Thomas Hardys Tragic Stories Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

doubting Thomas Hardys Tragic StoriesFor centuries, various writers have endeavored to encapsulate the constituents of calamity, and constitute works of literature that adhere to their understanding of an ostensibly universal schema of tragical structure, tragic plot, and tragic theme. Nevertheless, the etymology of the word, tragedy, proves to be as elusive and esoteric as the tragic construct is seemingly concrete and unequivocal indeed, the word, tragedy, privy be traced to the Hellenic word, tragoidia, which literally means, goat-song. We do not know whether actors in the Choral Odes read their lines clad in goatskins, or if goats were bestowed as prizes we do know, however, that Aristotle reconfigured the more bucolic play tradition, and, in his Poetics, developed a proficiency founded on the tradition of regal grandeur, sweeping scope, and cosmic power. Thomas Hardy, cardinal of the few Victorian tragic prose writers, undoubtedly draws from the tradition of Aristoteli an Greek tragedy. Nevertheless, our thesis expresses skepticism in the precision and alacrity with which Hardy is equated with tragedy and conventional tragic form. In a post-Shakespearean nineteenth-century world, writers were acquainted with two tragic traditions Greek and Christian. The Greek tragic tradition is founded upon the ritual feasting of Dionysus (or the roman print version, Bacchus) the Christian mystery play tradition is rooted in the wrath of Christ. Both traditions bind themselves inextricably to forces larger than themselves - either to gods and goddesses, or to the dedicated Trinity - and structure their plays around the rituals inherent in these traditions. Hardys own novels bear elements of both Greek and Christian tragic conventions, thus elici... ...on tragedy from The liveness and Work of Thomas Hardy BibliographyBloom, Harold. Shakespeare The Invention of the Human. New York Riverhead Books, 1998. Brereton, Geoffrey. Principles of Tragedy A Rati onal Examination of the Tragic Concept in Life and Literature. Florida University of Miami Press, 1969. Gibson, James. Thomas Hardy Interviews and Recollections. New York St. Martins Press, 1999. Hardy, Thomas. The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy. Athens The University of atomic number 31 Press, 1985. Kramer, Dale. Thomas Hardy The Forms of Tragedy. Detroit Wayne State University Press, 1975. Krook, Dorothy. Elements of Tragedy. New Haven Yale University Press, 1969. Margeson, J.M.R. The Origins of English Tragedy. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1967. Page, Norman. Oxford Readers come with to Hardy. Oxford Oxford University Press, 2000.