That he had made his life so intolerable that he decided to end it, isn't a
tragedy. Simply a choice.
At the same time, there are sensible essays: for example, by Raphael Lyne on neoclassical
tragedy, and useful insights by Jennifer Wallace on
tragedy and exile.
Where's the
tragedy? A
tragedy is the fate of Tiffany Wright, the little girl whose mum let her starve to death.
In recent days "
tragedy" is being rightly rethought.
But 95-year-old Millvina Dean, the only living survivor of the 1912 sinking, hit out at the BBC bosses for making entertainment out of
tragedy.
For me, Greek language found its most stunning form in Greek
tragedy. The supple and dense language of the scenes interspersed with the most beautiful choral lyrics became an early obsession, fuelled by reading Aeschylus and Sophocles in the most traditional of ways.
One can find the precise, if understated, point at which this or that
tragedy could have been avoided and who was at fault.
Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek
Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel.
This action has since been described as a
tragedy.
Tragedy?
It says, "Undergiving is a huge
tragedy. Underliving is a tragic waste, but undergiving is a huge
tragedy." Sooner or later Christian stewardship gets down to money, doesn't it?
Finally, for the purposes of this treatment, I will define
tragedy as an event, which results in the loss (and sometimes violent seizure) of previously enjoyed options of status, authority and liberty for an individual and/or community.
The same basic conditions may be treated in quite different ways, for example as farce or
tragedy, as Woody Allen's 'Melinda and Melinda' recently showed: farce is the
tragedy that happens to outsiders;
tragedy is the farce that happens to you.
A woman who lost her cousin in the
tragedy lamented, "We had a miracle and it was taken from us."
