Tragedy:
(from the Greek: τραγῳδία, tragōidia[a]) is a form
of drama based on human suffering that invokes
an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in
audiences.[2][3] While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the
term tragedy often
refers to a specific tradition of drama that
has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilisation.[2][4] That tradition has been multiple and
discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural
identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond
Williams puts it.
Origin
The word "tragedy" appears to have been
used to describe different phenomena at different times. It derives from Classical Greek τραγῳδία, contracted from trag(o)-aoidiā = "goat song"
Aristotle wrote in his
work Poetics that tragedy
is characterised by seriousness and involves a great person who
experiences a reversal of fortune (Peripeteia). Aristotle's definition can include a
change of fortune from bad to good as in the Eumenides, but he says that the change from good to bad as in Oedipus Rex is
preferable because this induces pity and fear within the
spectators. Tragedy results in a catharsis (emotional
cleansing) or healing for the audience through their experience of these
emotions in response to the suffering of the characters in the drama.
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