Tragedy
The word tragedy comes from the Greek tragoidia, consisting of
two
possible words. The first one is tragos, meaning he-goat. The
ancient Greek tragedy was influenced by the Peloponnesian satyr
play. As the Romans called them, "Satyrs" were fauns--goatlike
creatures--who were famous for being constantly drunk and
chasing
nymphs. The second word is oidia, which comes from the root
oeidein meaning to sing.
In general, tragedy is a description of a fact of life. In our
time, in day to day usage, the word tragedy defines a disastrous
event, a calamity, or a series of terrible events.
In its historical and literary usage, however, the word tragedy
carries a deeper meaning. On one hand, tragedies are those
disasters that happen by chance to the people involved who are
not
able to control the events. On the other hand, they are the
images and stories of man in conflict with himself, his
adversaries, or the world around him. The aim man's tragedy is
to
succeed as a human by gaining meaning, love, understanding, and
wisdom through the ordeals.
During the fifth century Greece and during the seventeenth
century
England and France, tragedy experienced its two most popular
periods.
The origins of Greek tragedy are little known and foggy. One
theory is that tragedy had its roots in the fertility ceremony
of
the God Dionysus, when the plays with the death and rebirth
themes
were put on stage during spring. Of the hundreds and maybe
thousands of plays written for this celebration we have only
thirty-three left today: those of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides. These early playwrights treated tragedy in their own
unique way. Their common denominator was the connection between
men and Gods, heavily emphasizing the role of fate, necessity,
and
the supreme rule of the Gods.
The seventeenth century tragedy honors go to Shakespeare who
wrote
his plays mainly to entertain London audiences. With
Shakespeare,
the hero is usually a famous and kindly figure who falls into
some
kind of a disaster through a flaw in his character. The
Shakespearean tragedy points out to the good that has become
spoiled through mishap. Alongside Shakespeare, Corneille and
Racine in France wrote tragedies during the same era. Unlike
Shakespeare, however, Corneille and Racine's tragedies were
harsh,
high-handed, and simple remakes of the old Greek tragedies where
destiny was the supreme ruler.
During the twentieth century, our understanding of tragedy has
evolved through the unfortunate hero's facing sudden revelations
of the facts of character, of the paths he followed when,
suddenly, he gained consciousness and realization. These heroes
became victims and visionaries even though, once in a while,
they
lost their lives. Bowman's "Death of a traveling Salesman",
Arthur Miller's, Tennessee Williams', Eugene O'Neil's, Joseph
Conrad's and Hemingway's works are some of the examples. Poets
like Robert Penn Warren and Yeats, also employed tragedy in
their
subject matter, because tragedy happens in life.
Tragedy shows itself in the struggle of man against nature, man
against man, man against fate, man against convention, man
against
reason with irreconcilable differences. These struggles usually
move from safety to calamity as the hidden self is revealed. It
is in this revelation, in this movement, that tragedy becomes
attractive. After all, as long as the world stands, the
calamities and disasters in real life that fall upon human
beings--because they are human beings--will be inevitable.
Since we human beings plan to stay human, we are going to
reflect
those events in our art and in our writing. In other words, if
we'll bleed, we'll write about it.