THE BOOK OF
GIANTS
Shakespeare does something new
Chapter 15
A Giant named aShakespeare invented three new Renaissance literary forms all by himself,
2Including comedy,
3And tragedy.
4He thought up the idea of comedy after he read some old Greek and Roman plays,
5Which had funny plots based on the idea that a young couple in love couldn’t get together because they were always disguised as someone else,
6And couldn’t recognize one another till the end,
7When a b“deus ex machina” came down from the ceiling and sorted everything out,
8Punishing the bad characters,
9And rewarding the good ones.
10This inspired cShakespeare to come up with a completely new idea,
11Which he tried out in a play called ‘The Comedy of Errors,’
12Which had a funny plot based on the idea that dtwo young couples in love couldn’t get together because they were always disguised as someone else,
13And couldn’t recognize one another till the end,
14When a “deus ex machina” came out of the wings and sorted everything out,
15Punishing the bad characters,
16And rewarding the good ones.
17eShakespeare’s invention of comedy was so successful that he decided to invent tragedy next,
18Which he did by glancing at some old fGreek plays,
19Which had plots based on the idea that it would be really great to watch some big important royal personage get destroyed in five acts by a fatal flaw,
20In the course of a single day,
21Without traveling anywhere.
22This inspired Shakespeare to come up with another completely new idea,
23Which he gtried out in a whole bunch of plays,
24Called h‘MacBeth’ and i‘Hamlet’ and j‘King Lear,’
25kAnd so forth,
26Which had a plot based on the idea that it would be really great to watch some big important royal personage get destroyed in five acts by a fatal flaw,
27Over the course of many days, even years,
28While traveling all over the place.
29Shakespeare’s invention of this new form, called tragedy, was a huge lsuccess and convinced a lot of other Giants to write more tragedies than you can shake a pointed stick at,
30Over more time than you can shake a pointed stick at,
31In more places than you can shake a pointed stick at.
32Nor was this all the damage Shakespeare did.
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Chapter 15 / 16