SOURCE: Fabiny, Tibor. “‘Rota Fortunae’ and the Symbolism of Evil in Shakespearean Tragedy.” Journal of Literature and Theology 3, no. 3 (November 1989): 319-30.

In the following essay, Fabiny analyzes the image of the wheel of fortune and contends that the figurative turning of the wheel is a central organizing principle in Shakespearean tragedy, particularly Richard III, King Lear, and Macbeth.

The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the phenomenology of Shakespearean tragedy. It is the premise of the paper that this tragedy is both a universal vision of human existence¹ and a structure or form inherited from the Middle Ages. The literary or imaginative critics of our century have explored the vision-aspect of the tragedy and the evidence-respecting historical critics have been at work to substantiate their hypotheses by proofs. The fact that both use their own languages leads to mutual suspicion or misunderstanding, and this occasionally results...