Points to be taken care of while developing a full length essay on tragedy

On Drama and Tragedy

Dionysus was the wine god of Greeks.

Literally a tragedy means a goat song.

Oristeia is a play written by Aeschylus

Troilus is a tragic narrative by Chaucer.

Euripides was an ancient Greek playwright who had a pessimistic view of life.

Hubris means pride or overconfidence.

According to Aristotle three parts of tragedy are prologue, episode and exode

Climax in Shakespeare’s plays is reached in the middle of third act

Falling action is called denouement

The final part of a tragedy is called catastrophe

Five parts of parts of structure of a tragedy are: exposition, complication, climax, denouement and catastrophe

The chief character of tragedy is called protagonist.

Villain of a tragedy is called antagonist

Volpone is a comedy written by Ben Johnson

Seneca was a Roman playwright

Gorbuduce was the first English tragedy written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville

Spanish Tragedy was written by Kyde

Philaster is a tragicomedy written by Beaumont and Fletcher

The Master Builder is a play written by Ibsen

Satire is a predominant element of comedy.

Irony is a predominant element of tragedy.

Natyasastra is called poetics of Sanskrit

Shakuntala by Kalidasa resembles Romeo and Juliet

Tragedy is based on three elemental varieties of human life: fundamental dignity of man; free will of man; control of mysterious powers on human life

Tragedy has its origin in the worship of Dionysus

Serious drama is a serious representation by action and speech of some phase of human life

Development of Tragedy

Sophocles was the first playwright who used proper stage to present his plays.

He decorated stage for different scenes.

He increased the number of characters from two to three in his tragedies.

His characters are human beings as they ought to be.

Antigone by Sophocles is about conflict between duty to family and state.

Sophocles broke the principal of unities of in his play Women of Trachis.

Greek tragedy was religious.

It rose from primitive rituals.

Ennis, Pacuvius and Accius were early roman playwrights.

Virility, dignity and energy are the qualities of roman tragedy.

Seneca is considered the father of revenge tragedy.

Divine Comedia is a long narrative by Dante.

It is called comedy because it ends in Paradise.

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides was great Greek playwright.

First dramatic contenst in Athens was held in 534bc and it was won by Thespis.

Plato condemned drama.

The Persian drama is written by Aeschylus.

Aeschylus introduced second character in his drama.

Antigone is a play written by Sophocles.

Aristophane was a Greek comic poet.

Medea is play written by Euripides.

The main distinction between Sophocles and Euripides is that the former presented human beings as they ought to be whereas the later presented them as they are.

Essentials of Tragedy

Definition of tragicomedy

Tragicomedy is a play in which serious and comic elements are combined throughout the action, either in the mode of double plot or alternating episodes of gravity and humour.

Six Essentials of Tragedy

Action

Plot

Characters

Chorus

Three unities

Diction

Count no man happy till you see his end.

Dionysus was the wine god of Greeks.

Literally a tragedy means a goat song.

Oristeia is a play written by Aeschylus

Troilus is a tragic narrative by Chaucer.

Euripides was an ancient Greek playwright who had a pessimistic view of life.

Hubris means pride or overconfidence.

Plot of a tragedy has three elements; size; structure; soul of tragedy

Structure means beginning, middle and end

According to Aristotle three parts of tragedy are prologue, episode and exode

Climax in Shakespeare’s plays is reached in the middle of third act

Falling action is called denouement

The final part of a tragedy is called catastrophe

Five parts of parts of structure of a tragedy are: exposition, complication, climax, denouement and catastrophe

The chief character of tragedy is called protagonist.

Villain of a tragedy is called antagonist

Volpone is a comedy written by Ben Johnson

Seneca was a Roman playwright

Gorbuduce was the first English tragedy written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville

Spanish Tragedy was written by Kyde

Famous three unities are: unity of time. Unity of place and unity of action

Philaster is a tragicomedy written by Beaumont and Fletcher

The Master Builder is a play written by Ibsen

Satire is a predominant element of comedy.

Irony is a predominant element of tragedy.

Natyasastra is called poetics of Sanskrit

Shakuntala by Kalidasa resembles Romeo and Juliet

Tragedy is based on three elemental varieties of human life: fundamental dignity of man; free will of man; control of mysterious powers on human life

Tragedy has its origin in the worship of Dionysus

Serious drama is a serious representation by action and speech of some phase of human life.

 Tragedy developed in ancient Greece.

Tragedy is born in societies which outgrows its old associations but which is ready to accept the newer state.

Protagonist either tries to resist the emerging order or to initiate the newer order which people are not ready to accept.

More on Tragedy

 The world of tragedy is not identical to the real world.

The world is a happy place or the valley of gloom.

Eternal strife of good and evil.

Tragic world may have a thousand facets.

Tragedy must not leave audience depressed; it must leave them relieved.

Tragedy must arouse among audience feelings of pity and fear.

Fear because they share the failings of the protagonist and pity because they see that the protagonist suffers more than he deserves.

The world is beautiful, painful and strange at the same time.

Tragedy deals with the universal and permanent and leaves transient and particular.