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While most [[culture]]s have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific [[tradition]] of [[drama]] that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of [[Western civilization]]. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a [[power]]ful effect of [[cultural identity]] and historical continuity--"the Classical Athens and the Elizabethan era, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as [[Raymond Williams]] puts it. From its obscure origins in the theatres of Athens 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of [[Aeschylus]], [[Sophocles]] and [[Euripides]], through its singular articulations in the works of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], Lope de Vega, Jean Racine, or [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]], to the more recent [[naturalistic]] tragedy of [[August Strindberg|Strindberg]], [[Samuel Beckett|Beckett's]] [[Modernism|modernist]] meditations on death, loss and suffering, or [[Heiner Müller|Müller's]] [[Postmodernism|postmodernist]] reworkings of the tragic [[canon]], tragedy has remained an important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. A long line of philosopher have analysed, speculated upon and criticised the tragic form.  

While most [[culture]]s have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific [[tradition]] of [[drama]] that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of [[Western civilization]]. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a [[power]]ful effect of [[cultural identity]] and historical continuity--"the Classical Athens and the Elizabethan era, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as [[Raymond Williams]] puts it. From its obscure origins in the theatres of Athens 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of [[Aeschylus]], [[Sophocles]] and [[Euripides]], through its singular articulations in the works of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], Lope de Vega, Jean Racine, or [[Friedrich Schiller|Schiller]], to the more recent [[naturalistic]] tragedy of [[August Strindberg|Strindberg]], [[Samuel Beckett|Beckett's]] [[Modernism|modernist]] meditations on death, loss and suffering, or [[Heiner Müller|Müller's]] [[Postmodernism|postmodernist]] reworkings of the tragic [[canon]], tragedy has remained an important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. A long line of philosopher have analysed, speculated upon and criticised the tragic form.  

[[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.

[[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]

[[Category: General Reference]]

[[Category: General Reference]]

[[Category: Languages and Literature]]

[[Category: Languages and Literature]]