Every time when in the lives of our relatives, friends,friends there are big troubles - someone seriously gets sick, loses loved ones, etc., - we shake our heads with regret and sympathetically say: "What a tragedy!" But there is another situation. For example, a teenage girl has unrequitedly fallen in love. She is sad, her eyes are in a wet place. What do you say, in order to comfort, soothe, reason with Nesmeyanu? Correctly: "You will think, tragedy! Yes you have such Vitya, Sing, Mish dozens will be! You are so beautiful and clever! "
Definition
To understand such a wide range of sphereuse of the word, we will understand its meaning. According to the explanatory dictionaries, the tragedy is, first, along with drama and comedy, literary and artistic genre. The most famous examples of it are "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear" and other works of William Shakespeare. Of the domestic literature, of course, we should remember the Pushkin "Boris Godunov", "The Mean Knight", "Stone Guest". Secondly, tragedy is misfortune, misfortune, grief. It can be either individual, personal, that is, occurred in the fate of one particular person or family, or a large-scale, universal human. World wars, natural cataclysms, ecological disasters are related to such events. Synonyms to the word: dashing, punching, blow of fate, etc. And the third meaning of the word is portly-ironic, when tragedy is just a petty trouble, inflated to the size of an elephant.
Literature and Life
Literature is a reflection of life, the brightest and mosttense moments of reality. Tyutchev wrote: "Blessed is he who visited this world / In his moments of fatal ..." Poets and writers who were fortunate enough to live in the crucial moments of history, recorded in the diaries, memoirs, novels, dramas the titanic and, alas, fruitless attempts of mankind to create a harmonious , a happy world order. Life in such works beats the key, rises to the faces of the possible, and the hero through their titanic volitional efforts overcomes the fateful coincidence of circumstances. It is not for nothing that literary scholars believe that it is precisely tragedy that is the fullest expression of our being. This type of dramatic action more than others is suitable for a full reflection of life in all its diversity.
Specificity of the genre
Drama, tragedy, comedy - literary terms,who came to us from the ancient Greek language. It was the aesthetes of Hellas who introduced them into the everyday life of critics. Drama is both a genre term and a genus term. As a literary genre, it is divided into tragedy - a high, heroic genre, a comedy - a low genre, and a drama proper, combining some of the signs of the first two. The plot of the tragedies, as a rule, is filled with conflicts and clashes, which can not be resolved peacefully.
The tragic hero
The catastrophe of external contradictions and internal,the maximum tension of the moment, the presence of the main characters on the verge, "in the balance", are necessary components of the action. The literary work of the tragedy genre reflects such conflicts in society, in reality, which are really extremely serious. Hence the special heroic or other pathos that are characteristic of them. Let's remember the throwing of Hamlet, his endless inner moral fights with himself! And external encounters with a hostile, deeply vicious modern world. More precisely, not only the world, but also the century, the era! The hero of the tragedy is majestic and that challenges the forces much more powerful than himself. And he dies in this confrontation, because he can not retreat or win. It should be noted that not only dramatic, but also epic works belong to this genre. "Crime and Punishment", Dostoevsky, "The Hero of Our Time" by Lermontov or "The Plow" of our contemporary Aitmatov - each of them is a true novel-tragedy.
History of the term
But let's return to thousands of years ago, in Ancient Greece. The Greeks were pagans, they worshiped a whole host of big and small gods. In the Pantheon, Dionysus, the patron of agriculture, winemaking, vegetation, inspiration, joys of life and fun, who, as is well known, was associated with wine, occupied a prominent place. In Hellas, there were many religious cults dedicated to Dionysus. Various rites and rituals of his worship and glorification were reflected in the festivities and festivities held in honor of the Olympian. The sacrificial animal, which was necessarily presented to Dionysus, was a goat. Therefore, the literal meaning of the word "tragedy" is "a goat song". During the harvest and vintage holidays the Greeks played whole performances, during which they sang praises to the god. People gathered in the skins of animals, depicting satyrs - fantastic creatures similar to goats - they also glorified their patron Dionysus. On the basis of this action, an ancient tragedy was born - a mixture of myth with reality, solemn dithyrambs and choral songs of satyrs. With the passage of time the plot of the festival became more complicated, in it there was a conflict, a dramatic element. And the action itself moved from the fields and forests to the theatrical stage.
