Tragedy
Tragedy names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Tragedy like comedy, had its origin in the festivals held
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
like comedy, had its origin in the festivals held among the ancient Greeks in honor of Bacchus or Dionysus. Comedy took its rise from the jovial songs sung by the comus or procession. Tragedy grew out of the dithyramb, a choral song sung about the altar of Bacchus to celebrate his birth, and, perhaps, his adventures. Arion gave this song a definite shape by writing regular poems and arranging music suited to them. They were called tragedies, that is, tragic songs or goat-songs, probably because the singers wore goatskins to represent satyrs. Another explanation of the name is that a goat was offered on the altar to Bacchus as an appropriate sacrifice to the god of wine since the goat is a destroyer of vines. The next step in the development of Greek tragedy was taken by the rhapsodes. These were wandering minstrels who recited poetry with or without musical accompaniment. The different ballads which go to make up the Iliad and the Odyssey were spread abroad by the rhapsodes. Thespis is given the credit for introducing a representative of these rhapsodes into the chorus or "tragedies" sung at the Dionysian festival, about 535 B. C. The rhapsode addressed his recitations to the leader of the chorus, thus carrying on a sort of dialogue. The chorus stood around the leader on the steps of the Bacchic altar, while the "actor," a rhapsode, stood on a table. This is the real beginning of dramatic tragedy. For the further development of tragedy the reader is referred to the article on DRAMA. The first English tragedy was Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex by Thomas Sackville. This production was after the form of classical tragedy. It lacks in spirit, feeling, and imagination, but is of interest as the first English tragedy. Welsh says: Thenceforward the drama makes rapid proggress, passing from youth to a splendid maturity with enormous strides, and extending in a single generation over all the provinces of history, imagination, and fancy, with that breadth of anticipation and intoxication of heart which the ardent soul may experience, when from being a child it has become a man and feels a new-glowing joy shoot through nerve and vein. Expanding with the growing taste, it quits the Palace, the Inns, the Universities, where it is compressed, and creates in 1576 a public theater and a national audience. Before the end of the century, eleven theaters and nearly two hundred dramas attest the absorbing passion. Tragedy is the highest form of the poetic art. A list of the world's great tragedies is not long. Many critics regard Sophocles as the greatest of tragedians and place the Oedipus Tyrannus at the "very summit of Greek tragic art." Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, Goethe's Faust, and four plays of Shakespeare, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear , may be considered great tragedies. See Drama ; Comedy ; Act ; Stage ; Arion ; Siddons ; Kean ; Barrett ; Booth ; Irving ; Sophocles ; Shakespeare ; etc. Tragedy is poetry in its deepest earnest. Comedy is poetry in unlimited jest.--Coleridge.
Tragedy a dramatic poem representing an important event
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a dramatic poem representing an important event, or a series of events, in the life of some person or persons, in which the diction is elevated, and which has generally a tragic or fatal catastrophe; that species of drama which represents a tragical situation or a tragical character. Tragedy originated among the Greeks in the worship of Dionysus. Thespis first introduced dialogue in the choral odes, and made one entire story occupy the pauses in the chorus. His first representation was in 535 B. C. He was succeeded by Phrynichrittene, aneis falchich has chus and Chœrilus, and is said to have come down to us. Æschylus (525-456 B. c.) added a second actor, diminished the parts of the chorus, and made the dialogue the principal part of the action. He also introduced scenery, and masks for actors, and is also said to have introduced the custom of contending with trilogies, or three plays at a time. In his later years he added a third actor. ARTHUR TRAIN Sophocles (495-405 B. c.) further improved the scenery and costume. In the hands of Euripides (480-405 b. c.) tragedy deteriorated in dignity; one of his peculiarities was the prologue, or introductory monologue, in which some god or hero opens the play lay , telling who he is, what has already happened, and what is the present state of affairs. He also invented tragi-comedy. The first Roman tragic poet was Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who began to exhibit in 240 b. c. He was succeeded by Nævius (died 204 b. c.), and Ennius (239-169 B. C.) The only complete Roman tragedies that have come down to us are the 10 attributed to Seneca (A. D. 2-65). The first English tragedy is "Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex," acted in 1562. See
Tragedy that form of drama which represents the sad or
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
that form of drama which represents the sad or terrible phases of human life and character. In order that a dramatic composition may deserve the name of tragedy, certain requirements are necessary. In form, the production must be poetical; in subject it must present events of weight and importance. The style must be lofty and finished; the movement stately, the diction grave and dignified. There should be unity of action, and the outcome, or catastrophe, as it is usually called, must be disastrous. Unity of action requires that every incident, however trifling, must be shown to be a part of the cause of the final catastrophe, or a part of the catastrophe itself.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's rules of 1910 -- that a tragedy must be poetical, must treat "events of weight and importance," and must be written in "lofty and finished" style -- were already being broken, and the 20th century broke them for good. Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (1949), whose hero is a failed travelling salesman speaking flat American prose, won the Pulitzer Prize, and Miller's essay "Tragedy and the Common Man" argued that year that the form never required a king; critics have since debated the question through George Steiner's "The Death of Tragedy" (1961) and Raymond Williams's "Modern Tragedy" (1966). Two smaller corrections: "Gorboduc" is now credited to Thomas Norton as well as Thomas Sackville, and Collier's verdict that with Euripides "tragedy deteriorated in dignity" has been thoroughly reversed -- he is now the most performed and most admired of the three Athenian tragedians. The Bacchic origin story, with its goat-songs and Arion and Thespis on his table, still rests almost entirely on Aristotle's brief remarks and is now presented as inference rather than history.
Written for this edition, 2026.