Tragedy

Catalog description

Tragic dramas from different cultures and periods have framed in memorable, though often contradictory, ways some basic questions about how human beings face suffering, violence, and death. Drawing on these broad traditions, students will explore the dramatic forms, social contexts, and rhetorical and political goals of tragedies in an attempt to understand how drama can turn catastrophe into art - and why. By what means does tragedy take horrific and often degrading experiences and transform them into artistic experiences that are (sometimes) intelligible, pleasurable, or beautiful? Should witnessing the misery of others ever be pleasurable or beautiful? Can we presume to make sense of another's suffering? How, more generally, can tragic drama help us come to terms with the violence and brutality of the human condition - or does it sometimes hinder this attempt?