Tragedy

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.[5]

From its origins in the theatre of ancient Greece2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of Aeschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides; through its singular articulations in the works of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Jean Racine, and Friedrich
Schiller to the more recent naturalistic tragedy of August Strindberg; Samuel Beckett's modernist meditations on death, loss and
suffering; Müller's postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon; and Joshua Oppenheimer's incorporation of tragic pathos in his
nonfiction film, The Act of Killing (2012), tragedy has remained an important site of cultural experimentation, negotiation, struggle,
and change.[6][7] A long line of philosophers—which includes Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, Hegel,
Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin,[8] Camus, Lacan, and Deleuze[9]—have analysed, speculated upon, and
criticised the genre.[10][11][12]

In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in
general (where the tragic divides against epic and lyric) or at the scale of the drama (where tragedy is opposed to comedy). In the
modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre.[12][13][14] Drama, in the
narrow sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-generic deterritorialisation from the
mid-19th century onwards. Both Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal define their epic theatre projects (non-Aristotelian drama and
Theatre of the Oppressed, respectively) against models of tragedy. Taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic
[7]
functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation.

Contents
Origin
Greek
Roman
Renaissance
Influence of Greek and Roman
Britain
Opera
Neo-classical
Bourgeois
Modern development
Theories
Aristotle
Hegel
Similar dramatic forms in world theatre
Ancient Indian drama
See also
Notes
References
 Sources
External links

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", which comes from tragos = "he-goat" and aeidein = "to sing"
(cf. "ode"). Scholars suspect this may be traced to a time when a goat was either the
prize[15] in a competition of choral dancing or was that around which a chorus
danced prior to the animal's ritual sacrifice.[16] In another view on the etymology,
Athenaeus of Naucratis(2nd–3rd century CE) says that the original form of the word
was trygodia from trygos (grape harvest) and ode (song), because those events were
first introduced during grape harvest.[17]
Aristotle's Tragic Plot Structure
Writing in 335 BCE (long after the Golden Age of 5th-century Athenian tragedy),
Aristotle provides the earliest-surviving explanation for the origin of the dramatic art
form in his Poetics, in which he argues that tragedy developed from the improvisations of the leader of choral dithyrambs (hymns
sung and danced in praise ofDionysos, the god of wine and fertility):[16]

Anyway, arising from an improvisatory beginning (both tragedy and comedy—tragedy from the leaders of the
dithyramb, and comedy from the leaders of the phallic processions which even now continue as a custom in many of
our cities), [tragedy] grew little by little, as [the poets] developed whatever [new part] of it had appeared; and, passing
through many changes, tragedy came to a halt, since it had attained its own nature.

— Poetics IV, 1449a 10–15[18]

In the same work, Aristotle attempts to provide a scholastic definition of what tragedy is:

Tragedy is, then, an enactment of a deed that is important and complete, and of [a certain] magnitude, by means of
language enriched [with ornaments], each used separately in the different parts [of the play]: it is enacted, not
[merely] recited, and through pity and fear it effects relief (catharsis) to such [and similar] emotions.

— Poetics, VI 1449b 2–3[19]

There is some dissent to the dithyrambic origins of tragedy, mostly based on the differences between the shapes of their choruses and
styles of dancing. A common descent from pre-Hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested. Friedrich Nietzsche discussed
the origins of Greek tragedy in his early book The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Here, he suggests the name originates in the use of a
chorus of goat-like satyrs in the original dithyrambs from which the tragic genre developed.

Scott Scullion writes:

There is abundant evidence for tragoidia understood as "song for the prize goat". The best-known evidence is Horace,
Ars poetica 220-24 ("he who with a tragic song competed for a mere goat"); the earliest is the Parian Marble, a
chronicle inscribed about 264/63 BCE, which records, under a date between 538 and 528 BCE: "Thespis is the poet ...
first produced ... and as prize was established the billy goat" (FrGHist 239A, epoch 43); the clearest is Eustathius
[20]
1769.45: "They called those competing tragedians, clearly because of the song over the billy goat"...

