Tragedy Questions and Answers
Marks -2
Q. 1. Define tragedy, after Aristotle. What are the characteristics of tragedy?
Ans. Tragedy is a literary genre that portrays the downfall of a noble or heroic character due to a flaw or a series of unfortunate events. Aristotle defines tragedy in chapter six of his Poetics in the following way:
“A tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious and having magnitude, complete in itself, in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts. of work, in a dramatic not in a narrative form, with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.”
Q. 2. Explain the Aristotelian term ‘Anagnorisis’ with reference to Poetics.
Ans. Anagnorisis is a term used by Aristotle in his Poetics to describe the moment of recognition of truth when ignorance gives way to knowledge. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagnorisis coincides with peripeteia or reversal of fortune. The classic example of anagnorisis is in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius (his father).
Q. 3. Explain the characteristic features of the Greek tragedy.
Ans. Greek tragedy has four distinctive parts such as the prologue, parados, epeisodiaand exodus. The prologue consists of an introductory scene of monologue or dialogue. The parados means the entrance of the chorus and the performance of the choral ode providing further exposition and foreshadowing subsequent events. Epeisodia forms the main action of the play. Exodus means the conclusion of the play. Aeschylus’s Agamemnon is a famous tragedy of the Greek origin.
Q. 4. Who was the ancient Greek playwright known for his tragic works?
Ans. Sophocles was an ancient Greek playwright renowned for his tragic plays, such as “Oedipus Rex” and “Antigone.”
Q. 5. What is the concept of “hamartia” in Tragedy?
Ans. “Hamartia” is the tragic flaw or error in judgment possessed by the protagonist, which leads to their downfall in a Tragedy.
Q. 6. Name a famous Shakespearean Tragedy.
Ans. Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare’s famous Tragedies, exploring themes of ambition and moral corruption.
Q. 7. What is the role of the Chorus in a Tragedy?
Ans. The Chorus in a Tragedy provides commentary, offers insight into characters’ emotions, and sets the overall mood of the play.
Q. 8. In which ancient festival did Greek Tragedies originally compete?
Ans. Greek Tragedies originally competed in the festival known as Dionysia, dedicated to the god Dionysus. The purpose of the Greek tragedies was to spread religious teaching.
Q. 9. What is the difference between Tragedy and Comedy?
Ans. Tragedy focuses on serious themes and the downfall of the protagonist, while Comedy aims to amuse and entertain through humour and happy endings.
Q.10. Name a famous Tragic character from Arthur Miller’s play .
Ans. Willy Loman is the tragic character in Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, struggling with disillusionment and the American Dream.
Death of a Salesman.
Q.11. Define melodrama.
Ans. The beginning of melodrama is said to have occurred in France in the last part of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century. Melodrama came into being during the Romantic literary period. The word melodrama is derived from the French word ‘melodrame’ which literally means, drama and music combined.
Q.12. Define Senecan tragedy.
Ans. The Senecan Tragedy was written to be recited rather than acted; but to English playwrights, who thought that these tragedies had been intended for the stage, they provided the model for an organized five-act play with a complex plot and an elaborately formal style of dialogue. Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1586) established this popular form; its subject is a murder and quest for vengeance, and it indicates a ghost, insanity, suicide, a play within -a-play and a gruesomely bloody ending.
Q.13. What is conflict?
Ans. The conflict is the problem or struggle in a short story or play. It occurs in rising climax and falling action. It creates suspense and excitement in the story or play.
Q.14. Explain catharsis in tragedy.
It is the release action, tragedy. of
Ans. The term catharsis was used by Aristotle in the definition of emotions of pity and fear.
Q.15. Who is a tragic hero?
Ans. The tragic hero, according to Aristotle, must be a man of some highly renowned and prosperous — a person like Oedipus, Thyestes, or other illustrious men of such families.” Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, or Julius Caesar are men of great stature who perishes after an almost unending and corrosive conflict within.
16. How does A C Bradley define a Shakespearean tragedy?
Ans. According to A C Bradley, “a Shakespearean tragedy as so far considered may story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate.” Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, or Julius Caesar are men of great stature who perishes after an almost unending and corrosivé conflict within.
Q.17. What is the function of tragedy?
