Do you think tragedy or the romance genre is
more true to life?
I feel like this is an intriguing question that can interest a variety of audiences, even those not familiar with certain literary terms; most people have a basic understanding of what a tragedy is. From my experience with social media, I've seen a lot of people who seem to look on life as a tragedy, and I'm interested as to their reasoning.
Liz made a comment on my post about that production of A Winter's Tale, Soviet-style, about the role of gods in a play where there were cosmonauts. She pointed out that if they had a belief in gods, the cosmonauts should have visited Apollo themselves instead of going to an oracle. This brings up the idea of the role of gods in the play, as well as the relationship of gods to fate, two ideas I'd like to explore further.
Hm... To answer your question, I'd have to say that Tragedy is closer to reality than Romance, but not by much. Admittedly, the only Romance I've read is The Winter's Tale, but its use of supernatural aid, with everything just happening to work out in the end, is simply not realistic. Sure, it happens, but it's not what we would consider "true-to-life."
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Tragedy is also unrealistic, but less so. I'm thinking of Othello, in which, at the start of the play, everything is fine, but, within a very short amount of time (~2 weeks?) everything has fallen apart and everyone is dead. This doesn't happen very often in reality, and, again, might not be considered unrealistic.
However, Tragedy, to me, reveals the fallacies of the human psyche. It shows us things about ourselves, and, in that way, it is realistic. I don't get that sense from the one Romance we've read (admittedly a small sample, but nonetheless).
This last post was by David, by the way. Anyone know how to edit a published post?
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the in-put! I really enjoyed the in-class discussion we had about tragedy v. romance. It seemed to spark a lot of conversation, so I'm going to keep working on it for now.
ReplyDeleteYou got it girl! I think it's going to be a cool paper. How are you going to gauge what is more relate-able? It may be useful to take an opinion poll from our class and another from a more diverse focus group.
ReplyDeleteRomeo and Juliet can be considered both a tragedy and a romance. It takes place in an even shorter amount of time than Othello. Although it might not be considered very realistic, some of its "unrealistic elements" may be more of a commentary on the rashness of human nature.
ReplyDeleteKara, an opinion poll is a good idea. Lizy, it seems like I'm going to have to figure out what I mean by romance because there seem to be a lot of different ways to come at it. Thanks for the help!
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