Misplaced Pages

#592407

32-589: Elphaba Thropp / ˈ ɛ l f ə b ə ˈ θ r ɒ p / is the protagonist in the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire , in its musical theatre adaptation Wicked , and in the musical's two-part film adaptation . The character is identified with the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum 's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . In

64-407: A gulag camp. Leo Tolstoy 's War and Peace depicts fifteen major characters involved in or affected by a war. Though many people equate protagonists with the term hero and possessing heroic qualities, it is not necessary, as even villainous characters can be protagonists. For example Michael Corleone from The Godfather (1972–1990) film series (1978–1983). In some cases, the protagonist

96-422: A hero (masculine) or heroine (feminine) protagonist is typically admired for their achievements and noble qualities. Heroes are lauded for their strength, courage, virtuousness, and honor, and are considered to be the "good guys" of the narrative. Examples include DC Comics' Superman (hero) and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games (heroine). An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine

128-418: A plot whose logic binds up the constituent elements by necessity and probability. In this sense, he concluded, such poetry was more philosophical than history was in so far as it approximates to a knowledge of universals . Aristotle distinguishes between the genres of "poetry" in three ways: Having examined briefly the field of "poetry" in general, Aristotle proceeds to his definition of tragedy: Tragedy

160-423: A poet named Thespis introduced the idea of one actor stepping out and engaging in a dialogue with the chorus. This was the invention of tragedy, and occurred about 536 B.C. Then the poet Aeschylus , in his plays, introduced a second actor, inventing the idea of dialogue between two characters. Sophocles then wrote plays that included a third actor. A description of the protagonist's origin cited that during

192-642: A quasi-dramatic art, given its definition in Ch. 23)—survives. The lost second part addressed comedy . Some scholars speculate that the Tractatus coislinianus summarises the contents of the lost second book. The table of contents page of the Poetics found in Modern Library's Basic Works of Aristotle (2001) identifies five basic parts within it. Aristotle also draws a famous distinction between

224-567: A supporting protagonist appears, the story is told from the perspective of a character who appears to be minor. This character may be more peripheral from the events of the story and are not as involved within the "main action" of the plot. The supporting protagonist may be telling the story while viewing another character as the main influence of the plot. One example is Nick in The Great Gatsby . Euripides ' play Hippolytus may be considered to have two protagonists, though one at

256-432: A time. Phaedra is the protagonist of the first half, who dies partway through the play. Her stepson, the titular Hippolytus, assumes the dominant role in the second half of the play. In Henrik Ibsen 's play The Master Builder , the protagonist is the architect Halvard Solness. The young woman, Hilda Wangel, whose actions lead to the death of Solness, is the antagonist. In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet , Romeo

288-566: Is a representation of a serious, complete action which has magnitude, in embellished speech, with each of its elements [used] separately in the [various] parts [of the play] and [represented] by people acting and not by narration , accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions. By "embellished speech", I mean that which has rhythm and melody, i.e. song. By "with its elements separately", I mean that some [parts of it] are accomplished only by means of spoken verses, and others again by means of song. He then identifies

320-593: Is a main character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage, and morality. Examples include Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye , Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind , Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby , and Walter White from Breaking Bad . A tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragedy. Examples include Oedipus from Oedipus Rex and Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet . The protagonist

352-496: Is his own antagonist). Sometimes, a work will have a false protagonist , who may seem to be the protagonist, but then may disappear unexpectedly. The character Marion in Alfred Hitchcock 's film Psycho (1960) is an example. A novel may contain a number of narratives, each with its own protagonist. Alexander Solzhenitsyn 's The First Circle , for example, depicts a variety of characters imprisoned and living in

SECTION 10

#1732794050593

384-474: Is not a human: in Richard Adams ' novel Watership Down , a group of anthropomorphised rabbits, led by the protagonist Hazel, escape their warren after seeing a vision of its destruction, starting a perilous journey to find a new home. Poetics (Aristotle) Aristotle 's Poetics ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Περὶ ποιητικῆς Peri poietikês ; Latin : De Poetica ; c. 335  BCE )

416-484: Is not always conventionally good. Contrasting the hero protagonist, a villain protagonist is a protagonist who is a villain , driving the story forward regardless of the evil qualities the main character has. These traits can include being cruel, malicious, and wicked. Examples include Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Richard III in the eponymous play by William Shakespeare . When

448-464: Is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist . The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. The term protagonist comes from Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής ( prōtagōnistḗs )  'actor who plays

480-399: Is the earliest surviving work of Greek dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory . In this text, Aristotle offers an account of ποιητική , which refers to poetry, and more literally, "the poetic art," deriving from the term for "poet; author; maker," ποιητής . Aristotle divides the art of poetry into verse drama ( comedy , tragedy , and

512-419: Is the protagonist. He is actively in pursuit of his relationship with Juliet, and the audience is invested in that story. Tybalt, as an antagonist, opposes Romeo and attempts to thwart the relationship. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet , Prince Hamlet, who seeks revenge for the murder of his father, is the protagonist. The antagonist is the character who most opposes Hamlet, Claudius (though, in many ways, Hamlet

544-551: The Middle Ages was translated from a Greek manuscript dated to some time prior to the year 700. This manuscript, translated from Greek to Syriac, is independent of the currently-accepted 11th-century source designated Paris 1741 . The Syriac-language source used for the Arabic translations departed widely in vocabulary from the original Poetics and it initiated a misinterpretation of Aristotelian thought that continued through

