Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction

What do we mean by ''''tragedy'''' in present-day usage? When we turn on the news, does a report of the latest atrocity have any connection with the masterpieces of Sophocles, Shakespeare and Racine? What has tragedy been made to mean by dramatists, story-tellers, critics, philosophers, politicians and journalists over the last two and a half millennia? Why do we still read, re-write, and stage these old plays?This book argues for the continuities between ''''then'''' and ''''now''''. Addressing questions about belief, blame, mourning, revenge, pain, witnessing, timing and ending, Adrian Poole demonstrates the age-old significance of our attempts to make sense of terrible suffering.

[...]... like a goat, said Francesco da Buti in 1395, who has a prince-like look in the front (horns and beard) but a rear end that is filthy and naked’, and Giovanni da Serravalle a few years later, going one better: ‘for a goat has a beautiful aspect, but when it passes it gives off a mighty stink from its tailquarters’ Tragedy the subject of tragedy has really taken hold ‘Tragedy’ has not lost all meaning... years many books have announced the result of their inquiries under the rubric of tragedy: The Tragedy of Afghanistan, Africa, Algeria, Austria, Cambodia, Central Europe, Chile, Europe, Greece, Kashmir, Lebanon, Nazi Germany, Palestine, Paraguay, Russia, and Yugoslavia Not to mention Iraq By the time you read this, there will have been more such The lives of historical characters have also attracted... tragedy have any real connection with those of the ancient Greeks, with whom it originated two and half thousand years ago as the description of a particular kind of drama? How did tragedy migrate from the Greeks to Shakespeare and Racine, from drama to other art forms, from fiction to real events? What needs has the idea of tragedy served, and to what use and abuse has it been put? This Very Short Introduction. .. in drama or narrative Christian writers were ready to get in on this act Both the martyrdom of St Romanus and the incarnation of Christ were called ‘great tragedies’ And we can find more secular examples again in the Middle Ages, such as the drowning in 1120 of Prince William, grandson of the Conqueror, and the Peasants’ Revolt near the end of the 14th century ‘All the world’s a stage’, as Shakespeare’s... the sea Who cares? No one inside the painting the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on When Shakespeare’s Octavius Caesar receives news of his rival Mark Antony’s death, his first reaction... inadequacy of providential interpretation that draws history towards tragedy, as it does in Shakespeare’s drama and the great panoramic 19th-century novels such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1863–9) Aristotle versus Plato But tragedy, Aristotle famously affirms, is ‘both more philosophical and more serious than history’ This is, he claims, because ‘poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars’,... musicality W H Auden remarks that you can no more hope to appreciate Racine’s Phèdre without having heard a great performance than you can Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde The great 19th-century French actress Rachel, a legendary Phèdre, had the vocal range of an opera singer As for the complexity of thought and feeling embodied in the most memorable monologues – by Hamlet and Macbeth, by the emperor Auguste... Jaques famously has it (As You Like It, II vii 139) The idea that the world is a theatre and Fortune its dramatist can be traced back a long way Famous historical figures whose stories could be interpreted in the Middle Ages as tragedy included Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Croesus These are the last three examples cited by Chaucer’s Monk in his tale of the Fall of Great Men (which begins with the rather... to make general statements, while those of history are particular’ That is to say, history simply tells us what actually happened, but poetry aims at a higher and broader kind of truth It represents what could or would happen, according to the criteria of probability or 16 In this respect, as in others, Aristotle is defending tragedy against the charges made against it, and indeed all poetry, by Plato... Archaeological Museum, Athens/akg-images/Nimatallah Louvre, Paris/Photos12.com/ Oasis 15 10 Titian, The Flaying of Marsyas, c 1570–75 67 James Gillray, A Parody of Macbeth’s Soliloquy at Covent Garden Theatre’, 1809 Covent Garden Opera House Collection 71 Covent Garden Opera House Collection, London/ www.bridgeman.co.uk 12 François Chauveau, The Death of Britannicus, 1669, from Britannicus by Jean Racine . RIGHTS David DeGrazia ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes ART HISTORY Dana Arnold ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland THE. now: ANARCHISM Colin Ward ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas ANCIENT WARFARE Harry Sidebottom THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair ANIMAL RIGHTS