Ans. According Aristotle, tragedy evokes the feelings of pity and fear. The function of a tragedy is to succeed through the representation of an action that is serious, complete and of certain magnitude, in arousing pity and fear in such a way as to accomplish a purgation or Catharsis of such emotions.
Q.18. What is your remark on modern English tragedy?
Ans. Modern tragedy in English literature often explores the complexities of human existence, delving into themes like disillusionment, alienation, and the fragility of relationships. Works by playwrights like Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire exemplify this genre by depicting characters struggling against societal pressures and personal flaws, resulting in their tragic downfalls.
Q.19. What are, according to Aristotle, the six parts of tragedy?
Ans. After discussing the definition of tragedy, Aristotle explores various important parts of tragedy. He asserts that any tragedy can be divided into six constituent parts. They are: Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Song and Spectacle.
Short Essay Type Questions with Answers{Marks-5}
Q.1. Define tragedy. What are the characteristics of tragedy?
Aristotle defines tragedy in chapter six of his Poetics in the following way: “A tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious and having magnitude, complete in itself, in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of work, in a dramatic not in a narrative form, with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.”
In the definition of tragedy, the first principle is an imitation of an action. But Aristotle’s theory of imitation is different from that of Plato. Again, in the context of tragedy the artist imitates an action of rational human beings who think and will, thus action is concerned with character and thought. Action is also related to the plot. He even goes to the extent of saying that there can be a tragedy without character but none without plot.
We should keep in mind the words like ‘pity and fear’ require explanation. I. A. Richards, in his Principle of Literary Criticism, explains pity as the impulse to approach and fear as the impulse to retreat. We should remember that the action in tragedy is serious. This implies that tragedy deals with some highly idealistic and serious matters of human life. The action of tragedy as stated by Aristotle is complete in itself. This implies that tragedy has definite end – a conclusive effect. The language must be pleasurable and natural. There may be dialogues long or short, graceful or pity. Tragedy must be performed in dramatic not in narrative form. The essential role of tragedy lies in the purgation of pity and fear and that is what Greeks called catharsis. the action of tragedy has a healthy impact on minds for it provides an emotional outlet of boiling passions.
The tragedy reached its moment of culmination in the hands of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides in classical Greek tragedies. Some of the famous Greek tragedies are Oedipus, The Medea, Agamemnon, Orestian Trilogy etc. In the Elizabethan age it was handled by Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher and so on. Some of the famous Elizabethan tragedies are Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Ceasar, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Doctor Faustus, Edward the Second etc. In very modern times, the modern dramatists used it from different angles. Some of the modern playwrights are John Galsworthy who wrote Justice, Loyalty and Strife and John Millington Synge who wrote Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of The Western World.
Q. 2. Explain the Aristotelian term ‘Anagnorisis’ with reference to Poetics.
Anagnorisis is a term used by Aristotle in his Poetics to describe the moment of recognition of truth when ignorance gives way to knowledge. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagnorisis coincides with peripeteia or reversal of fortune. The classic example of anagnorisis is in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius .
In his discussion on the plot of tragedy, Aristotle remarks that the plot must have a beginning, middle and an end. The best plot must combine change of fortune (Metabasis) with reversal (peripeteia) and discovery (anagnorisis). A complex plot, according to Aristotle, is one in which the change of fortune is accompanied by a reversal of fortune or its recognition or by both.
Hence in a play peripeteia is followed by anagnorisis or recognition. While peripeteia ignorance anagnorisis is the change from ignorance to knowledge. Oedipus discovers the truth about himself and it leads to his enlightenment. He is ignorant that it is he who is responsible for the plague in Thebes. When the truth comes to him, he is enlightened and he feels remorse. The egoist King Lear is finally redeemed and this redemption is brought about by recognition of truth.
Q. 3. Write a note on comic relief in tragedy.
Comic relief is the use of humorous characters, speeches, dramatic world. It includes comic episode or interludes in tragedy aimed to relieve the tension and heighten the tragic effect by contrast. But the intrusive episodes or horseplay in the tragedy integral to the plot, in a way that counterpoints and enhances the tragic significance. Such elements were almost universal in Elizabethan tragedy since they tickled the groundlings to the fullest extent. Examples of such complex uses of comic elements are the grave diggers in Hamlet; the scene of the drunken porter after the murder of King Duncan in Macbeth; the speeches of the fool in King Lear; and the role of Mercutio and the old nurse in Romeo and Juliet.