Greek
Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that
formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state.[21][22][23][24][25][26]
Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th
century BCE (from the end of which it began to spread throughout the Greek world),
and continued to be popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic period.[27][28][29] No
tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were
performed in the 5th century have survived.[30][31][b] We have complete texts extant by
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[30][c]

Athenian tragedies were performed in late March/early April at an annual state religious
festival in honor of Dionysus. The presentations took the form of a contest between
three playwrights, who presented their works on three successive days. Each playwright
Mask of Dionysus. Greek, Myrina,
offered a tetralogy consisting of three tragedies and a concluding comic piece called a
2nd century BCE.
satyr play.[33] The four plays sometimes featured linked stories. Only one complete
trilogy of tragedies has survived, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. The Greek theatre was in
the open air, on the side of a hill, and performances of a trilogy and satyr play probably lasted most of the day. Performances were
apparently open to all citizens, including women, but evidence is scant. The theatre of Dionysus at Athens probably held around
12,000 people.[34]

All of the choral parts were sung (to the accompaniment of anaulos) and some of the actors' answers to the chorus were sung as well.
The play as a whole was composed in various verse metres. All actors were male and wore masks. A Greek chorus danced as well as
sang, though no one knows exactly what sorts of steps the chorus performed as it sang. Choral songs in tragedy are often divided into
three sections: strophe ("turning, circling"), antistrophe ("counter
-turning, counter-circling") and epode ("after-song").

Many ancient Greek tragedians employed the ekkyklêma as a theatrical device, which was a platform hidden behind the scene that
could be rolled out to display the aftermath of some event which had happened out of sight of the audience. This event was frequently
a brutal murder of some sort, an act of violence which could not be effectively portrayed visually, but an action of which the other
characters must see the effects in order for it to have meaning and emotional resonance. A prime example of the use of the ekkyklêma
is after the murder of Agamemnon in the first play of Aeschylus' Oresteia, when the king's butchered body is wheeled out in a grand
display for all to see. Variations on the ekkyklêma are used in tragedies and other forms to this day, as writers still find it a useful and
often powerful device for showing the consequences of extreme human actions. Another such device was a crane, the mechane,
which served to hoist a god or goddess on stage when they were supposed to arrive flying. This device gave origin to the phrase
"deus ex machina" ("god out of a machine"), that is, the surprise intervention of an unforeseen external factor that changes the
outcome of an event.

Roman
Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BCE) into several Greek territories between 270–240 BCE, Rome
encountered Greek tragedy.[35] From the later years of the republic and by means of the Roman Empire (27 BCE-476 CE), theatre
spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and even reached England.[36] While Greek tragedy continued to be performed
throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BCE marks the beginning of regular Roman drama.[35][d] Livius Andronicus began to
write Roman tragedies, thus creating some of the first important works of Roman literature.[37] Five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also
began to write tragedies (though he was more appreciated for his comedies).[37] No complete early Roman tragedy survives, though
it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three other early tragic playwrights—Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius and
Lucius Accius.[38]

From the time of the empire, the tragedies of two playwrights survive—one is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic
philosopher Seneca.[39] Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of which are fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek
originals); his Phaedra, for example, was based on Euripides' Hippolytus.[40] Historians do not know who wrote the only extant
example of the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects), Octavia, but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to
Seneca due to his appearance as acharacter in the tragedy.[39]
Seneca's tragedies rework those of all three of the Athenian tragic playwrights whose
work has survived. Probably meant to be recited at elite gatherings, they differ from the
Greek versions in their long declamatory, narrative accounts of action, their obtrusive
moralising, and their bombastic rhetoric. They dwell on detailed accounts of horrible
deeds and contain long reflective soliloquies. Though the gods rarely appear in these
plays, ghosts and witches abound. Senecan tragedies explore ideas of revenge, the occult,
the supernatural, suicide, blood and gore. The Renaissance scholar Julius Caesar Scaliger
(1484–1558), who knew both Latin and Greek, preferred Seneca to Euripides.

