Tragedy

[WICKES]

Looking for some advice. I want some decent essays on the nature of tragedy, ideally by great authors like Huxley, Auden etc but not necessarily. What I'm really looking for is a brief overview/ introduction or summary.

[Seasider]

Looking for some advice. I want some decent essays on the nature of tragedy, ideally by great authors like Huxley, Auden etc but not necessarily. What I'm really looking for is a brief overview/ introduction or summary.
You want "great authors"? Go to the top. Start with Aristotle. In Poetics he gives an analysis of what constitutes a Tragedy and what is required to distinguish it from melodrama.

[kelby_lake]

Looking for some advice. I want some decent essays on the nature of tragedy, ideally by great authors like Huxley, Auden etc but not necessarily. What I'm really looking for is a brief overview/ introduction or summary.

Start with Clifford Leach's 'Tragedy':
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tragedy-Critical-Idiom-Clifford-Leech/dp/0415045991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283198232&sr=8-1


Then read Poetics and AC Bradley's book, 'Shakespearean Tragedy.' Arthur Miller also wrote an essay on the modern concept of tragedy.

[Seasider]

Clifford Leech was Professor of English at Durham University when I was there between 1955-58. He was a considerable Shakespearean scholar and in one lecture I remember he acted out a scene from The Spanish Tragedy which I have never forgotten.