Ideas and Forms of Tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages
- Author / Editor
- Kelly, Henry Ansgar.
Ideas and Forms of Tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages
- Published
- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
- Physical Description
- xvii, 257 pp.
- Series
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, no. 18.
- Description
- Identifies classical and medieval uses and understandings of "tragedy." For Aristotle, tragedy was a serious story, although one that might end happily. The notion of "irretrievable misfortune" came to dominate the late-classical use of the term.
- Lost and then reclaimed in the Middle Ages, the term was understood variously by Boethius, Isidore of Seville, Averroes, John of Salisbury, Dante, and others. Some of them were influenced by classical uses, but most exhibit new fusions of ideas. Late-medieval definitions varied from country to country, with Chaucer's legacy leading to Shakespeare and solidifying into the modern sense. Comments on TC and MkT.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism.
- Troilus and Criseyde.
- Monk and His Tale.