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Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction
Adrian Poole
Adrian PooleProfessor of English Literature, University of CambridgeClose
Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction addresses questions of tragedy about belief, blame, mourning, revenge, pain, witnessing, timing, and ending and demonstrates the age-old significance of our attempts to make sense of terrible suffering. What do we mean by 'tragedy' in present-day usage? When we turn on the news, does a report of the latest atrocity have any connection with the masterpieces of Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Racine? What has tragedy been made to mean by dramatists, story-tellers, critics, philosophers, politicians, and journalists over the last two and a half millennia? Why do we still read, re-write, and stage these old plays?
Keywords: Bertolt Brecht, Pierre Corneille, fiction, hard, history, Homer, Jean Racine, real, Philip Roth, satyr-play, tragedy
Adrian Poole, author Professor of English Literature, University of Cambridge
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https://www.veryshortintroductions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780192802354.001.0001/actrade-9780192802354
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Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
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