In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE), tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general (where the tragic divides against epic and lyric) or at the scale of the drama (where tragedy is opposed to comedy).
The meaning of TRAGEDY is a disastrous event : calamity. How to use tragedy in a sentence.
At its core, tragedy is a genre of literature that depicts the downfall of a noble or admirable character, usually due to a flaw in their character, fate, or a combination of both. It is not simply misfortune; it is a descent from a position of power or happiness into suffering and, often, death.
Tragedy, branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual. By extension the term may be applied to other literary works, such as the novel.
TRAGEDY definition: 1. a very sad event or situation, especially one involving death or suffering: 2. a play about…. Learn more.
In his Poetics, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle defined tragedy as a morally ambiguous genre in which a noble hero goes from good fortune to bad.
What is Tragedy? | Oregon State Guide to Literary Terms | Oregon State ...
- a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster: a family tragedy. 2. the tragic element of drama, of literature generally, or of life: the tragedy of poverty. 3. a literary composition, as a novel, dealing with a somber theme carried to a tragic conclusion.
A tragedy (TRA-jud-dee) is a genre of drama focusing on stories of human suffering. The drama typically consists of a human flaw or weakness in one of the work’s central characters, which then triggers a devastating event or series of events for those in that character’s orbit.