  Drama
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"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."
Alfred Hitchcock
Drama exists everywhere,and its existence often fills us with tension and excitement. Drama can be tragedy or comedy, and it can come in the shape of a play, movie, fiction, real life story, and poetry.
Hello, this is Joy , this week's drama editor, and in this issue, the subject is tragedy.
"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic."
Oscar Wilde |
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
In Writing.com, Stories.com once, the first drama newsletter editor I remember used to be ELAD. Because of him, I considered the drama newsletter among my favorite newsletters. Although Elad’s items in the comedy genre were unbelievably funny and successful, he loved tragedy. Consequently, since I thought of Elad, I thought of focusing on tragedy in this issue.
So, what is tragedy?
Some people may think drama means tragedy; however, tragedy is only one part of drama. In day to day usage, the word tragedy defines a disastrous event, a calamity, or a series of terrible events as facts of life. In its historical and literary usage, however, the word tragedy carries a deeper meaning. On one hand, tragedies are disasters that happen, by chance, to people who are not able to control the events. On the other hand, they are the images and stories of man in conflict with himself, his adversaries, or the world around him. The goal of man's tragedy is to succeed as a human being by gaining meaning, love, understanding, and wisdom through ordeals.
The word tragedy comes from the Greek tragoidia, consisting of two words. The first one is tragos, meaning goat. The second word is oidia, which comes from the root oeidein meaning to sing.
One of the earliest tragedies is the Peloponnesian satyr play which influenced Ancient Greek tragedy. As the Romans called them, "Satyrs" were fauns--goatlike creatures--who were constantly inebriated and chasing after nymphs.
The origins of Greek tragedy are little known and foggy. One theory is that tragedy had its roots in the fertility ceremony of the God Dionysus when the plays with the death and rebirth themes were put on stage during spring. Of the hundreds and maybe thousands of plays written for this celebration, we have only thirty-three left today: those of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. These early playwrights treated tragedy in their own unique way. Their common denominator was the connection between men and gods, heavily emphasizing the role of fate, necessity, and the supreme rule of the gods.
During the fifth century Greece and during the seventeenth century England and France, tragedy experienced its two most popular periods. The seventeenth century tragedy honors go to Shakespeare who wrote his plays mainly to entertain the London audiences. The Shakespearean tragedy points out to the good that becomes spoiled through misfortune. With Shakespeare, the hero is usually a famous and kindly figure who falls into some kind of a disaster through a flaw in his character. For example, Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his indecision to act, and he realizes that. "I essentially am not in madness, but mad in craft."
Alongside Shakespeare, in France, Corneille and Racine wrote tragedies during the same era: e.g., Le Cid, Phedre. Unlike Shakespeare, however, Corneille and Racine’s tragedies were harsh and high-handed remakes of the old Greek tragedies with destiny being the supreme ruler.
In our time, the understanding of tragedy has evolved. Our unfortunate heroes face sudden revelations of facts of character through the paths they follow when, slowly or suddenly, they gain consciousness or understanding. These heroes become victims and visionaries, even though, they may lose their lives. Bowman’s “Death of a traveling Salesman,” Arthur Miller’s, Tennessee Williams’, Eugene O’Neil’s, Joseph Conrad’s, and Hemingway’s heroes are some of the examples. Poets like Robert Penn Warren and Yeats have also employed tragedy in their subject matter, because in life, tragedy occurs constantly.
The struggle of man against nature, man against man, man against fate, man against convention, man against reason with irreconcilable differences may all end up in tragedy. These struggles usually move from safety to calamity as the hidden self is revealed. In this revelation or in this moment of epiphany, tragedy becomes attractive to read or write about. After all, as long as the world stands, the calamities and disasters in real life that fall upon human beings--because they are human beings--will be inevitable.
We, as writers and human beings, are going to reflect those tragic events in our art and in our writing. In other words, if we’ll bleed, we’ll write about it.
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"The shadow of the past would always linger like a spectre."
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"Mama would not save her even when the big men in funny outfits came in to drag Papa away..."
"The group huddled closer together, there was no shelter; there was no place to hide."
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"A part of me was gone, and I have gone through life with the feeling of missing something."
"Honey, relax." Karen looked at her daughter. The expression on her face was indelibly burned in her mind now. It was fear."
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"He wasn’t having a good day, Sammy’s effort to get enough money for at least a hot cup of coffee via panhandling coming to an abrupt end when the cops showed up."
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"I’ll never forget the day my mother was rushed to the hospital by ambulance..."
"The familiar, defiant grin lit her face, but the desolate way her eyes lost their focus betrayed the truth. She had already given in."
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"Maybe it’s a California thing, but I’m just not used to seeing dead bodies."
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Something to have fun with. A crossword puzzle for drama lovers.
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Drama: July 30, 2008 Issue [#2510]
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