InEnglish drama, adomestic tragedy is atragedy in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals. This subgenre contrasts withclassical andNeoclassicaltragedy, in which the protagonists are of kingly oraristocratic rank and their downfall is an affair of state as well as a personal matter. These plays were in particular contrast to De casibus tragedy likeDe casibus virorum illustrium byGiovanni Boccaccio
TheAncient Greek theoristAristotle had argued that tragedy should concern only great individuals with great minds and souls, because their catastrophic downfall would be more emotionally powerful to the audience; only comedy should depict middle-class people. Domestic tragedy breaks with Aristotle's precepts, taking as its subjects merchants or citizens whose lives have less consequence in the wider world.
InBritain, the first domestic tragedies were written in theEnglish Renaissance; one of the first wasArden of Faversham (1592), depicting the murder of a bourgeois man by his adulterous wife. Other famous examples areA Woman Killed with Kindness (1607),A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608), andThe Witch of Edmonton (1621).[1]Othello can be classified as a domestic tragedy.[2]
Domestic tragedy disappeared during the era ofRestoration drama, when Neoclassicism dominated the stage, but it emerged again with the work ofGeorge Lillo and SirRichard Steele in theeighteenth century.