Renaissance

Influence of Greek and Roman Scene from the tragedy

Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides.
Classical Greek drama was largely forgotten in Western Europe from the Middle Ages to
Roman fresco in Pompeii.
the beginning of the 16th century. Medieval theatre was dominated by mystery plays,
morality plays, farces and miracle plays. In Italy, the models for tragedy in the later
Middle Ages were Roman, particularly the works of Seneca, interest in which was reawakened by the Paduan Lovato de' Lovati
(1241–1309).[41] His pupil Albertino Mussato (1261–1329), also of Padua, in 1315 wrote the Latin verse tragedy Eccerinis, which
uses the story of the tyrant Ezzelino III da Romano to highlight the danger to Padua posed by Cangrande della Scala of Verona.[42] It
was the first secular tragedy written since Roman times, and may be considered the first Italian tragedy identifiable as a Renaissance
work. The earliest tragedies to employ purely classical themes are the Achilles written before 1390 by Antonio Loschi of Vicenza
(c.1365–1441) and theProgne of the Venetian Gregorio Correr (1409–1464) which dates from 1428–29.[43]

In 1515 Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550) of Vicenza wrote his tragedy Sophonisba in the vernacular that would later be called
Italian. Drawn from Livy's account of Sophonisba, the Carthaginian princess who drank poison to avoid being taken by the Romans,
it adheres closely to classical rules. It was soon followed by the Oreste and Rosmunda of Trissino's friend, the Florentine Giovanni di
Bernardo Rucellai (1475–1525). Both were completed by early 1516 and are based on classical Greek models, Rosmunda on the
Hecuba of Euripides, and Oreste on the Iphigenia in Tauris of the same author; like Sophonisba, they are in Italian and in blank
(unrhymed) hendecasyllables. Another of the first of all modern tragedies is A Castro, by Portuguese poet and playwright António
Ferreira, written around 1550 (but only published in 1587) in polymetric verse (most of it being blank hendecasyllables), dealing with
the murder of Inês de Castro, one of the most dramatic episodes in Portuguese history. Although these three Italian plays are often
cited, separately or together, as being the first regular tragedies in modern times, as well as the earliest substantial works to be written
in blank hendecasyllables, they were apparently preceded by two other works in the vernacular: Pamfila or Filostrato e Panfila
written in 1498 or 1508 byAntonio Cammelli (Antonio da Pistoia); and aSophonisba by Galeotto del Carretto of 1502.[44][45]

From about 1500 printed copies, in the original languages, of the works of Sophocles, Seneca, and Euripides, as well as comedic
writers such as Aristophanes, Terence and Plautus, were available in Europe and the next forty years saw humanists and poets
translating and adapting their tragedies. In the 1540s, the European university setting (and especially, from 1553 on, the Jesuit
colleges) became host to a Neo-Latin theatre (in Latin) written by scholars. The influence of Seneca was particularly strong in its
humanist tragedy. His plays, with their ghosts, lyrical passages and rhetorical oratory, brought a concentration on rhetoric and
language over dramatic action to many humanist tragedies.

The most important sources for French tragic theatre in the Renaissance were the example of Seneca and the precepts of Horace and
Aristotle (and contemporary commentaries by Julius Caesar Scaliger and Lodovico Castelvetro), although plots were taken from
classical authors such asPlutarch, Suetonius, etc., from the Bible, from contemporary events and from short story collections (Italian,
French and Spanish). The Greek tragic authors (Sophocles and Euripides) would become increasingly important as models by the
middle of the 17th century. Important models were also supplied by theSpanish Golden Age playwrights Pedro Calderón de la Barca,
Tirso de Molina and Lope de Vega, many of whose works were translated and adapted for the French stage.
Britain
The common forms are the:

Tragedy of circumstance: people are born into their situations, and do

not choose them; such tragedies explore the consequences of
birthrights, particularly for monarchs
Tragedy of miscalculation: the protagonist's error of judgement has
tragic consequences Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911)
Revenge play King Lear, Cordelia's Farewell
In English, the most famous and most successful tragedies are those of William
Shakespeare and his Elizabethan contemporaries. Shakespeare's tragedies include:

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
A contemporary of Shakespeare,Christopher Marlowe, also wrote examples of tragedy in English, notably:

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Tamburlaine the Great
John Webster (1580?–1635?), also wrote famous plays of the genre:

