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Tragedy: Difference between revisions
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* Suffering beyond solace, beyond any moral palliation, and suffering because of human greatness which is great because [it is] great in passion: that, above everything else, is central to Shakespeare’s conception of tragedy.<br />But this is not the whole picture. Not only is the vulnerability to fortune of human distinction Shakespeare’s theme; its special liability to intense suffering and destruction. He also emphasizes the precariousness of its very quality of greatness. —A.P. Rossiter, “Shakespearean Tragedy” (1961)<ref>Rossiter, A. P. English Drama from Early times to the Elizabethans; Its Background, Origins and Developments. London: Hutchinson's U Library, 1950.</ref> | * Suffering beyond solace, beyond any moral palliation, and suffering because of human greatness which is great because [it is] great in passion: that, above everything else, is central to Shakespeare’s conception of tragedy.<br />But this is not the whole picture. Not only is the vulnerability to fortune of human distinction Shakespeare’s theme; its special liability to intense suffering and destruction. He also emphasizes the precariousness of its very quality of greatness. —A.P. Rossiter, “Shakespearean Tragedy” (1961)<ref>Rossiter, A. P. English Drama from Early times to the Elizabethans; Its Background, Origins and Developments. London: Hutchinson's U Library, 1950.</ref> | ||
* Courage and inevitable defeat: when we confront the great literature of tragedy from our everyday world, it is perhaps these two qualities that strike us most forcible, for the first in any society is rare and the second is a prospect most men find intolerable. Without courage or endurance, the exceptional action or commitment which characterize tragedy would not be undertaken or sustained; without defeat, it would not be placed in the perspective of the ordinary world. . . . Courage without an overpowering challenge can be mere bravado or foolishness (and thus comic). Defeat without a great attempt can be mere pathos. —G.B. Harrison, “Shakespearean Tragedy” (1968) | * Courage and inevitable defeat: when we confront the great literature of tragedy from our everyday world, it is perhaps these two qualities that strike us most forcible, for the first in any society is rare and the second is a prospect most men find intolerable. Without courage or endurance, the exceptional action or commitment which characterize tragedy would not be undertaken or sustained; without defeat, it would not be placed in the perspective of the ordinary world. . . . Courage without an overpowering challenge can be mere bravado or foolishness (and thus comic). Defeat without a great attempt can be mere pathos. —G.B. Harrison, “Shakespearean Tragedy” (1968)<ref>Rossiter, A. P. English Drama from Early times to the Elizabethans; Its Background, Origins and Developments. London: Hutchinson's U Library, 1950.</ref> | ||
* On a level quite above the immediate values of the play [''Antony and Cleopatra''] feeling is the quality most affirmed by it, indeed by all the tragedies. For this reason, Aristotelian categories seem to me quite irrelevant to Shakespeare — and even to Greek tragedy. A [[peripeteia | fall]], a [[hamartia | flaw]], a [[anagnorisis | recognition]]: the pattern must be stretched into a one-size-fits-all dimension to fit the plays. —Marilyn French, ''Shakespeare’s Division of Experience'' (1981) | * On a level quite above the immediate values of the play [''Antony and Cleopatra''] feeling is the quality most affirmed by it, indeed by all the tragedies. For this reason, Aristotelian categories seem to me quite irrelevant to Shakespeare — and even to Greek tragedy. A [[peripeteia | fall]], a [[hamartia | flaw]], a [[anagnorisis | recognition]]: the pattern must be stretched into a one-size-fits-all dimension to fit the plays. —Marilyn French, ''Shakespeare’s Division of Experience'' (1981)<ref>French, Marilyn. Shakespeare's Division of Experience. New York: Summit, 1981.</ref> | ||
* [[Anagnorisis]] is not simply an awareness by the hero of what has happened to him, but the recognition of the determined shape of the life he has created for himself, with an implicit comparison to the uncreated potential life he has forsaken. —Northrup Frye, ''Anatomy of Criticism'' | * [[Anagnorisis]] is not simply an awareness by the hero of what has happened to him, but the recognition of the determined shape of the life he has created for himself, with an implicit comparison to the uncreated potential life he has forsaken. —Northrup Frye, ''Anatomy of Criticism''<ref>Parker, Hershel, and Harrison Hayford. Moby-Dick as Doubloon: Essays and Extracts, 1851-1970. New York: W.W. Norton, 1970.</ref> | ||
* In every primitive tribe we find the shaman in the center of society, and is easy to show that he is either a neurotic or psychotic, or at least that his art is based on the same mechanisms as a neurosis or psychosis. The shaman make both visible and public the systems of symbolic fantasy that are present in the psyche of every adult member of society. They are the leaders in an infantile game and the lightening conductors of common anxiety. They fight the demons so that others can hunt prey and in general fight reality. —Geza Roheim, ''Magic and Schizophrenia'' | * In every primitive tribe we find the shaman in the center of society, and is easy to show that he is either a neurotic or psychotic, or at least that his art is based on the same mechanisms as a neurosis or psychosis. The shaman make both visible and public the systems of symbolic fantasy that are present in the psyche of every adult member of society. They are the leaders in an infantile game and the lightening conductors of common anxiety. They fight the demons so that others can hunt prey and in general fight reality. —Geza Roheim, ''Magic and Schizophrenia''<ref>Róheim, Géza, Warner MUENSTERBERGER, and S. H. POSINSKY. Magic and Schizophrenia ... Edited by Warner Muensterberger with the Assistance of S.H. Posinsky, Etc. Pp. Viii. 230. International Universities Press: New York, 1955. </ref> | ||
== Types of Tragedies == | == Types of Tragedies == | ||