Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Quotes: Tragedy

Tragedy
The Greeks were realists who still saw the world not as tragic, but as beautiful.
Tragedy 206 The special characteristic of the Greeks was their power to see the world clearly and at the same time as beautiful. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

A tragedy shows pain and gives pleasure.
Tragedy 207 A tragedy shows us pain and gives us pleasure thereby. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

A tragedy is pain exalted.
Tragedy 207 Tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Tragedy 208 ...strange contradiction of pleasure through pain.... E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

In a tragedy, both sides claim our sympathy.
Tragedy 209 Hegel: ...the only tragic subject is a spiritual struggle in which each side has a claim upon our sympathy. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

True tragedy does not deal with people sunk in dreary hopelessness.
Tragedy 210 When humanity is seen as devoid of dignity and significance, trivial, mean, and sunk in dreary hopelessness, then the spirit of tragedy departs. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Tragedy deals with suffering.
Tragedy 212 Tragedy’s preoccupation is with suffering. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Dramas with unhappy endings are not necessarily tragedies.
Tragedy 214 Ibsen’s plays are not tragedies...his plays are dramas with an unhappy ending. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Tragedy has the power to present suffering and death to exalt and not depress.
Tragedy 218 The strange power tragedy has to present suffering and death in such a way as to exalt and not depress is to be felt in Aeschylus’s plays as in those of no other tragic poets. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

For Aeschylus, people meet disaster but remain undefeated.
Tragedy 223 ...Aeschylus sees mankind, meeting disaster grandly, forever undefeated. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Are the gods the authors of sorrow?
Tragedy 69 Medea: The gods know who was the author of this sorrow. Euripides, Medea.

Innocence does not forestall tragedy.
Tragedy 302 …it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

People are made perfect through suffering.
Tragedy 212 Johnson: …it is a part of the mysterious plan of Providence, that intellectual beings must “be made perfect through suffering.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

The author of her tragedy was her adversary, fate.
Tragedy fate 291 Clytemnestra’s tragedy was from without; her adversary was fate. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Joy and sorrow, exultation and tragedy are not contradictions in Greek literature.
Tragedy joy sorrow 18 Joy and sorrow, exultation and tragedy, stand hand in hand in Greek literature, but there is no contradiction involved thereby. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Pain and error are steps up the ladder of knowledge.
Tragedy knowledge 235 ...the men of his generation must have realized far beyond others, that pain and error have their purpose and their uses: they are steps of the ladder of knowledge. (tragedy) E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Pain can exalt.
Tragedy pain 215 Pain could exalt and in tragedy for a moment men could have sight of a meaning beyond their grasp. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Tragedy is a soul suffering greatly.
Tragedy suffering 213 The suffering of a soul that can suffer greatly--that and only that, is tragedy. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

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