The Duchess of Malfi

The White Devil

Opera
Contemporary with Shakespeare, an entirely different approach to facilitating the rebirth of tragedy was taken in Italy. Jacopo Peri, in
the preface to his Euridice refers to "the ancient Greeks and Romans (who in the opinion of many sang their staged tragedies
throughout in representing them on stage)."[46] The attempts of Peri and his contemporaries to recreate ancient tragedy gave rise to
the new Italian musical genre of opera. In France, tragic operatic works from the time of Lully to about that of Gluck were not called
opera, but tragédie en musique ("tragedy in music") or some similar name; the tragédie en musique is regarded as a distinct musical
genre.[47] Some later operatic composers have also shared Peri's aims: Richard Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk ("integrated
work of art"), for example, was intended as a return to the ideal of Greek tragedy in which all the arts were blended in service of the
drama.[48] Nietzsche, in his The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was to support Wagner in his claims to be a successor of the ancient
dramatists.

Neo-classical
For much of the 17th century, Pierre Corneille, who made his mark on the world of tragedy with plays like Medée (1635) and Le Cid
(1636), was the most successful writer of French tragedies. Corneille's tragedies were strangely un-tragic (his first version of Le Cid
was even listed as a tragicomedy), for they had happy endings. In his theoretical works on theatre, Corneille redefined both comedy
and tragedy around the following suppositions:

The stage—in both comedy and tragedy—should feature noble characters (this would eliminate many low-
characters, typical of the farce, from Corneille's comedies). Noble characters should not be depicted as vile
(reprehensible actions are generally due to non-noble characters in Corneille's plays).
 Tragedy deals with affairs of the state (wars, dynastic marriages); comedy
deals with love. For a work to be tragic, it need not have a tragic ending.
Although Aristotle says that catharsis (purgation of emotion) should be the
goal of tragedy, this is only an ideal. In conformity with the moral codes of the
period, plays should not show evil being rewarded or nobility being degraded.
Corneille continued to write plays through 1674 (mainly tragedies, but also something he
called "heroic comedies") and many continued to be successes, although the
"irregularities" of his theatrical methods were increasingly criticised (notably by François
Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac) and the success of Jean Racine from the late 1660s signalled
the end of his preeminence.

Jean Racine's tragedies—inspired by Greek myths, Euripides, Sophocles and Seneca—

condensed their plot into a tight set of passionate and duty-bound conflicts between a
small group of noble characters, and concentrated on these characters' double-binds and French actor Talma as Nero in
the geometry of their unfulfilled desires and hatreds. Racine's poetic skill was in the Racine's Britannicus.
representation of pathos and amorous passion (like Phèdre's love for her stepson) and his
impact was such that emotional crisis would be the dominant mode of tragedy to the end
of the century. Racine's two late plays ("Esther" and "Athalie") opened new doors to biblical subject matter and to the use of theatre
in the education of young women. Racine also faced criticism for his irregularities: when his play, Bérénice, was criticised for not
containing any deaths, Racine disputed the conventional view of tragedy
.

For more on French tragedy of the 16th and 17th centuries, see French Renaissance literature and French literature of the 17th
century.

Bourgeois
Bourgeois tragedy (German: Bürgerliches Trauerspiel) is a form that developed in 18th-century Europe. It was a fruit of the
Enlightenment and the emergence of the bourgeois class and its ideals. It is characterised by the fact that its protagonists are ordinary
citizens. The first true bourgeois tragedy was an English play, George Lillo's The London Merchant; or, the History of George
Barnwell, which was first performed in 1731. Usually, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's play Miss Sara Sampson, which was first
produced in 1755, is said to be the earliestBürgerliches Trauerspiel in Germany.

