Modern Tragedy

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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  • The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Is tragedy possible in the modern era? In his book

The Death of Tragedy

(1961), George Steiner takes the view that Ibsen's social-realist plays in prose, such as

A Doll's House

and

Ghosts

, in effect killed off tragic drama: “Tragedy speaks not of secular dilemmas which may be resolved by rational innovation, but of the unaltering bias toward inhumanity and destruction in the drift of the world. But in these plays of Ibsen's radical period, such is not the issue. There are specific remedies to the disasters which befall the characters, and it is Ibsen's purpose to make us see these remedies and bring them about.” George Steiner is right to perceive that such plays as

A Doll's House

and

Ghosts

are not reconcilable with classical tragedy, but it can be argued that Ibsen does not reject…

3636 words

Citation: Newton, Ken. "Modern Tragedy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1371, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1371 Modern Tragedy 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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