ARISTOTELIAN/CLASSIC TRAGEDY
- · An imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions…Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts that determine quality: plot, characters, diction, thought, spectacle, and melody.
MEDIEVAL TRAGEDY
- · Fall of man from a high station to a low station.
- · Unlike Greek tragedy, medieval tragedy relies on “fortune” rather than an error to be the hero’s downfall.
RENAISSANCE TRAGEDY
- · Blends comedy and tragedy.
- · Use of “sympathetic villains”.
MODERN TRAGEDY
- · It is a misconception that tragedy must involve a pessimistic outlook; rather, tragedy is defined as having a final result of reinforcement of an onlooker’s brightest opinions of human nature.
- There must exist a possibility of victory.
These are all good points and aspects of various definitions of tragedy, but they are cut down and compressed so much that they are sometimes hard to understand. This post could benefit from examples or even just an extra sentence or two for a few bullet points.
ReplyDeleteAgain, great organization! It is extremely helpful to OCD people like myself to have everything neatly laid out and bullet pointed, so thanks for that. I definitely would have liked to see some examples of each type of tragedy so the person studying this information can understand the definitions completely. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you included tragedy as a topic--few people thought to, so far (of those I've already looked at), and yet it's so important. Under "Modern," though, you really ought to have subcategories for Miller and Nietzsche.
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