Modern development
In modernist literature, the definition of tragedy has become less precise. The most fundamental change has been the rejection of
Aristotle's dictum that true tragedy can only depict those with power and high status. Arthur Miller's essay "Tragedy and the
Common Man" (1949) argues that tragedy may also depict ordinary people in domestic surroundings.[49] British playwright Howard
Barker has argued strenuously for the rebirth of tragedy in the contemporary theatre, most notably in his volume Arguments for a
Theatre. "You emerge from tragedy equipped against lies. After the musical, you're anybody's fool," he insists.[50] Critics such as
George Steiner have even been prepared to argue that tragedy may no longer exist in comparison with its former manifestations in
classical antiquity. In The Death of Tragedy (1961) George Steiner outlined the characteristics of Greek tragedy and the traditions that
developed from that period. In the Foreword (1980) to a new edition of his book Steiner concluded that ‘the dramas of Shakespeare
are not a renascence of or a humanistic variant of the absolute tragic model. They are, rather, a rejection of this model in the light of
tragi-comic and “realistic” criteria.’ In part, this feature of Shakespeare’s mind is explained by his bent of mind or imagination which
was ‘so encompassing, so receptive to the plurality of diverse orders of experience.’ When compared to the drama of Greek antiquity
and French classicism Shakespeare’s forms are ‘richer but hybrid'.[51]

Theories

Aristotle
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.

According to Aristotle, "the structure of the best tragedy should not be simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing
fear and pity—for that is peculiar to this form of art."[52] This reversal of fortune must be caused by the tragic hero's hamartia, which
is often translated as either a character flaw, or as a mistake (since the original Greek etymology traces back to hamartanein, a
sporting term that refers to an archer or spear-thrower missing his target).[53] According to Aristotle, "The misfortune is brought
about not by [general] vice or depravity, but by some [particular] error or frailty."[54] The reversal is the inevitable but unforeseen
result of some action taken by the hero. It is also a misconception that this reversal can be brought about by a higher power (e.g. the
law, the gods, fate, or society), but if a character’s downfall is brought about by an external cause, Aristotle describes this as a
misadventure and not a tragedy.[55]

In addition, the tragic hero may achieve some revelation or recognition (anagnorisis--"knowing again" or "knowing back" or
"knowing throughout") about human fate, destiny, and the will of the gods. Aristotle terms this sort of recognition "a change from
ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate."

In Poetics, Aristotle gave the following definition inancient Greek of the word "tragedy" (τραγῳδία):[56]

"Ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν
τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι᾽ ἀπαγγελίας, δι᾽ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν."

which means Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an
ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by
actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.

Common usage of tragedy refers to any story with a sad ending, whereas to be an Aristotelian tragedy the story must fit the set of
requirements as laid out by Poetics. By this definition social drama cannot be tragic because the hero in it is a victim of circumstance
and incidents that depend upon the society in which he lives and not upon the inner compulsions — psychological or religious —
which determine his progress towards self-knowledge and death.[57] Exactly what constitutes a "tragedy", however, is a frequently
debated matter.

According to Aristotle, there are four species of tragedy:

1. Complex, which involvesPeripety and Discovery

2. Suffering, tragedies of such nature can be seenin the Greek mythological stories of Ajaxes and Ixions

3. Character, a tragedy of moral or ethical character. Tragedies of this nature can be found in Phthiotides andPeleus

4. Spectacle, that of a horror-like theme. Examples of this nature are Phorcides and Prometheus

Hegel
G.W.F. Hegel, the German philosopher most famous for his dialectical approach to epistemology and history, also applied such a
methodology to his theory of tragedy. In his essay "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," A.C. Bradley first introduced the English-speaking
world to Hegel's theory, which Bradley called the "tragic collision", and contrasted against the Aristotelian notions of the "tragic
hero" and his or her "hamartia" in subsequent analyses of the Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy and of Sophocles' Antigone.[58] Hegel
himself, however, in his seminal "The Phenomenology of Spirit" argues for a more complicated theory of tragedy, with two
complementary branches which, though driven by a single dialectical principle, differentiate Greek tragedy from that which follows
Shakespeare. His later lectures formulate such a theory of tragedy as a conflict of ethical forces, represented by characters, in ancient
Greek tragedy, but in Shakespearean tragedy the conflict is rendered as one of subject and object, of individual personality which
must manifest self-destructive passions because only such passions are strong enough to defend the individual from a hostile and
capricious external world:

