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May. 5th, 2005
15. [which has the distinctive feel of a final exam question to it] It has frequently been observed that Aristotle's harmatia is poorly translated as "tragic flaw," especially as currently understood, as a character defect that flaws the hero -- that a better restatement of what the old Greek was getting at is that a tragic hero's virtues are also his flaws. In other words, what made, say, Oedipus a strong king (his decisiveness, his sense of justice) are exactly those qualities (impetuosity, personal righteousness) that got him in trouble. In the wrong context, any virtue can be a vice.
It has also been suggested that a comic hero's flaws are his virtues -- that is, the difference between tragedy and comedy is the direction of irony. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?
Okay. Point the first: Aristotle's Poetics is not a definitive pronouncement about Greek tragedy, even though it gets used that way--and it makes a dog's breakfast of plays like Antigone and Medea, not to mention, god help us all, Hamlet. Commentators on the Poetics have estimated that Aristotle's schema would have worked for maybe 10% of the total output of the Greek tragedians. So, to begin with, there's no point in trying to apply any of Aristotle's concepts to anything much wider than Oedipus Tyrannos itself.
Point the second: hamartia does not mean "tragic flaw." It means "error." Or "sin." In Oedipus's case, his hamartia ARISES from the qualities of his character, but hamartia is not intrinsic. It is an action.
So this question is unanswerable because its premises are flawed.
On the other hand, I would agree that irony can be either comic or tragic, depending entirely on how it is deployed. Sometimes, it can even be both at once.
It has also been suggested that a comic hero's flaws are his virtues -- that is, the difference between tragedy and comedy is the direction of irony. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?
Okay. Point the first: Aristotle's Poetics is not a definitive pronouncement about Greek tragedy, even though it gets used that way--and it makes a dog's breakfast of plays like Antigone and Medea, not to mention, god help us all, Hamlet. Commentators on the Poetics have estimated that Aristotle's schema would have worked for maybe 10% of the total output of the Greek tragedians. So, to begin with, there's no point in trying to apply any of Aristotle's concepts to anything much wider than Oedipus Tyrannos itself.
Point the second: hamartia does not mean "tragic flaw." It means "error." Or "sin." In Oedipus's case, his hamartia ARISES from the qualities of his character, but hamartia is not intrinsic. It is an action.
So this question is unanswerable because its premises are flawed.
On the other hand, I would agree that irony can be either comic or tragic, depending entirely on how it is deployed. Sometimes, it can even be both at once.
book update with GIP
May. 5th, 2005 03:06 pm![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
matociquala made the icon, I kludged the Latin (Octopus fabulatoris or storyteller's octopus), suricattus kindly agreed to share.I have finally finished my editing pass on A Companion to Wolves. Even as I type this, my lovely and talented co-author Bear is getting the ms ready to send off.
A sense of accomplishment is a marvelous thing.
quotidian/numinous
May. 5th, 2005 10:24 pmThe thing I was trying and failing to describe the other day (scroll down past the sonnet) is this:
Modern poetry, when it is doing what it is designed to do, makes the quotidian numinous.
There was a panel at WisCon a few years ago about writing better ("Diving Deeper" was the title); it ended up trying to go several different directions at once, because the panelists had at least two and possibly three extremely distinct ideas about what it was the panel was trying to do. China Miéville and I were trying to talk about how to bring the numinous into short fiction; once you've got the basics of story-telling down, how do you make the story more than a story? I still want to have that conversation sometime with somebody, but it's the sort of thing that needs hours or days or possibly a lifetime, just to try to get the vocabulary worked out and a common understanding of what you're aiming for. Because the defining point of the numinous in art is that you can't exactly articulate it.
And I know ways to reach for the numinous when I'm dealing with sf/f/h; theme and image and the choices the characters make and why they make them. I can't get there every time out of the gate, but I know enough to try. But I can't do it at all for everyday life; I don't have the eye or the ear, or the seventh or eighth sense it needs to take the ordinary and make it luminous.
heres_luck is a poet. She can make it work.
Modern poetry, when it is doing what it is designed to do, makes the quotidian numinous.
There was a panel at WisCon a few years ago about writing better ("Diving Deeper" was the title); it ended up trying to go several different directions at once, because the panelists had at least two and possibly three extremely distinct ideas about what it was the panel was trying to do. China Miéville and I were trying to talk about how to bring the numinous into short fiction; once you've got the basics of story-telling down, how do you make the story more than a story? I still want to have that conversation sometime with somebody, but it's the sort of thing that needs hours or days or possibly a lifetime, just to try to get the vocabulary worked out and a common understanding of what you're aiming for. Because the defining point of the numinous in art is that you can't exactly articulate it.
And I know ways to reach for the numinous when I'm dealing with sf/f/h; theme and image and the choices the characters make and why they make them. I can't get there every time out of the gate, but I know enough to try. But I can't do it at all for everyday life; I don't have the eye or the ear, or the seventh or eighth sense it needs to take the ordinary and make it luminous.
heres_luck is a poet. She can make it work.