The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy
The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy
£24.00
GBPTragedy is the art-form created to confront the most difficult experiences we face: death, loss, injustice, thwarted passion, despair. From ancient Greek theatre up to the most recent plays, playwrights have found, in tragic drama, a means to seek explanation for disaster. But tragedy is also a word we continually encounter in the media, to denote an event which is simply devastating in its emotional power. This introduction explores the relationship between tragic experience and tragic representation. After giving an overview of the tragic theatre canon - including chapters on the Greeks, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, post-colonial drama, and Beckett - it also looks at the contribution which philosophers have brought to this subject, before ranging across other art-forms and areas of debate. The book is unique in its chronological range, and brings a wide spectrum of examples, from both literature and life, into the discussion of this emotional and frequently controversial subject.
- Includes detailed chapters on both ancient and modern tragedy, allowing readers to draw comparisons across centuries
- Alongside literary tragedy, it also discusses tragic film, art, religion and psychoanalysis
- Engagingly written and includes striking illustrations
Reviews & endorsements
'A lucid, intelligent, wide-ranging introduction to a subject of growing centrality in both criticism and political life' Professor Terry Eagleton, University of Manchester
'The coverage is comprehensive and the writing is of a high quality and clear.' Teaching Drama
Product details
May 2007Paperback
9780521671491
252 pages
229 × 152 × 13 mm
0.418kg
10 b/w illus.
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Approaching the subject
- 2. Tragic drama:
- 2.1. The Greeks
- 2.2. Seneca and Racine
- 2.3. Shakespeare
- 2.4. Romantic tragedy: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov
- 2.5. American tragedy
- 2.6. Postcolonial tragedy
- 2.7. Beckett
- Case studies 1: Physical violence and dismemberment
- Case studies 2: Language
- 3. Tragic theory:
- 3.1. Aristotle
- 3.2. Hegel
- 3.3. Nietzsche
- 3.4. Kierkegaard
- 3.5. Camus
- 3.6. Girard
- Case studies 1: Fate
- Case studies 2: Politics
- Case studies 3: Gender
- 4. Non-dramatic tragedy:
- 4.1. Visual culture
- 4.2. Novel
- 4.3. Film
- 4.4. Psychoanalysis
- 4.5. Theology
- 5. Coda: Tragic sites
- Bibliography.