The heroes of ancient classical tragedy encounter situations in which, if they firmly decide in favor of the one ethical
pathos that alone suits their finished character, they must necessarily come into conflict with the equally
[gleichberechtigt] justified ethical power that confronts them. Modern characters, on the other hand, stand in a wealth
of more accidental circumstances, within which one could act this way or that, so that the conflict is, though
occasioned by external preconditions, still essentially grounded in the character. The new individuals, in their
passions, obey their own nature... simply because they are what they are. Greek heroes also act in accordance with
individuality, but in ancient tragedy such individuality is necessarily... a self-contained ethical pathos... In modern
tragedy, however, the character in its peculiarity decides in accordance with subjective desires... such that congruity
...[59]
of character with outward ethical aim no longer constitutes an essential basis of tragic beauty

Hegel's comments on a particular play may better elucidate his theory: "Viewed externally, Hamlet's death may be seen to have been
brought about accidentally... but in Hamlet's soul, we understand that death has lurked from the beginning: the sandbank of finitude
cannot suffice his sorrow and tenderness, such grief and nausea at all conditions of life... we feel he is a man whom inner disgust has
[60]
almost consumed well before death comes upon him from outside."

Similar dramatic forms in world theatre

Ancient Indian drama

The writer Bharata Muni, in his work on dramatic theory A Treatise on Theatre (Sanskrit: Nātyaśāstra, ना य शा , c. 200 BCE –
200 CE),[61] identified several rasas (such as pity, anger, disgust and terror) in the emotional responses of audiences for the Sanskrit
drama of ancient India. The text also suggests the notion of musical modes or jatis which are the origin of the notion of the modern
melodic structures known as ragas. Their role in invoking emotions are emphasised; thus compositions emphasising the notes
gandhara or rishabha are said to provoke "sadness" or "pathos" (karuna rasa) whereas rishabha evokes heroism (vira rasa). Jatis are
elaborated in greater detail in the textDattilam, composed around the same time as theTreatise.

The celebrated ancientIndian epic, Mahabharata, can also be related to tragedy in some ways. According toHermann Oldenberg, the
original epic once carried an immense "tragic force".[62] It was common in Sanskrit drama to adapt episodes from the Mahabharata
into dramatic form.

See also
Classicism
Tragédies en musique
She-tragedy

Notes
1. Middle English tragedie < Middle French tragedie < Latin tragoedia < Ancient Greek: τραγῳδία, tragōidia[1]
2. We have seven by Aeschylus, seven by Sophocles, and eighteen by Euripides. In addition, we also have the
Cyclops, a satyr play by Euripides. Some critics since the 17th century have argued that one of the tragedies that the
classical tradition gives as Euripides'—Rhesus—is a 4th-century play by an unknown author; modern scholarship
[32] This uncertainty accounts for Brockett
agrees with the classical authorities and ascribes the play to Euripides.
and Hildy's figure of 31 tragedies.
3. The theory that Prometheus Bound was not written by Aeschylus adds a fourth, anonymous playwright to those
whose work survives.
 4. For more information on the ancient Roman dramatists, seethe articles categorised under "Ancient Roman
dramatists and playwrights" in Wikipedia.

