Shakespeare's Use and Non-use of Plague: From Macro-context to Micro-narrative

This essay will discuss Shakespeare's use and non-use of plague with regard to several aspects. Firstly, I will refer to Pericles and Oedipus the King to discuss differences between a romance and a tragedy, and how these differences may result in writers' different focuses and narratives. In the second part, I will discuss why Romeo and Juliet die only partly because of plague, but do not truly die because of it with regard to Shakespeare's notions of causality and tragedy. In the third part, I will discuss how King Lear makes use of plague as a curse most furiously and vulnerably, which at once points to his living environment defined by "being" and "nothingness, " and also generates something new and profound, through which modern readers may achieve a spiritual growth. I conclude the essay by restating Shakespeare's great contributions to our modern ways of existence, and rethinking Shakespeare's use and non-use of plague in his works:plague is never really away from Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and it belongs to the realm of nature. Shakespeare uses his language as an art to transcend or redefine nature by preserving a sense of hope, which each individual consciously and continuously strives for.