There was good precedent for such relief in some mystery plays. A remarkable example is the York mystery cycle version of the Crucifixion in which the four soldiers talk in the colloquial, matter-of-fact style of everyday life as they go about their business of nailing Christ to the Cross. There is the slapstick and buffoonish comedy that occurs in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus which itself serves as a counterpoint and contrast to the ironies of Mephistopheles.
Q. 4. What is Aristotle’s remark on the plot of a tragedy?
According to Aristotle, plot has a coherent structure as it has a beginning. The plot is something which the literature makes. But as for the story it is immaterial whether he makes it or not. Aristotle’s famous statement that “a tragedy must have a beginning, middle and an end” is thus related to the whole view of the scope of literature as the maker. The beginning and the end are matters within the poets control and on his determination of them depends on the bound of the unity which is an essential characteristic of all works of art and as a plot as distinct from a story. A beginning is that which is not itself necessarily after anything else [Poetics, chap. 7]. The emphasis here is on the term necessarily upon the logic of connection.
A present situation involves if causes and if is a great point of dramatic technique to determine how the knowledge of the antecedents is to be conveyed without weakening the clearness and novelty of the beginning and the essential unity of the development of initial situation. King Oedipus provides a fine illustration of the solution of this problem. Play begins with the plaque in Thebes and the need to release the city from the pestilence by the discovery and punishment of the guilty man. The play’s process is the process of discovery, its end the punishment. The initial situation is given importance in dramatic term, thereafter each step which Oedipus takes provides the occasion for revealing some part of the antecedent knowledge which is necessary to the process of discovery.
Aristotle defines the complex plot as one in which the sequence of the episodes is neither probable nor necessary. He prefers the complex plot whose pivots are peripeteia (sudden reversal of fortune) and anagnorisis (discovery or realization). In chapter ten of his Poetics, Aristotle distinguishes the simple plot from the complex plot. A plot is said to be simple when the change in is rooted in the protagonist’s fortune takes place without peripeteia or anagnorisis. The complex plot, on the other hand, involves an action accompanied by reversal or discovery or by both.
In tragedy the term peripeteia usually means the sudden change of fortune from prosperity to ruin. Peripeteia occurs in Oedipus as the messenger who came to cheer Oedipus and relieve Oedipus of his fear about his mother, reveals the secret of the king’s birth. It, therefore, means something very much like a reversal or exception or intention. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagnorisis coincides with peripeteia. The classic example is Oedipus Rex when Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius. Both peripeteia and anagnorisis, surprising but natural, are the key incidents in tragedy making its plot complex.
Q. 5. Write a short note on Tragi-Comedy.
A Tragic Comedy is dramatic work that includes both tragic and comic aspects Coined by Plautus, a Roman dramatist From the time period between Shakespeare and the 19th century, it meant serious plays with lightened up moods. A Tragi-Comedy does not fit perfectly into a comedic or tragic framework.
This term became known as a play that did not have enough deaths to be considered a tragedy, but it could not be categorized as a comedy.
The usage of the term Tragi-Comedy stemmed from the dramas of ancient Greece. ● Tragi-Comedy has a variety of characters and they show complex dynamics in human relationships.
Originally the plays usually contained Gods and kings along with peasants and slaves. 1. Prevailing values that show up in spiritual turning points
2. Showed friendship and love through danger
3. Prolonged uncertainty and unexpected events
4. Unstatic characters, but a personality trait that was emphasized
5. Events not controlled by hero actions
6. Reader’s sympathy for one-character conflicts with sympathy for another character, and author is neutral Romance contains elements of both Tragedy and Comedy. It shares the “loveintrigue” with comedies, but at the same time also have the intense plot-lines, dark tone, and grim themes that are common in tragedies. Finally, a romance neither stresses, like a tragedy, nor diminishes evil, like a comedy, but rather romances accepts evil as something that is a natural part of the world around us.
