Will the world ever see fresh tragedy created for the theater again?
I think that we have many great works that resemble tragedies now on screen: Breaking Bad (I remember that terrible episode, Ozymandias), The Wire, The Godfather, Scarface, Grave of the Fireflies, and many other works that somehow resemble the form of tragedy.
But what I was thinking is this: tragedy made in a poetic diction, with characters speaking that larger-than-life language of Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Euripides, but settled in the modern world, with modern characters and modern plots. Will the world ever seen something like that again?
I don’t know if theater itself will live, and for the poetic form, I can’t imagine a world where people will respect and admire it again.
I was reading a work by George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy, hence this thread and my doubts about the subject.
your point that tragedies today are small scale is probably true but im no expert on theater (which will never die, but yes, is smaller than it was in relation to other arts) so i couldn't verify that. you'd have to test that claim by reading/seeing a large selection of new works each year
race by mamet that came out a few years ago has the tragic form
Michael Bailey
>race by mamet that came out a few years ago has the tragic form
Thank you for the tip
Jayden Collins
the noir genre in the 40's and 50's fit this description: > tragedy made in a poetic diction, with characters speaking that larger-than-life language of Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Euripides, but settled in the modern world, with modern characters and modern plots.
Julian Morgan
OP here.
I recently found out that the novels of Raymond Chandler are greatly poetic. He has a power to create comic and bizarre similes that I have never seen in any other writer:
Also, could you give me some examples of noir titles that fit the pattern?
Anthony Russell
The modern world is a tragedy. And I'm not saying that because things were ever much better.
Brayden Edwards
in my opinion the ones that most closely resemble the Greek tragedies would be
Scarlet Street Out of the Past Caught Night and the City
Justin Rogers
Thank you. I always try to find and collect plots that I might use in the future in my own work (of course, in adaptations to my own style and with due mention of the original as source).
“It all began, as I have said, when the Boss, sitting in the black Cadillac which sped through the night, said to me (to Me who was what Jack Burden, the student of history, had grown up to be) "There is always something." And I said, "Maybe not on the Judge." And he said, "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.”
Cameron Rivera
The issue with larger-than-life language is that it destroys the modern reader's sense of immersion. When a reader is focusing on the unraveling the language of the piece, and not the dialogue or action or characters, then you as a writer have (debatably) failed.
Consider the following:
Version A) Jack walked angrily across the dark blue carpeted floor of the sunlit library, glaring at the shelves of well-worn books that lined the walls as he snatched up the antique gold fountain pen from the walnut secretary desk that had been in his family for generations.
Version B) Jack walked across the room and picked up a pen.
Which reads better? To the vast majority of people, Version B is cleaner, tighter, less confusing. Version A is too much.
Most readers want a tight, muscular sentence. Most writers want to pad that sentence with layers of pillowy adverbs and cliches, because dammit it doesn't seem literary enough.
Lincoln Reyes
>The issue with larger-than-life language is that it destroys the modern reader's sense of immersion.
But how people enjoy Shakespeare then?
Caleb Stewart
Most people walking down the street don't enjoy Shakespeare because it breaks their immersion. The language is too clunky, too complex. They want witty dialogue and interesting characters and original plotting. To be sure, Shakespeare has all these things, and to the trained ear it is delightful to see and read. But most people can't get past the language.
You may have been trying to disprove his point, but I think you just proved it.
Jordan Lopez
Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge might be worth your while. It's meant to be like a greek tragic play but sent in the then-contemporary 1950s. The dialogue isn't in poetic form all the way through, but it has its flowery-fancy moments.
Ayden Martin
I should also mention that the first produced draft was in verse.
Chase Smith
i think you missed OP's point
the Greek tragedies are very sparing with details, but the language is LARGER THAN LIFE not in amount, but in clarity. Nietzsche said the one concession the Greeks allowed themselves in art is that all of the agonists are capable of expressing themselves well
Matthew Cox
>You may have been trying to disprove his point, but I think you just proved it.
No. All I wanted to know is if a person who emerge today with Shakespeare's talents would be guilty if popular culture did not absorb his work. But if the work itself is magnificent, and people too lazy to work a little harder, like you state here:
>Most people walking down the street don't enjoy Shakespeare because it breaks their immersion. The language is too clunky, too complex. They want witty dialogue and interesting characters and original plotting. To be sure, Shakespeare has all these things, and to the trained ear it is delightful to see and read. But most people can't get past the language.
then the fault is not in the artist.
Leo Ortiz
fuck off with this writing workshop 101 hemingway shit
Lucas Powell
probably not. theatre was a pretty big deal back in the good old days (i.e. 400bC), and it was seen like something just part of the state's culture and routine. It was considered the finest of the arts, everyone was allowed to go to theatre, the state would pay you the "ticket", not to mention the religious corellation etc etc
i suggest you read "die geburt der tragodie aus dem geiste der musik" if you like the subject. it is probably one of the most extravagant pieces from Nietzsche but i still found it really interesting, but that's probably just because i am really fascinated by the whole ancient greece thing, which might interest you aswell if you are interested in tragedy.
apologies for my english
Caleb Lee
how would you even consider Joyce's writing to be? most assuredly "larger-than-life." so I wonder if your point is actually about differences in individual bias-preference than superior prose styles
Julian White
might as well burn all of zola's works, middlemarch as well, naturalists, realists etc.
Benjamin Lewis
bump for interest
Hunter Lewis
You have the most memey possibel taste in movies and TV, OP.
Ryan King
>Grave of the Fireflie
This barely counts. It's technically the boy's fault that his sister died, but the whole scenario is a tearjerker in horrific circumstances without the possibility of nobility at the core of tragedy. There's nothing driving your moral impulses towards catharsis, all there is to do is accept the misery that plays out.
Benjamin Phillips
It was just some examples. Is this memey too:
Mason Butler
Please, don't get to american-centered and take a look to Wajdi Mouawad plays, they are absolutly great.