justice,and to recognize afresh Shakespeare’s ethical attitudes in the creation of his plays and the moral purposes he wanted to achieve through his dramatic creations.to achieve through the creation of his plays.Through research and analysis,the author believes that Shakespeare always depicted his plays with the right moral stance,and he was very inclined to give his characters an ending that was consistent with their own virtues/virtues.At the same time,Shakespearian Plays allow us to test the existing theory of Artistic Justice.This theory is still in the process of improvement,and the author tries to add and correct,if necessary,the points that have not been elaborated in depth and the points that have not been elaborated accurately enough,in order to improve it.The paper is divided into the following seven sections:The introduction section mainly includes the research value,the conceptual elaboration,the selected topic source,and the research significance.It specifies the research methods and research ideas mainly used in this paper,the main issues to be explored,the theoretical misunderstandings to be avoided,and makes a certain sorting out of the history of commentaries on Shakespearian Plays from relevant perspectives in history and the current research status.The first two sections of Chapter 1 sort out several dominant views in the history of Shakespearean Criticism on the issue of moral depiction in Shakespearian Plays and reexamine these views through a brief analysis of Shakespearian Plays.The second two sections reevaluate the representation of morality and justice in Shakespearian Plays through the lens of artistic justice theory and use this to classify Shakespearian Plays.Chapter 2 analyzes Shakespeare’s tragic works.This chapter first establishes the basis for discussion of Shakespeare’s tragic works from Bradley’s theory and viewpoint,and on this basis analyzes it manifest Artistic Justice to analyze each of the tragic works,and finally explores the moral connection between revenge and death in tragedy.Chapter 3 analyzes Shakespeare’s comedies.This chapter considers Shakespeare’s comedies and legends together as comic themes,and analyzes each of the comedies that demonstrate artistic justice according to their punitive and forgiving endings,and finally discusses why Shakespeare has two different choices of punishment and forgiveness when setting the endings of his comedies.Chapter 4 analyzes Shakespeare’s Historical Drama works.Many researchers in the past have viewed the characters in Historical Drama works in terms of simple good and evil,and thus have often been at a loss when faced with specific problems.This chapter first clarifies that the ultimate reference of morality and justice in Shakespeare’s English Historical Drama works is the issue of national interest,and the king is the symbol and embodiment of the will of the state;on this basis,I establish three dimensions for evaluating English kings,and use them to analyze Shakespeare’s Historical Drama works one by one.The greatest difference between Shakespeare’s Historical Drama works and other works is that they manifest incomplete artistic justice within a single work,but complete artistic justice in the overall plots of multiple works together.Chapter 5 studies some common thematic problems that exist in Shakespeare’s works.The first section analyzes the complexity and diversity of Shakespeare’s dramatic works in manifesting Artistic Justice;the second section analyzes the different roles played by transcendental factors in Shakespeare’s different works and Shakespeare’s religious attitudes;the third section analyzes the influence of the aesthetic needs of different audience groups on Shakespeare’s creations.The concluding section reviews and summarizes the main ideas of this paper.The moral stance and expression of justice in Shakespearian Plays have provoked longstanding controversies in the history of Shakespearean Criticism,and the developing theory of Artistic Justice may provide some benefit to Shakespearean studies.