What was tragedy? [electronic resource] : theory and the early modern canon / Blair Hoxby.
Hoxby, Blair, 1966- author.
2015
PN1892 .H69 2015eb
Available Online

Linked e-resources

Linked Resource Online Access

Details

Title What was tragedy? [electronic resource] : theory and the early modern canon / Blair Hoxby.
Author Hoxby, Blair, 1966- author.
Edition First edition.
ISBN 9780191813283 (electronic book)
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198749165
Published Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (x, 366 pages) : illustrations
Item Number 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198749165 doi
Call Number PN1892 .H69 2015eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 809.2512
Summary Modern critics have definite ideas about tragedy, maintaining that in a true tragedy fate must feel the resistance of the tragic hero's moral freedom before finally crushing him, thus generating our ambivalent sense of terrible waste coupled with spiritual consolation. Yet far from being a timeless truth, this account of tragedy only emerged in the wake of the French Revolution. This study demonstrates that this account of the tragic, which has been hegemonic from the early 19th century despite recent twists and turns of critical fashion, obscured an earlier poetics of tragedy that evolved from 1515 to 1795.
Note Modern critics have definite ideas about tragedy, maintaining that in a true tragedy fate must feel the resistance of the tragic hero's moral freedom before finally crushing him, thus generating our ambivalent sense of terrible waste coupled with spiritual consolation. Yet far from being a timeless truth, this account of tragedy only emerged in the wake of the French Revolution. This study demonstrates that this account of the tragic, which has been hegemonic from the early 19th century despite recent twists and turns of critical fashion, obscured an earlier poetics of tragedy that evolved from 1515 to 1795.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on September 9, 2015).
Available in Other Form What was tragedy?
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
I. The philosophy of the tragic and the poetics of tragedy
1. Our tragic culture
The early modern conception of tragedy
The philosophy of the tragic
Literary form, the philosophy of history, and the canon
Tragedy born anew from the spirit of music?
Decadence and primitivism
The post-structural assault on tragic freedom
Reassessing the legacy of idealism
Approaching the world we have lost
2. An early modern poetics of tragedy
Definitions
The objects of tragic imitation
Fables
Manners
Sentiments
Diction
The player's passions
Spectacle
The chorus
Tragic pleasure
II. The world we have lost
3. Simple pathetic tragedy
Classical exemplars
Recovery and invention: Trissino's Sofonisba (1515)
A theoretical interlude
Racine's Bérénice (1670)
Milton's Samson Agonistes (1671)
Simplicity and reformation
Gluck's Alceste (1779)
La Harpe's philoctète (1781)
From pathos to moral freedom
4. Operatic discoveries: The complex tragedy with a happy ending
Did tragic heroes sing?
Euripides and the operatic repertoire
The Euripidean tragedy of anticipated woe
Idomeneo and the tragedy of averted sacrifice
5. Counter-reformation tragedy: The laurel and the cypress
Tragedy as spiritual exercise
Jesuit defenses of counter-reformation tragedy
Enlightened critiques and idealist defenses
Final reckonings
Appendix to chapter 5: Excerpts from Stefonio's Crispus
6. History as tragedy, tragedy as design: Where Shakespeare and Dryden part company
Antony and Cleopatra as a great occurrence
The art of portraiture
Sublimity raised from the very elements of littleness
Dryden's artificial order
Portraiture and history painting
Tides that swell and retire to seas
Language
The world well lost
Tragedy and history.

Browse Subjects

Show more subjects...

Statistics

from
to
Export