SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

                    What would ambition do?  What would it not,
                    Going so far as even kill a king,
                    Conniving in a treacherous, fatal plot
                    To execute this most appalling thing.

                    Just such a question Shakespeare would explore,
                    Contriving a dramatic spectacle
                    Confronting us with scenes we must deplore
                    Ensuring that his plays be never dull.

                    Thus Hamlet and Macbeth are dramas that
                    Arouse the pity and the terror which
                    Is kin to what a high-wire acrobat
                    Evokes who seems from there about to pitch.

                         For all the anguish that such drama stirs,
                         Catharsis, though, is what at last occurs.

 

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