| The word '''tragedy''' originates in Greek as ''tragōidiā'' (Classical Greek τραγῳδία) contracted from ''trag(o)-aoidiā'' = "goat song" from ''tragos'' = "goat" and ''aeidein'' = "to sing". This dates back to a time when [[religion]] and [[theatre]] were more or less intertwined in early [[ritual]] events. Goats were traditionally sacrificed, and as a precursor, the Greek Chorus would sing a song of sacrifice-- a "Goat Song". This may also refer to the horse or goat costumes worn by actors who played the [[satyr]]s in early dramatizations of [[myth]]ological stories, or a goat being presented as a prize at a song contest and in both cases the reference would have been the respect for [[Dionysus]]. | | The word '''tragedy''' originates in Greek as ''tragōidiā'' (Classical Greek τραγῳδία) contracted from ''trag(o)-aoidiā'' = "goat song" from ''tragos'' = "goat" and ''aeidein'' = "to sing". This dates back to a time when [[religion]] and [[theatre]] were more or less intertwined in early [[ritual]] events. Goats were traditionally sacrificed, and as a precursor, the Greek Chorus would sing a song of sacrifice-- a "Goat Song". This may also refer to the horse or goat costumes worn by actors who played the [[satyr]]s in early dramatizations of [[myth]]ological stories, or a goat being presented as a prize at a song contest and in both cases the reference would have been the respect for [[Dionysus]]. |
| Tragedy (fr. Greek τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', "goat-song") is a form of [[The arts|art]] based on human [[suffering]] that offers its [[audience]] [[pleasure]]. In his speculative work on the origins of Athenean tragedy, ''The Birth of Tragedy'' (1872), Nietzsche writes of this "two-fold mood": "the strange mixture and [[duality]] in the affects of the Dionysiac enthusiasts, that [[phenomenon]] whereby pain awakens pleasure while rejoicing wrings cries of agony from the breast. From highest joy there comes a cry of horror or a yearning lament at some irredeemable loss. In those Greek festivals there erupts what one might call a sentimental tendency in [[nature]], as if it had cause to sigh over its dismemberment into [[individual]]s" | | Tragedy (fr. Greek τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', "goat-song") is a form of [[The arts|art]] based on human [[suffering]] that offers its [[audience]] [[pleasure]]. In his speculative work on the origins of Athenean tragedy, ''The Birth of Tragedy'' (1872), Nietzsche writes of this "two-fold mood": "the strange mixture and [[duality]] in the affects of the Dionysiac enthusiasts, that [[phenomenon]] whereby pain awakens pleasure while rejoicing wrings cries of agony from the breast. From highest joy there comes a cry of horror or a yearning lament at some irredeemable loss. In those Greek festivals there erupts what one might call a sentimental tendency in [[nature]], as if it had cause to sigh over its dismemberment into [[individual]]s" |
| [[Walter Benjamin]]'s major work on tragic form is ''The Origin of German Tragic Drama'' (1928). [[Gilles Deleuze]] develops his theory of tragic representation in his collaboration with [[Félix Guattari]], ''Anti-Œdipus'' (1972). In the wake of Aristotle's ''[[Poetics]]'' (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make [[genre]] distinctions, whether at the scale of [[poetry]] in general, where the tragic divides against [[epic]] and [[lyric]], or at the scale of the drama, where tragedy is opposed to [[comedy]]. In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, [[melodrama]], the [[tragicomic]] and [[epic theatre]]. [[Drama]], in the narrow sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-[[Genre|generic]] deterritorialization from the mid-19th century onwards. Both [[Bertolt Brecht]] and Augusto Boal define their [[epic theatre]] projects ([[Non-Aristotelian drama]] and [[Theatre of the Oppressed]] respectively) against models of tragedy. Taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy] | | [[Walter Benjamin]]'s major work on tragic form is ''The Origin of German Tragic Drama'' (1928). [[Gilles Deleuze]] develops his theory of tragic representation in his collaboration with [[Félix Guattari]], ''Anti-Œdipus'' (1972). In the wake of Aristotle's ''[[Poetics]]'' (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make [[genre]] distinctions, whether at the scale of [[poetry]] in general, where the tragic divides against [[epic]] and [[lyric]], or at the scale of the drama, where tragedy is opposed to [[comedy]]. In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, [[melodrama]], the [[tragicomic]] and [[epic theatre]]. [[Drama]], in the narrow sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-[[Genre|generic]] deterritorialization from the mid-19th century onwards. Both [[Bertolt Brecht]] and Augusto Boal define their [[epic theatre]] projects ([[Non-Aristotelian drama]] and [[Theatre of the Oppressed]] respectively) against models of tragedy. Taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy] |