Q. 6. What are the characteristics of one act tragedy?
Characteristics of a one act play are as follows:
The beginning of the play marks the very first action.
i. The language used to form dialogues must be simple, brief and easily understood.
ii. The unity of time, place and action must be observed in a one act play.
iii A one act play throws a question, for which the viewers enthusiastically anticipate the answer.
iv One act play consists of only one act, but it may contain one or more than one scene.
v. One act plays are typically authored in a brief style. v A character is usually not fully developed in a one act play. Rather than presenting all the diverse facets of a character, the attention is concentrated on just one or two striking characteristics of character. v A one act play is not dependent on outstanding impacts and regular old dramatic tricks. It purposes to have the ease of plot; deliberation of action and agreement of impression.
One act plays deal with a particular prevailing situation and their goal is to create a single conclusion.
vi. One act plays deal with a single theme which is established through a single circumstance to one climax so that maximum impact can be created.
vii. One act plays deal with routine difficulties of ordinary life for instance matrimony and divorce, wrongdoings and penalties and work conditions.
viii. Just as in the case of a routine long drama, a one act play also is constituted of a beginning, middle and an end. The actions once begun are continuous, which means it carries on without any interval.
ix. Due to short duration of the play, all unnecessary things must be strictly avoided. As the action happens in a short period of time, it presents intricate stage directions to minimize the time taken by the action itself.
X. A successful one act play must have the capability of creating the mood, or atmosphere of the play before losing any time.
xi. A one act play has limited number of characters. Usually, there are just two or three main characters. These salient features are highlighted and presented by putting the characters in diverse conditions and situations.
One act playis influenced by realism. Commonplace people are depicted as characters in the modern one act plays.
xiii. The dialogues in the play must not be superfluous but they must be focused. Words must be carefully chosen and sentences used must be brief.
Q. 7. What are the characteristics of Miracle Plays?
Characteristics of miracle plays are as follows:
The miracle play had as its subject either a story from the Bible, or else the life and martyrdom of a saint. In the usage of some historians, however, “Miracle play” denotes only dramas based on saints’ lives, and the term mystery play-“mystery” in the archaic sense of the “trade” conducted by each of the medieval guilds who sponsored these plays-is applied only to dramas based on the Bible. The plays representing biblical narratives originated within the church in about the tenth century, in dramatizations of brief parts of the Latin liturgical service, called tropes, especially the “Quern quaeritis” (“Whom are you seeking”) trope portraying the visit of the three Marys to the tomb of Christ. Gradually these evolved into complete plays which were written in English instead of in Latin, produced under the auspices of the various trade guilds, and acted on stages set outside the church. The miracle plays written in England are of unknown authorship.
In the fourteenth century there developed in cities such as York and Chester the practice, on the feast of Corpus Christi (sixty days after Easter), of putting on great “cycles” of such plays, representing crucial events in the biblical history of mankind from the Creation and Fall of man, through the Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ, to the Last Judgment. The precise way that the plays were staged is a matter of scholarly debate, but it is widely agreed that each scene was played on a separate “pageant wagon” which was drawn, in sequence, to one after another fixed station in a city, at each of which some parts of the cycle were enacted. The biblical texts were greatly expanded in these plays, and the unknown authors added scenes, comic as well as serious, of their own invention. For examples of the variety, vitality, and power of these dramas, see the Wakefield “Noah” and “Second Shepherd’s Play,” and the Brome “Abraham and Isaac.”
Q.8. Write a short critical note on the use of the supernatural in tragedy.
The supernatural plays an important role in the tragic world created by the great masters of tragedies. The ancient Greek masters had admitted a large place to the deus ex machina in their tragic pattern of life. The supernatural figures were made to appear on the stage to resolve the crisis at the end. The prophecies by the oracles and omens and portents give to the Greek tragedies a supernatural effect. As a matter of fact, in Greek tragedies, belief in impersonal forces operating in human life reinforces the supernatural effect of the plays.
A far more effective use of the supernatural is found in the romantic tragedies of the Elizabethan age in England. Supernaturalism in the hands of some Elizabethan dramatists is crude and horrible as in the Revenge tragedies of Webster and Tourneur. But Shakespeare makes use of the supernatural in an artistic manner. In Macbeth and Hamlet there is a distinct element of the supernatural which lends a weird enchantment of atmosphere, a certain richness and fullness of content to the play.
Q.9. What do you understand by the term catharsis?
