Introduction Take notice, that the Decree of the President of Uzbekistan of 3 October, 2019, No. Dp-5843 “On measures to radically enhance the personnel policy

Shall I compare thee…

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Sonnet 18
This is the opening line of Shakespeare’s best-known sonnet. It’s the most iconic line of love poetry ever written.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on…

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep
The Tempest, IV.i.

Near the end of his career, Shakespeare put these lines in the mouth of his character Prospero. They’re a moving reflection on the brevity and wonder of life.

To be or not to be…

To be or not to be, that is the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.
Hamlet, III.i.
These words are the most famous words in literary history. Hamlet’s soliloquy about the merits of suicide has been quoted countless times in many different contexts.
When we use the word tragedy to describe a Shakespearean play, we are referring foremost to its designation in the First Folio, which divided Shakespeare’s body of work into three genres: tragedy, comedy, and history. In Shakespeare’s time, the term “tragedy” was most closely associated with a set of dramatic conventions established by the ancient Greeks and most famously theorized by Aristotle in his Poetics. According to Aristotle, a tragedy should center on a protagonist of noble birth, such as a prince or a queen. Though high born, the protagonist of a tragedy has what Aristotle called hamartia, or a tragic flaw. A tragic flaw is a negative character trait, like excessive pride or jealousy, which causes the protagonist to follow a dangerous path in pursuit of something they aren’t supposed to want. Along this path, the protagonist makes errors of judgement that bring chaos to their community, resulting in the protagonist’s own isolation, suffering, and eventual downfall. Typically in tragedy the protagonist recognizes their mistakes, but only once it’s too late. The ancient Greeks believed tragedy had a social value because the audience shares closely in the hero’s suffering and, once the drama is over, experiences an emotional release known as catharsis.
Similar to the classic Greek tragedies, Shakespeare’s tragedies almost always feature a noble-born hero who makes a mistake, with disastrous consequences for both the hero and the larger community. King Lear, for instance, tells the story of a well-respected ruler who has an unreasonable desire for his daughters to express their unconditional love for him. Unable to see through his eldest daughters’ lies, he makes the terrible mistake of bequeathing his kingdom to the wrong heirs⁴. Lear’s error of judgment causes a great deal of suffering, and by the time he realizes his mistake many people have died, including Cordelia, his only honest daughter. Faced with his downfall, Lear himself dies of grief. Like Lear, many of Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes suffer from symbolic blindness. Othello’s blindness to an enemy’s malevolence leads him to trust the enemy more than his own wife. Macbeth’s blindness to the meaning of the witches’ prophecies convinces him he is invincible. In both cases, the protagonists’ failure to discern truth results in widespread confusion and multiple deaths—including their own.