Journal Prompt
This reading summarizes a large number of perspectives, some associated with a given author, others with a particular cultural moment, still others maybe not so clearly anchored to a recognized time, place, or group. What I would like you to do is to reflect on and to discuss the following:
- TRAGIC ESSENCE — Does the reading seem to convey the idea that there's a thing, "tragedy," that remains, if not wholly unvarying, then at least stable enough to be recognizable as such across different times and places?
- For instance, does the reading support the idea that there's something quintessentially tragic about Sophocles' play Oedipus the King, such that one and the same tragic essence can be found in "tragedies" from a variety of traditions: classical French, Elizabethan-English, Japanese No?
- What do you think? Even if you're not hugely familiar with a host of dramatic-literary traditions (few of us are!), do you tend to agree with the reading on this point. . . .
- And whether you do or don't, what is tragedy, anyway?
Text Access
Access the reading via the Brightspace course site > Content
Study Guide Proper
I'm not going to provide a summary of the contents of the reading; I'd like you to try to organize it into a coherent sequence of ideas.
What I can tell you is that Raymond Williams (1921-1988) was a Marxist literary critic and academic in Great Britain (he was Welsh) and an important figure in the New Left.
Socialist ideas do not, however, take center stage in the present reading. What does instead is a fascinating and extremely useful overview of ways of understanding tragedy from antiquity through the twentieth century. Also fascinating is the fact that Williams addresses both the theory and the practice of tragedy. What creators of tragedy do (or don't do!) with tragedy can be a fascinating index to what they and their audiences think of it.