Catharsis is the process in which a story’s tragic ending allows audiences to experience profound emotional release. It helps to explain why people will sometimes seek out sad stories, music, and other forms of art – processing heavy emotions is good for humans to do from time to time.
When Aristotle first set out to examine the phenomenon of catharsis, he was asking himself why audiences enjoy great tragedies so much if they just leave us feeling sad. In a world where, for various reasons, many people find it hard to express the full range of their emotions, tragedies help us to do just that.
Feelings like pity or empathy for a story’s hero, sorry at the ending, and frustration over circumstances, can help people express complex emotions and leave them feeling better. It is part of the human condition that feeling emotions is a requirement of living. Therefore, experiencing art that helps us to do this is a positive process for purging negative emotions.
Q.10. What are the attributes of an ideal tragic hero?
Tragic heroes are the protagonists of tragedies, an old drama genre that originated in Ancient Greece. Tragedies contemplate the deeds and inevitable downfall of great individuals, typically caused by a significant flaw in that great individual. As a result, the tragic hero is the essential element of any classic tragedy.
Written in the fourth century BC, Aristotle’s Poetics sketches out a template for tragedies epics, and comedies. Aristotle was one of the first individuals to analyse and describe the qualities of a tragic hero who, in Aristotle’s mind, is the most crucial part of a tragedy. A tragedy should revolve around a tragic character who is noble in both birth and manner. Despite this, a tragic hero should have some central flaw that eventually becomes their undoing.
Aristotle viewed the primary aim of literature as moral instruction; by seeing a great man fall prey to a specific character flaw or vice, the audience is warned against participating in or possessing those vices and flaws. In order to make this connection, the nobility of the tragic hero cannot be overstated, as Aristotle himself puts it, “So too the poet, in representing men who are irascible or indolent, or have other defects of character, should preserve the type and yet ennoble it. In this way Achilles is portrayed by Agathon and Homer”. An audience must admire the tragic hero and feel pity and fear when he fails.
Q.11. Briefly discuss Aristotle’s notion of a complex plot with reference to his Poetics.
Aristotle defines the complex plot as ‘one in which the sequence of the episodes is neither probable nor necessary. He prefers the complex plot whose pivots are peripeteia (sudden reversal, an acute form of metabasis or change of fortune) and anagnorisis (discovery, recognition, or realization). In chapter X of ‘the Poetics’. Aristotle distinguishes the simple plot from the complex plot. A plot is said to be simple when the change in the protagonist’s fortunes takes place without peripeteia’ or ‘anagnorisis’. The complex plot, on the other hand, involves an action accompanied by a reversal or a discovery or both. In tragedy the term peripety usually means the sudden change of fortune from prosperity to ruin.
Peripety occurs in Oedipus as the Messenger who, coming to cheer Oedipus and relieve him of his fear about his mother reveals the secret of the king’s birth. It, therefore, means something very much like a reversal of expectation or intention. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagnorisis coincides with ‘peripety’. The classic example is in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius. ‘Peripety’ and ‘anagnorisis’, surprising but natural, are key incidents in tragedy making its plot complex.
Q.12. Write a short note on ‘Anagnorisis’.
‘Anagnorisis’ is a term used by Aristotle in his Poetics to describe the moment of recognition of truth when ignorance gives way to knowledge. According to Aristotle, the ideal moment of anagnorisis coincides with ‘peripeteia’ or reversal of fortune. The classic example of anagnorisis is in Oedipus Rexwhen Oedipus discovers he has himself killed Laius.
In his discussion on the plot of tragedy, Aristotle remarks that the plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end. The best plot must combine change of fortune (Metabasis) with reversal (“Peripeteia’) and discovery (‘Anagnorisis’). A complex plot, according to Aristotle, is one in which the change of fortune is accompanied by a reversal of fortune or its recognition or by both. Hence, in a play peripeteia is followed by anagnorisis or recognition. While peripeteia is rooted in ignorance, anagnorisis is the change from ignorance to knowledge. Oedipus discovers the truth about himself and it leads to his enlightenment. He is ignorant that it is he who is responsible for the plague in Thebes. When the truth comes to him, he is enlightened and he feels remorse. The egoist King Lear is finally redeemed and this redemption is brought about by recognition of truth.
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