Human life is painted in various colors with many sometimes elusive shades. Everyone is familiar with such expressions as “bitterness of love”, “voluptuous death” or “taste of victory”. Each of them is a mixture of something elusively understandable and at the same time really non-existent. Such a literary and metaphorical reflection of the mass of feelings and experiences of the human soul makes us look at ordinary things in a new way, making life richer and more colorful. Human passions, feelings and emotions throughout the development of civilization were the object of close attention from philosophers in the early centuries, then new researchers of the human soul - writers - took up them.
What is our life? ..
Really what? A set of random events or a logical execution of once and for all predetermined plots? The joy of being or bitterness from the realization of their insignificance? By and large, human life is a combination of feelings and sensations that color it in tones from the darkest to the lightest and most loving. Each of these shades is necessary for the full perception and sense of the integrity of the world. And literature gives a person exactly what in real life he could never have experienced. There would not be enough time, health, and much more.
It is thanks to literature that mankind has studied and is still studying worldview. With the help of literary genres, a person can distinguish between sad and merry, baseness from the sublime and good from evil. The dramatic beginning is always associated with feelings, passions. Whether it is uncontrollable laughter or barely restrained sobs - all this is a real drama, only in its various forms.
Drama emphasizes truth
In pre-ancient Greek times, people somehow dispensed with ordinary legends, which spoke only about the heroics of various epic characters. There was still a lyrical, purely personal, beginning that gave way to inner feelings associated with spiritual and spiritual dissatisfaction, or, conversely, uncontrollable joy from the feelings experienced.
The ancient Greeks combined these sources and created a drama (literally translated “action”), which contained both the heroic and lyrical characters of the literature of the past. The drama was based on games dedicated to one or another god, which, in fact, is a kind of sacrifice in the hope of a future satisfying and fun life.
It is the dramatic genres - satire drama, comedy and tragedy - that led to the fact that literature has become closer to real life, a real person, a real, and not a fictional society. And this was a breakthrough. After all, what is tragedy and comedy in ancient Greece? Originating from ceremonial games and worships in honor of Dionysus, tragedy and comedy soon became the main representatives of theatrical and literary genres, revealing the most acute aspects of public life. Combining the real, serious part of man’s life and the fun, “carnival,” which was the harbinger of hope for a good outcome and a victory over the dark, the genres became the starting point for the development of culture not only of the Greeks, but also of other nations.
Tragic beginnings in literature
What is tragedy in literature? The definition of this term in a compressed form tells us that this is a work of a dramatic nature. It describes and closely examines the suffering of either the main character, or members of his family, but always from the point of view of moral principles. These sufferings must be sublime and high moral. At its core, tragedy is a highly moral work that forces the reader to empathize with the main character and to be imbued with his attitude.
Now that it has become clear what tragedy is, everyone can consciously analyze the literature that they had to read. Recall the tragedy of the Renaissance and recent times - the era of the Soviet people, which reflected in its entirety the essence of this genre.
Tragedy as a genre
What is tragedy as a genre of artwork? Unlike a purely literary form, the genre of tragedy involves a stage production and is characterized by a final catastrophe. It requires a certain sharpness of the actual relationship, characterized by the internal contradictions of the heroes. It is marked by the display of deep and real conflicts in a very rich and quite intense way. Moreover, to such an extent that these conflicts and the reality that generates them become a kind of artistic meaning, often very pathos.
Understanding what tragedy is in ancient Greece, reading works written by Aeschylus, Sophocles, comparing them with later authors, you can see a clear line of continuity of the “song of the goats” (literal translation of the tragedy), transferring the rules of ancient Greek theater art to the stage of the 21st century.
High can't be high-flown
But despite all the pathos of the tragic events described in various works by world literary stars, it should be noted that he never crosses a line beyond which the line between reality and fiction is blurred. The atmosphere of trust in the author as a bearer of ideas captivating the reader and enthralling him disappears. What cannot be highly moral is that which shock and kill sincerity. Therefore, high-quality literature and dramaturgy shy of grandiloquence, thereby giving any tragic event, a tragic hero a halo of martyrdom real, but not fictitious.
Literature as a mirror of history
What is tragedy in literature? We have already given a definition. The topic of educating entire generations on the tragic events of past years is more important than ever for the formation of future generations. Yes, it is not always that what was characteristic, for example, of the era of the first centuries of Christianity and which gave rise to coverage in dramatic works, helped on the basis of the tragedy of situations or the tragic fate of the heroes to resist evil, build a new society with new relationships, today it will be in demand. But in the tragic characters of the past, you can still recognize the traits and characters of many of our contemporaries. But is this not a reason that, referring to the tragedies of the same Sophocles and Aeschylus, to continue to educate new heroes who are able to withstand everything dark and dead and pave the way to a bright, clean and healthy!