Tragedy, Theory, Theatre

This course will overview the dramatic, theatrical, and theoretical work of tragedy, the genre that, according to Northrop Frye, guarantees a realistic perspective on the world we live in. We will read many of the classic critical encounters with tragedy (Aristotle, Nietzsche, Hegel, Frye) alongside more recent theorists of literary and cultural representation. But rather than taking a chronological approach, this course understands “tragedy” as a fluid notion, one used to shape a variety of historical experiences through a range of dramatic, theatrical, and critical encounters. Throughout the semester, we will frequently pair earlier with more recent plays, under the aegis of a network of questions posed by critical or theoretical reading.