What is Tragedy contd Williams in Modern Tragedy

What is Tragedy (cont’d) Williams in Modern Tragedy

What is Tragedy?

Ridyear: Certainly his death was a tragedy. Holt: I agree, but I wonder if Clark agrees. Clark: Of course I agree. I had a very great respect for him. Holt: But that isn’t what I was asking. I remember hearing you say once, with such conviction that you almost convinced me, that an accident is not a tragedy. And this death was an accident.

https: //youtu. be/Afnv. Fnzs 91 s? t=17 s

Tragedy? • • Challenger Disaster (28 -Jan, 1986) “But that isn’t what I was asking. I remember hearing you say once, with such conviction that you almost convinced me, that an accident is not a tragedy. And this death was an accident” Raymond Williams, “A Dialogue on Tragedy, ” New Left Review (1962) p. 23 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 5

Agenda • Theory, Art, Life • Raymond Williams on “Tragic Ideas” • Tragedy as Universal? • What do You Think? 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 6

Raymond Williams • • • 1921– 1988 British academic Leftist critic, writer, cultural historian 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 7

General Considerations • • Modern Tragedy as reconnecting. . . “Tragic Ideas” (ch 1) as disjunctures between… 26 -oct-17 • • • Art Theory Life williams modern tragedy 8

“The Tradition” Is… • Tradition as social construction • As not simply reception • (Dis)continuity 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 9

Ancient, Medieval Tragedy Ancient Medieval • • • “A shared and indeed collective experience” 26 -oct-17 Individual suffering Reversal as surrender to fortune williams modern tragedy 10

Renaissance, Neo-Classical Renaissance Neo-Classical (16 th-cent. French) • • Reversal of moral character • • Matters of style • Aristocratic comportment King to tyrant Preoccupation with “methods and effects” 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 11

Lessing and Tradition • • • Neo-classicism as false… Shakespeare as true heir of the Greeks “Bourgeois tragedy” as heir of Shakespeare 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 12

Hegel’s Dialectic • • • Thesis Antithesis Synthesis 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 13

Schopenhauer & Nietzsche Schopenhauer Nietzsche • • Existential pessimism Nihilistic optimism • Dionysian-Apollonian synthesis 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 14

Tragedy and Contemporary Ideas • • • “The destruction of the hero” “Irreparable action” “The emphasis of evil” 26 -oct-17 williams modern tragedy 15

Tragedy as Universal? What do You Think?

TRAGIC ESSENCE — Does the reading seem to convey the idea that there's a thing, "tragedy, " that remains, if not wholly unvarying, then at least stable enough to be recognizable as such across different times and places? What do you think? Even if you're not hugely familiar with a host of dramatic-literary traditions (few of us are!), do you tend to agree with the reading on this point. . And whether you do or don't, what is tragedy, anyway?