I. A. RichardsFrom Principles of Literary Criticism

Eight Great TragediesENG 4UW Crowell

What is a Tragedy?

• How does Shakespeare often define tragedy through plot and character?

• Are there different forms of tragedy?

• If we must deal with tragedy in life, why do we choose to deal with it in the arts?

The Tragic Experience• “It is essential to recognize

that in the full tragic experience there is no suppression. The mind does not shy away from anything, it does not protect itself with any illusion, it stands uncomforted, unintimidated, alone and self-reliant” (449). Picasso: “The Tragedy”

“You can’t handle the truth!”

• “The test of its success is whether it can face what is before it and respond to it without any of the innumerable subterfuges by which it ordinarily dodges the full development of experience” (449).

• “Suppressions and sublimations alike are devices by which we endeavor to avoid issues which might bewilder us “(449).

• Perhaps we willingly encounter tragedy in the arts as a test of our own emotional abilities; as a practice for real life.

Picasso’s “Guernica”

Fight or Flight?

• “When we succeed we find, as usual, that there is no difficulty; the difficulty came from the suppressions and sublimations” (449).

• Our greatest difficulty lies in our refusal to face the truth and see what is real.

True Tragedy is Rare

• “Because Tragedy is the experience which most invites these subterfuges, it is the greatest and rarest thing in literature” (449).

• It is the test of the mind to determine whether or not we can face the tragedy head-on, without distraction or suppression. Colin Crowell “Portraits”

Levels of Tragedy

• “Tragedy is only possible to a mind which is for the moment agnostic or Manichean. The least touch of any theology which has a compensating Heaven to offer the tragic hero is fatal. That is why Romeo and Juliet is not a Tragedy in the sense in which King Lear is” (450).

• The idea of ‘Heaven’ dissolves the impact of the tragedy because it is promise of redemption that comforts the reader and allows suppression of the tragedy itself.

Pity + Terror

• “It is the relation between the two sets of impulses, Pity and Terror, which gives its specific character to Tragedy, and from that relation the peculiar poise of the Tragic experience springs” (450).

The Black Hole of Tragedy

• “Tragedy is perhaps the most general, all-accepting, all-ordering experience known. It can take anything into its organization, modifying it so that it finds a place” (450).

• As a genre, tragedy itself is fragile; it can so easily be overthrown by distractions. We innately look for parody and humour as an escape!

“I fear I am not in my perfect mind”