How to empathize with tragedy?

I'm having a really hard time.

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    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.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    But what if you don't give a frick?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      https://i.imgur.com/loPnaDr.jpg

      I'm having a really hard time.

      A lot of the "tragedies" are comedies. You're laughing at people who are stupid. This is more obvious in Roman theatre but it's there in Greekish theatre too,

      the "outraged woman" stock character is a clown, for example.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Oedipus the King
        I just can't see what Sophocles was trying to do.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          oh come on, that's one of the more obvious comedies.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            How? What's funny?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            killing his dad to frick his mum? it's hilarious

            >A lot of the "tragedies" are comedies.
            No, they aren't.

            >no (and i wont give any examples)
            yes, they are. I did say it's more obviously pointed out in the Roman than the Greek... it does depend on perspective though, for a tragedy to be taken as a comedy.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >A lot of the "tragedies" are comedies.
        No, they aren't.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      There is tragedy in your own life so you actually do give a frick even if you think you don't.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Mozart is the only example of tragedy I can genuinely feel.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    tragedies aren't about empathy, they are about determinism and fate. they are for metaphysical contemplation, not your gay empathy bullshit. reading ancient literature based on how modern tv shows are written is moronic.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You fricking moron. If you don't empathize you can't see what the work is about.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Tragedies are the only form that utterly depend on empathy to work, you're moronic. The protagonist must be designed such that they remind us of ourselves rather than serving as an exemplar of virtue or lack thereof. His motives, too, must be understandable - able to be empathized with - even if not pure or good.

      If it whatsoever fails in this, then it doesn't matter if the tragedy is about fate (which is definitely the more classical version) or something more modern, it will fail because the audience won't care, they won't see themselves or anyone they know in the shoes of the hero. Empathy is the fundamental element that absolutely cannot be removed.

      Aristotle, for example, writes about this. You should know this if you're going to be touting about how others shouldn't use modern understandings of tragedy.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I think that's the problem. I've yet to find a protagonist that reminds me of myself.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >I think that's the problem. I've yet to find a protagonist that reminds me of myself.
          who would want to write a book about an aged manchild who sits in his bedroom fapping over robot anime?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            That's not what I'm talking about. Every protagonist is ignorant and full of fatal flaws. I'm perfected and keep perfecting.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >The protagonist must be designed such that they remind us of ourselves rather than serving as an exemplar of virtue or lack thereof.
        barbarian, if you don't wake everyday and strive to be a paragon of virtue; an exemplar unto all, then you deserve to be broken on the wheel, not to lust in your wretched condition for men or intellect to write aggrandizing novels about you and those like you.

        The only use for a villain is to serve for entertainment in the public arena, reenacting scenes from mythos which resemble his crime.

        Yours, going on what small information is able to be extracted from your words, might be that of Narcissus and you would be inclined to paw int a reflective pool of acid - containing the key to your shackles - as the shackles slowly drag you into the pool by the neck.

        My point is that even one such as yourself may yet serve a purpose.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          You're a boy.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            You will regret your words, barbarian.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Just imagine you're an ancient aristocrat, you've got the ancient blood in your veins, your people came from the steppes, your tombs are beneath the city. Life is bare and every action echoes out into massive space like a hammered drum. You drape yourself in red-dyed wool, you sit beneath olive trees grown ashy grey, the priestesses have wildcat smiles in the firelight.

    Then some pencil-pusher from city hall starts haranguing you about burial protocols and 'equality before the law'. What do you make of a guy like that?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I'd cut his throat.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I think Medea by Euripides is a good tragedy. It's much closer to what we have now with women trying to castrate men.

    Sophocles was surely gay.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >It's much closer to what we have now with women trying to castrate men.
      Very insightful dude!

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Can women manipulate gay men?

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Relating it to yourself. Say everyone you know dies.

    Is that catharsis?

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    By being human.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    it's literally effortless, the structure does it for you. maybe you're not paying attention, or a moron

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    How old are you

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