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Tragedy: Difference between revisions
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== Some Views on Tragedy == | == Some Views on Tragedy == | ||
* A tragedy must not be a | * A tragedy must not be a spectacle of a perfectly good man brought from prosperity to adversity. For this merely shocks us. Nor, of course must it be that of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity; for that is not tragedy at all, but the perversion of tragedy, and revolts the moral sense. Nor again, should it exhibit the downfall of an utter villain: since pity is aroused by undeserved misfortunes, terror by misfortunes befalling men like ourselves. There remains, then, as the only proper subject for tragedy, the spectacle of a man not absolutely or eminently good or wise, who is brought to disaster not by sheer depravity, but by some [[hamartia | error or frailty]]. Lastly, the man must be highly renowned and prosperous — an Oedipus, a Thyestes, or some other illustrious person. —[[Aristotle's Poetics|Aristotle, ''The Poetics'']]<ref>Aristotle, Stephen Halliwell, W. Hamilton Fyfe, D. A. Russell, Doreen Innes, Demetrius, Longinus, and Demetrius. Poetics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1995.</ref> | ||
* First, the hero. The Shakespearean tragic hero, as everyone knows, is an overstater. His individual accent will vary with his personality, but there is always a residue of hyperbole. This, it would seem, is for Shakespeare the authentic tragic music, mark of a world where a man’s reach must always exceed his grasp and everything costs not less than everything.<br />I think most of us believe that tragic drama is in one way or other a record of man’s affair with transcendence. —Maynard Mack, “Tragic Form and the Jacobean Tragedies” (1970)<ref>Heilman, Robert Bechtold. Tragedy and Melodrama: Versions of Experience. Seattle: U of Washington, 1968.</ref> | * First, the hero. The Shakespearean tragic hero, as everyone knows, is an overstater. His individual accent will vary with his personality, but there is always a residue of hyperbole. This, it would seem, is for Shakespeare the authentic tragic music, mark of a world where a man’s reach must always exceed his grasp and everything costs not less than everything.<br />I think most of us believe that tragic drama is in one way or other a record of man’s affair with transcendence. —Maynard Mack, “Tragic Form and the Jacobean Tragedies” (1970)<ref>Heilman, Robert Bechtold. Tragedy and Melodrama: Versions of Experience. Seattle: U of Washington, 1968.</ref> | ||
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* In the sense of having been initiated by the hero himself, the tale always reveals what has been called his “[[hamartia | tragic flaw]],” a failing that is not peculiar to grand or elevated characters. Nor is it necessarily a weakness. The flaw, or crack in the character, is really nothing — and need be nothing — but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status. Only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are “flawless.” Most of us are in that category. —Arthur Miller, “The Tragedy of the Common Man” (1941)<ref>Miller, Arthur, and Robert A. Martin. The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller. New York: Viking, 1941.</ref> | * In the sense of having been initiated by the hero himself, the tale always reveals what has been called his “[[hamartia | tragic flaw]],” a failing that is not peculiar to grand or elevated characters. Nor is it necessarily a weakness. The flaw, or crack in the character, is really nothing — and need be nothing — but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status. Only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are “flawless.” Most of us are in that category. —Arthur Miller, “The Tragedy of the Common Man” (1941)<ref>Miller, Arthur, and Robert A. Martin. The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller. New York: Viking, 1941.</ref> | ||
* Thus the equilibrium of tragedy consists in a balancing of Terror with Pride. On the one hand, we are impelled to withdraw from the | * Thus the equilibrium of tragedy consists in a balancing of Terror with Pride. On the one hand, we are impelled to withdraw from the spectacle, to try to forget the revelation of evil methodized; on the other, we are aroused to withstand destiny, to strive to meet it with the fortitude and the clear eyes of the tragic figure. This feeling of Pride comes into full existence when the hero knows his fate and contemplates it: it is essentially distinct from the [[hubris]] which he may display, but which we cannot share in, before his eyes are opened. —Clifford Leach, “The Implications of Tragedy” (1950)<ref>Leech, Clifford. Shakespeare: The Tragedies; a Collection of Critical Essays. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1965</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> | * 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> | ||