Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan Jizzakh state pedagogical institute English Faculty

1.1 The Etymology of word tragedy

The word “tragedy” comes from the Greek words tragos, which means goat and oide, which means song. A tragedy is a dramatic poem or play in formal language and in most cases has a tragic or unhappy ending. One may ask, what does a goat have to do with a dramatic play? There are many theories that explain what a goat has to do with this. It has been said that the actors dressed in goatskins to represent satyrs. Another, which says that the actor or the singer competes for a goat. It was even said that the goat represented unhappy times. An ancient Greek tragedy is like nothing that we have produced in modern English. For over twenty-three centuries tragedies have left us wondering, and full of questions about the existence of ancient Greeks. The way life is described is a world like no other. The effect of tragedies often depends on the buildings, the scenery, the dancing, the actors etc. The only concrete parts of a tragedy we have are the words. Tragedies were first performed as religious rituals and to honor the gods and goddesses. A lot of what it did was explain the relation between the human and the divine, explain the relation between the human world and the material world, and explained violence and its origins. Tragedies started with a dithyramb, which is a singing of a choral lyric, and eventually grew to a mythological or heroic story. Ancient philosopher Aristotle defines tragedy as “ a representation of a serious, complete action which has magnitude, in embellished speech, with each of its elements [used] separately in the [various] parts [of the play], [represented] by people acting and not by narration; accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions.” (Poetics 25-29).
Theory of tragedy
Classical theories
As the great period of Athenian drama drew to an end at the beginning of the 4th century BCE, Athenian philosophers began to analyze its content and formulate its structure. In the thought of Plato (c. 427–347 BCE), the history of the criticism of tragedy began with speculation on the role of censorship. To Plato (in the dialogue on the Laws) the state was the noblest work of art, a representation (mimēsis) of the fairest and best life. He feared the tragedians’ command of the expressive resources of language, which might be used to the detriment of worthwhile institutions. He feared, too, the emotive effect of poetry, the Dionysian element that is at the very basis of tragedy. Therefore, he recommended that the tragedians submit their works to the rulers, for approval, without which they could not be performed. It is clear that tragedy, by nature exploratory, critical, independent, could not live under such a regimen.
Plato is answered, in effect and perhaps intentionally, by Aristotle’s Poetics. Aristotle defends the purgative power of tragedy and, in direct contradiction to Plato, makes moral ambiguity the essence of tragedy. The tragic hero must be neither a villain nor a virtuous man but a “character between these two extremes,…a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty [hamartia].” The effect on the audience will be similarly ambiguous. A perfect tragedy, he says, should imitate actions that excite “pity and fear.” He uses Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a paradigm. Near the beginning of the play, Oedipus asks how his stricken city (the counterpart of Plato’s state) may cleanse itself, and the word he uses for the purifying action is a form of the word catharsis. The concept of catharsis provides Aristotle with his reconciliation with Plato, a means by which to satisfy the claims of both ethics and art. “Tragedy,” says Aristotle, “is an imitation [mimēsis] of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions.” Ambiguous means may be employed, Aristotle maintains in contrast to Plato, to a virtuous and purifying end.
To establish the basis for a reconciliation between ethical and artistic demands, Aristotle insists that the principal element in the structure of tragedy is not character but plot. Since the erring protagonist is always in at least partial opposition to the state, the importance of tragedy lies not in the character but in the enlightening event. “Most important of all,” Aristotle said, “is the structure of the incidents. For tragedy is an imitation not of men but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.” Aristotle considered the plot to be the soul of a tragedy, with character in second place. The goal of tragedy is not suffering but the knowledge that issues from it, as the denouement issues from a plot. The most powerful elements of emotional interest in tragedy, according to Aristotle, are reversal of intention or situation (peripeteia) and recognition scenes (anagnōrisis), and each is most effective when it is coincident with the other. The philosopher Aristotle theorized in his work, The Poetics, that tragedy results in a catharsis (emotional cleansing) of healing for the audience through their experience of these emotions in response to the suffering of the characters in the drama. He considers it superior when a character passes from good fortune to bad rather than the reverse; at the time, the term "tragedy" was not yet fixed solely on stories with unhappy endings. The Philosopher Aristotle in his work mentioned above (The Poetics) gave the following definition in ancient Greek to the word "tragedy" (τραγωδία):
Ἐστὶν οὖν τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας, μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ, χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδὼν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι'ἀπαγγελίας, δι' ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.
(Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.)
Common usage of tragedy refers to any story with a sad ending, whereas to be an Aristotelian tragedy the story fit the set of requirements as laid out by Poetics. By this definition social drama cannot be tragic because the hero in it is a victim of circumstance and incidents which depend upon the society in which he lives and not upon the ineludible inner compulsions—psychological or religious—which determine his progress towards self-knowledge and death.[10] Exactly what constitutes a "tragedy," however, is a frequently debated matter.
Greek Theory of Tragedy: Aristotle's Poetics The classic discussion of Greek tragedy is Aristotle's Poetics. He defines tragedy as "the imitation of an action that is serious and also as having magnitude, complete in itself." He continues, "Tragedy is a form of drama exciting the emotions of pity and fear. Its action should be single and complete, presenting a reversal of fortune, involving persons renowned and of superior attainments, and it should be written in poetry embellished with every kind of artistic expression." The writer presents "incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to interpret its catharsis of such of such emotions" (by catharsis, Aristotle means a purging or sweeping away of the pity and fear aroused by the tragic action). The basic difference Aristotle draws between tragedy and other genres, such as comedy and the epic, is the "tragic pleasure of pity and fear" the audience feel watching a tragedy. In order for the tragic hero to arouse these feelings in the audience, he cannot be either all good or all evil but must be someone the audience can identify with; however, if he is superior in some way(s), the tragic pleasure is intensified. His disastrous end results from a mistaken action, which in turn arises from a tragic flaw or from a tragic error in judgment. Often the tragic flaw is hubris, an excessive pride that causes the hero to ignore a divine warning or to break a moral law. It has been suggested that because the tragic hero's suffering is greater than his offense, the audience feels pity; because the audience members perceive that they could behave similarly, they feel pity. Greek philosopher Aristotle defined tragedy in his work The Poetics, the very first example of dramatic theory:
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation (catharsis) of these emotions.