Tragedy

Growing up I learned about different genres of literature, but after reading Aristotle’s Poetics, and Arthur Miller’s Tragedy and the Common Man, I realized I only grazed the surface of what each genre entailed. To me a comedy was funny, a drama was exciting and emotional, and a tragedy was sad. According to these two writers there is specific criteria that makes a piece of literature a good tragedy. I thought it was interesting to see how each of these writers broke down the components of tragedies, and they changed the way I will read tragedies in the future.

Aristotle listed six elements that are a necessity to tragedies, which are, plot, characters, verbal expression, thought, visual adornment, and song composition. When I think about literature I always just assumed characters were a necessity therefore, I thought it was interesting when I read, “a tragedy cannot exist without a plot, but it can without characters.” After thinking about this statement it made sense because without a plot no message or outcome will be presented to the reader. As he said a tragedy is meant to portray a life, an action, which can be done through the plot and strategic structuring of incidents.

Miller’s comment that stated that it was a misconception that tragedy is associated with pessimism stood out to me. As I stated before I believed this misconception. His explanation as to how tragedies are optimistic is interesting and completely makes sense. The tragic hero’s refusal to stay passive to regain his status or dignity is honorable and optimistic. The next time I read a tragedy I am going to look for the optimism in the literature.