References
1. Klein, E (1967), "Tragedy", A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language
, II L–Z, Elsevier,
p. 1637
2. Banham 1998, p. 1118.
3. Nietzsche 1999, p. 21, §2: ‘two-fold mood[…] the strange mixture and duality in the af fects of the Dionysiac
enthusiasts, that phenomenon whereby pain awakens pleasure while rejoicing wrings cries of agony from the breast.
From highest joy there comes a cry of horror or a yearning lament at some irredeemable loss. In those Greek
festivals there erupts what one might call asentimental tendency in nature, as if it had cause to sigh over its
dismemberment into individuals’.
4. Williams 1966, pp. 14–16.
5. Williams 1966, p. 16.
6. Williams 1966, pp. 13–84.
7. Taxidou 2004, pp. 193–209.
8. Benjamin 1998.
9. Deleuze & Guattari 1972.
10. Felski 2008, p. 1.
11. Dukore 1974: primary material.
12. Carlson 1993: analysis.
13. Pfister 1977.
14. Elam 1980.
15. See Horace, Epistulae, II, 3, 220: "Carmino qui tragico vilem certavit ob hircum".
16. Brockett & Hildy 2003, p. 13.
17. of Naucratis, Athenaeus,The deipnosophists (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Literature/Literature-idx?type=tur
n&entity=Literature.AthV1.p0071&id=Literature.AthV1&isize=M&pview=hide%20) , Wisc
18. Janko 1987, p. 6.
19. Aristotle, Poetics, section 1449b(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.005
6%3Asection%3D1449b), Tufts
20. Scott Scullion: "Tragedy and Religion: The Problem of Origins", in Gregory (ed.), A Companion to Greek rTagedy,
2008, p. 29 (https://books.google.com/books?id=AdTuNrx6z4oC&q=%22There+is+abundant+ancient+evidence%22
#v=snippet&q=%22There%20is%20abundant%20ancient%20evidence%22&f=false)
21. Brown 1998, p. 441.
22. Cartledge 1997, pp. 3–5.
23. Goldhill 1997, p. 54.
24. Ley 2007, p. 206.
25. Styan 2000, p. 140.
26. Taxidou 2004, p. 104: “most scholars now call 'Greek' tragedy 'Athenian' tragedy
, which is historically correct”.
27. Brockett & Hildy 2003, pp. 32–3.
28. Brown 1998, p. 444.
29. Cartledge 1997, pp. 3–5, 33: [althoughAthenians of the 4th century judgedAeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides "as
the nonpareils of the genre, and regularly honored their plays with revivals, tragedy itself was not merely a 5th-
century phenomenon, the product of a short-livedgolden age. If not attaining the quality and stature of the fifth-
century 'classics', original tragedies nonetheless continued to be written and produced and competed with in large
numbers throughout the remaining life of thedemocracy—and beyond it".
30. Brockett & Hildy 2003, p. 15.
31. Kovacs 2005, p. 379.
32. Walton 1997, pp. viii, xix.
33. Lucas 1954, p. 7.
34. Ley 2007, p. 33–34.
35. Brockett & Hildy 2003, p. 43.
36. Brockett & Hildy 2003, pp. 36, 47.
37. Brockett & Hildy 2003, p. 47.
38. Brockett & Hildy 2003, p. 49.
39. Brockett & Hildy 2003, pp. 50.
40. Brockett & Hildy 2003, pp. 49–50.
41. "Lovati, Lovato de'" (http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/lovato-de-lovati/), Treccani: Enciclopedie on line(in Italian).
Accessed March 2013.
42. "Mussato, Albertino" (http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/albertino-mussato//), Treccani: Enciclopedie on line(in
Italian). Accessed March 2013.
43. "Drama", Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition, Vol. VIII, p. 503
44. Henry Hallam (1837) Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(https://books.google.com/books?id=M8JMAAAAcAAJ) . Paris: Baudry's European Library, p. 212.
45. "Del Carretto, Galeotto, dei marchesi di Savona"(http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/del-carretto-galeotto-dei-marche
si-di-savona/), Treccani: Enciclopedie on line(in Italian). Accessed March 2013.
46. Headington, Westbrook & Barfoot 1991, p. 22.
47. Graham Sadler, "Tragédie en musique" (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/44040),
Grove Music Online (subscription required). Accessed March 2013
48. Headington, Westbrook & Barfoot 1991, p. 178.
49. Miller 1949, p. 894.
50. Barker 1989, p. 13.
51. George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy [1961] (Oxford University Press, 1980; Y ale University Press, 1996), p. xiii.
See also George Steiner, ‘ “Tragedy.” Reconsidered.’ New Literary History 35:1 (Winter 2004), pp. 1-15
52. Aristotle. Poetics, Trans. W.H. Fyfe. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1932. Section 1452b
53. Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg. Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992. Page 178
54. Poetics, Aristotle
55. Aristotle, Poetics. Section 1135b
56. Aristotle, Poetics, 1449b
57. Chiari, J. Landmarks of Contemporary Drama. London: Jenkins, 1965. Page 41.
58. Bradley 2007, pp. 114–56.
59. Hegel 1927, pp. 567–8.
60. Hegel 1927, p. 572.
61. Banham 1998, p. 517.
62. Oldenberg, Hermann (1922), Das Mahabharata, Göttingen

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External links
Tragedy on In Our Time at the BBC.
Taplin, Oliver; Billings, Joshua."What is Tragedy?" (podcast). UK: Oxford University..
Aristotle. "Poetics" (online ed.). Tufts..

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