What is Tragedy

Tragedy is one of the main genres of theater. It originated in ancient Greece and evolved from the ode to the god of wine in the ritual of the festival of the god of wine. In a tragedy, the protagonists inevitably suffer setbacks, trials and tribulations, and even defeat and death, but their reasonable will, motives, ideals, and passions herald victory and success.

In the history of theater, according to the different scope of life involved in tragedy, generally divided into four types. One is the heroic tragedy. It tends to express the major themes in the political struggle, class struggle and national struggle. It is a direct expression of the frontal conflict between various political forces and different classes. The second is family tragedy. It expresses various complex ethical relationships between families and within families, as well as different values and moral laws of life, resulting in intense conflicts and love stories of sadness and joy. The third is the tragedy that expresses the ordinary destiny of the "little people". Opposed to the "little man" is a huge tangible and intangible net from all corners of society. The last kind of its expression of conflict throughout the whole of human social life, showing the human race from the Kingdom of necessity to the Kingdom of freedom of the difficult course. Tragedy can best express the inner life movement of the conflict struggle, from the limited personal glimpse of the infinite glory of the cosmic dome, the power of personal insignificance embodies the indestructible greatness of mankind.

We begin with a brief account of the concepts of pathos, pathos and tragedy. Zhang Fa, a professor of aesthetics at Renmin University of China, defines the sad state in his Introduction to Aesthetics as "a sentimental feeling that is sublimated from the sullenness of life's disillusionment to the ontological inquiry of cosmic life." He also explains that sadness is based on the belief in the laws of the universe and stems from the deviation from the normal laws of the universe. This "sorrow of disappointment in life" is defined as sadness when it does not reach the ultimate contemplation of the universe and life, or when it is still manifested in the philosophical level of "the harmony of the laws of heaven and earth and of man" of life's joy and anger, sadness and happiness, and dissociation and unity. Compared with the sadness that shows the conformity and understanding of things that cannot be grasped, tragedy presents the resistance to things that cannot be grasped, which is tangible and has stronger conflicts and hostility, and the distinction between good and evil. Tragedy ends in destruction, a sublime death. Therefore, resistance, action and destruction constitute the three elements of tragedy and become the main content of the philosophy of tragedy.

Tragedy is more profoundly embodied in the field of Chinese aesthetics, and is more fully expressed in Chinese literature. "Raise a cup to invite the moon, the shadow into three people" moonlit night, the poet alone, wine, sadness, sadness is difficult to break, sadness comes out; "looking for, cold and quiet, miserable and sad", the cold tone of the fusion of the pain of the death of the country, the grief of the widow, The cold tone of the writing combines the pain of a fallen country, the grief of a widow, and the pain of a fall, thus making it particularly deep and heavy; "A friend in the sea, a faraway land as far as the heartland. The world is like a distant land." "There is no reason to be on the wrong road, and children are ****ed." Although there are feelings and thoughts about the end of the world for a confidant, but there is no sadness; "Gently I go, just as I gently come; I gently beckon, for goodbye to the clouds of the western sky." There is a faint sadness of departure in the euphony, and the wandering of the Kanghe River can never stop the author's pursuit of faith in life. Sorrow is the subject's sadness for reality, society and life. However, this sadness does not reach the deviation of philosophical law, and does not rise to the questioning and thinking of the universe and the true nature of life.

Departure sadness is the sadness of touching things. When the parting of life is transformed into permanent nothingness, it manifests itself in the inquiry of the deviation of the laws of the universe, i.e. the sadness in aesthetics. Like Jing Ke assassinate the Qin King's "wind Xiao Xiao, easy water cold, a strong man a go and never return" of the heroic, death-like; Qu Yuan "Li Sao" in the "long too much breath to cover the slugs, mourning the people's livelihood of the difficult" of the extreme inquiring; Chen Zi'ang " The "longevity of heaven and earth, and the sadness of not being able to find talent"; Li Yu's "forty years of family and country, three thousand miles of rivers and mountains" of the country's destruction of wistfulness, and the "flowing water and falling flowers in spring, heaven and earth," helpless melancholy, which triggered the grief and sadness of life, and the sadness of the people. The first is to make the most of the opportunity to see the world, and the second is to make the most of the opportunity to see the world.

The antagonism between man and society, life and oneself in the sad state is manifested as invisible understanding and conformity. The rational grasp of the sad state has a deeper philosophical meaning. Lu Xun in "Blessing", "Kong Yi Ji", "Hometown", "Q Zheng Zhuan" and other works to show us what a state of life. The numbness of Xianglin's wife, the scribbling of Kong Yijie, the rags of the hometown, and the pedantry of AQ. It makes us see the poisonous evil of backward feudalism and asks us to re-examine the great tradition. Under this feudal oppression, the ignorant people do not seek to resist, but endure and conform, and sink in the bondage of ritualism. This is the sorrow of society and the sorrow of human nature. "When I am silent, I feel full; I will open my mouth and feel empty at the same time. The past life is dead. I have great joy over this death, for by this I know that it once lived. The life that died has decayed. I have great joy in this decay, for by this I know that it is not yet empty." Lu Xun enlightens the national epiphany with rational contemplation of life. And what is expressed in his works is the sadness of the whole old China, or rather, the tragedy that rises to the level of aesthetics.

In a word, as the object of study of aesthetics - the conflict between man and the world, man and the universe shown by sorrow constitutes the aesthetic art of sorrow. Pathos, pathos, tragedy, and tragedy are the externalization of sadness and beauty in the field of literature and art. The art category constructed by sadness and beauty makes tragedy go to death in the sublime and also choose new life in the sublime