576-704: The Poetics was accepted by the West , where it reflected the "prevailing notions of poetry" into the 16th century. Giorgio Valla 's 1498 Latin translation of Aristotle's text (the first to be published) was included with the 1508 Aldine printing of the Greek original as part of an anthology of Rhetores graeci . By the early decades of the sixteenth century, vernacular versions of Aristotle's Poetics appeared, culminating in Lodovico Castelvetro 's Italian editions of 1570 and 1576. Italian culture produced

608-525: The Poetics , four have been most prominent. These include the meanings of catharsis and hamartia , the Classical unities , and the question why Aristotle appears to contradict himself between chapters 13 and 14. Aristotle's work on aesthetics consists of the Poetics , Politics (Bk VIII), and Rhetoric . The Poetics was lost to the Western world for a long time. The text was restored to

640-548: The satyr play ), lyric poetry , and epic . The genres all share the function of mimesis , or imitation of life, but differ in three ways that Aristotle describes: The surviving book of Poetics is primarily concerned with drama; the analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although the text is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, "almost every detail about [t]his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions." Of scholarly debates on

672-415: The "parts" of tragedy: He offers the earliest-surviving explanation for the origins of tragedy and comedy: Anyway, arising from an improvisatory beginning (both tragedy and comedy—tragedy from the leaders of the dithyramb , and comedy from the leaders of the phallic processions which even now continue as a custom in many of our cities)... The Arabic version of Aristotle's Poetics that influenced

SECTION 20

#1732794050593

704-609: The Baum novel, the Witch is unnamed and little is explained about her life; Wicked creates a backstory for her and explores the world of The Wizard of Oz from her perspective. Elphaba is modeled after Margaret Hamilton 's portrayal in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz : green-skinned, clad entirely in black and wearing a tall peaked hat. Maguire formulated the name "Elphaba" from the pronunciation of Baum's initials—"L.F.B." As Winnie Holzman observed in an interview with Playbill , "It

736-496: The Middle Ages. The scholars who published significant commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics included Avicenna , Al-Farabi , and Averroes . Many of these interpretations sought to use Aristotelian theory to impose morality on the Arabic poetic tradition. In particular, Averroes added a moral dimension to the Poetics by interpreting tragedy as the art of praise and comedy as the art of blame. Averroes' interpretation of

768-441: The West in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes . The accurate Greek - Latin translation made by William of Moerbeke in 1278 was virtually ignored. At some point during antiquity, the original text of the Poetics was divided in two, each "book" written on a separate roll of papyrus . Only the first part—that which focuses on tragedy and epic (as

800-564: The chief or first part', combined of πρῶτος ( prôtos , 'first') and ἀγωνιστής ( agōnistḗs , 'actor, competitor'), which stems from ἀγών ( agṓn , 'contest') via ἀγωνίζομαι ( agōnízomai , 'I contend for a prize'). The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece . At first, dramatic performances involved merely dancing and recitation by the chorus. Then in Poetics , Aristotle describes how

832-466: The early period of Greek drama, the protagonist served as the author, the director, and the actor and that these roles were only separated and allocated to different individuals later. There is also a claim that the poet did not assign or create the protagonist as well as other terms for actors such as deuteragonist and tritagonist primarily because he only gave actors their appropriate part. However, these actors were assigned their specific areas at

864-406: The great Renaissance commentators on Aristotle's Poetics , and in the baroque period Emanuele Tesauro , with his Cannocchiale aristotelico , re-presented to the world of post- Galilean physics Aristotle's poetic theories as the sole key to approaching the human sciences . Recent scholarship has challenged whether Aristotle focuses on literary theory per se (given that not one poem exists in

896-516: The scarecrow, Elphaba's survival at the end, Nessarose using a wheelchair instead of being born without arms, Boq having a continuing love interest for Glinda – and eventually becoming the Tin Woodman instead of Nick Chopper, the complete cutting of Elphaba's years in the Vinkus, the deletion of Liir's birth, Fiyero not having a wife and children, and Doctor Dillamond not being murdered. The role

928-419: The stage with the protagonist always entering from the middle door or that the dwelling of the deuteragonist (second most important character) should be on the right hand, and the tritagonist (third most important character), the left. In Ancient Greece, the protagonist is distinguished from the term "hero", which was used to refer to a human who became a semi-divine being in the narrative. In literary terms,

960-456: The tragic mode of poetry and the type of history-writing practiced among the Greeks. Whereas history deals with things that took place in the past, tragedy concerns itself with what might occur, or could be imagined to happen. History deals with particulars, whose relation to one another is marked by contingency, accident, or chance. Contrariwise, poetic narratives are determined objects, unified by

992-619: Was [Maguire's] brilliant idea to take this hated figure and tell things from her point of view, and to have the two witches be roommates in college, but the way in which their friendship develops – and really the whole plot – is different onstage." Schwartz justified the deviation, saying "Primarily we were interested in the relationship between Galinda – who becomes Glinda – and Elphaba...the friendship of these two women and how their characters lead them to completely different destinies." In addition to this change in focus, other major plot modifications include Fiyero's appearance as

Elphaba - Misplaced Pages Continue

1024-459: Was originated on Broadway and the West End by Idina Menzel , who won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical . Elphaba was played by Cynthia Erivo in the film adaptation of the first act of the musical , and will reprise the role in the adaptation of the second act with Karis Musongole portraying the character as a child in the first film. Protagonist The protagonist

#592407