Definition: what is "tragedy"

• "Tragedy": an ancient Greek term, meaning "goat-song": thus to speak of "tragedy" is originally to speak of the dramas that come down from Greece
• Since these dramas include plays with happy endings, and without heroes, the definition must go beyond some of the standard views of what "tragedy" is about
• All the plays do however contain real pathos: thus suffering on stage seems to be what is most quintessential about Greek Tragedy

Question: why is pathos pleasurable when we see it on stage?

• First and foremost: the pleasurable reaction to the experience of tragic suffering on the stage is highly complex (more so than, surprisingly, theorists seem to allow!)
• I propose therefore pursuing an eclectic approach, taking elements from several theorists, as preferable to arguing on the basis of any one theoretical stance
• Essential is that tragedy is a representation (Plato)
• Essential also is that tragedy is the representation of something LIKE US but MORE (~Aristotle)
• more noble, more passionate: these are emotions we feel, but also the emotions are more extreme than those we routinely -- or perhaps ever -- encounter
• more good or evil or both (different from Aristotle) but with some sort of serious, potentially ennobling purpose
• cf. the film "Ice Storm": nothing even potentially ennobling about this sordid tale of 14-year-olds sleeping with one another
• Essential then is that tragedy provides a way for us to experience these more extreme emotions (cf. Aristotlean catharsis)
• not a release, perhaps a way of developing control, but in any case a working through
• a controled fantasy allows us to explore, emotionally, the possibilities
• Essential also are the symbolic elements of tragedy
• kinship relationships (Freud, etc.)
• mythic symbolism (cf. Jung, etc.)
• (for more on this, take the myth class!)
• Essential also is the notion that these extreme passions (infidelity, murder, etc.) are common to the human experience: this happens to others too
• But NOT simply the reaction of "I'm glad it's not me" (more complex than that: hardly a reasonable summation of our reaction to Oedipus to say, "Gee, I'm glad I didn't sleep with my mother and poke out my eyes!)
• And NOT simply projection into the character with release at the end with the dramatic illusion is dispelled (for our projection into these formal plays with their bizarre mythic characters is very far from the sort of immersion more typical of our experience of film)
• Rather, a complex sense of thiasos (Nietzsche)
• a "oneness" with the characters, but also with the audience
• the pleasure, like most pleasures, is a shared emotion, or at least enhanced by the act of sharing it
• a dual sharing:
• we share this emotion, projectively, with the character
• but we also share this emotion we are actually having with others in the audience
• Essential, finally, is however also the "overlay" however that these emotions occur within the pleasant, indeed uplifting controlled structure of the tragic art, which comprises both the overarching structure of the play and the detailed charm of the poetic verses (Nietzsche)
• the charming allure of poetry, with its rhythms and indeed (for tragic choruses) melodies and even the spectacle of dance (Plato)