Tracing the Elements of Shakespeare's Tragedy in Ahmad Showghi's Majnoon Layla

Play as a literary genre is an instance of life instances employing the element of dialogue and where several players perform their roles in front of the spectators. Play writing, as it is written in contemporary Arabic literature, is a new literary genre taken from the Western literature. Ahmad Shoghy is the first who has written poetical play in the Arabic literature; Majnoon Layla is one of the kind. This play is his second play and it is the story of an innocent love. the content of the play is manly taken from Abu Alfaraj’s Alghani, a collection of popular narratives up to 4th Century Hejra, and set in a European framework, especially that of Shakespeare. The aim of this article is to study the elements of Shakespeare’s tragedy in Majnoon Layla. To achieve this aim a descriptive-analytical method of the eight elements of Shakespeare’s tragedy is put forward: conflict, suspense, hero and heroine, mistake and destiny, plot, genies, madness, the death of hero at the end of the tragedy, the tree unities (action, time and place) and humor. These elements are studied and traced in the mentioned play.