Re: Tragedy in weird fantasy?
Posted by:
Sawfish (IP Logged)
Date: 9 December, 2019 01:26PM
Interleaved, below:
Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Sawfish wrote, "I'm of the opinion that to expose
> the reader or audience to the sort of catharsis
> you describe, it's necessary for the audience to
> significantly attach to a character--and perhaps
> this must be the central character, or at least a
> major character.
>
> "Further, the attachment must be positive--the
> character must have admirable qualities, or have
> qualities that one can easily empathize with.
> Then, when they meet with their inevitable
> reversal, and full resolution is subsequently
> achieved, there can be catharsis."
>
> This sounds correct... Thinking of Oedipus Rex, I
> recall that he is understood to be a good king; he
> wants justice, even if, somehow, itw ere at his
> own expense... and so on.
>
> But though he is hero, he is certainly victim,
> too. That word victim is important. In modern
> usage, it may suggest someone who unluckily "just
> happened to be there, that's all," when some
> mentally ill young man decided to go on a shooting
> spree, or happened to be in a car on the freeway
> bridge when it collapsed. But its ancient
> connotation is of something or someone offered to
> the divine to take away wrath.
I didn't know that and yet on quick examination of my (clouded) memory, this sense of sacrifice seems present as a major facet in Greek tragedy.
Excellent point, Dale.
(The ebbing of
> this notion is one of the reasons for the popular
> decline or Christianity in North America and
> western Europe, I suppose.)
Tremendous observation!
As literature transitioned from a sort of sacrificial victim--one who is to appease divine authority for any mortal offenses--to a victim of blind circumstance (certainly a more modernist/rationalist viewpoint), it seems to track the emergence of secularism in the West.
A related consideration might be whether the erosion of the idea of a sacrificial victim for atonement is a cause, or rather a symptom, of the diminution of traditional Christian ideals.
>
> Now, I'm thinking that weird fantasy typically has
> two types of victims, the hapless folk who "just
> happened to be there, that's all," and the villain
> who got caught in his or her own snare -- e.g. the
> necromancer who called up what he couldn't put
> down, &c. Neither of these types of victims is a
> hero in the usual sense...
Hmmm...
I'm now wondering: would it be possible to have tragedy without a heroic victim?
Nothing is coming to mind. I'm uncertain that I can see any clear instance of such a tragedy in CAS. Would Isildur in Tolkien be a tragic figure, in your view, Dale?
(BTW, I'm sitting here, reading Houellebecq while waiting for replies/responses to various posts I put forth this AM. I am constantly amused!
The 1st person narrator of "Submission" is living/working in contemporary Paris. He's a tenured professor of literature at the University of Paris IV. He is forty-ish and unmarried.
He starts the second chapter with this:
"The academic study of literature leads basically nowhere, as we all know, unless you happen to be an especially gifted student, in which case it prepares you for a career teaching the academic study of literature--it is, in other words, a rather farcical system that exits solely to replicate itself, and yet manages to fail more than 95% of the time."
How can anyone not like this? :^) )
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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