For Tuesday: Poole, Tragedy, Chapters 6 & 7

NOTE: Read as much of Chapters 6 and 7 as you can, and consider some of the ideas below. We'll write about ONE of them when you return next Tuesday, or some combination of some of the ones below. 

* What does Poole mean when he suggests "first time tragedy, second time farce?" Why does repetition kill an audience's sense of tragic potential?

* If comedy is tragedy that happens to someone else (to paraphrase Mel Brooks), why doesn’t the entire audience laugh at every tragedy? What makes it ‘work’ even though the comedic potential is always there?

* Is tragedy just a stylistic thing? Or as Poole asks, “Does it all depend on how it’s told”? What would that mean in Shakespearean terms? Just iambic pentameter? (You might think about the story he tells from Chekhov)

* Why might comic relief be an important part of tragedy (and not just to take pressure off the serious moments)? Why does Shakespeare always have some comic moment in his darkest plays, such as the murder scene in Richard III, or the Graveyard scene in Hamlet? Could these scenes also be tragic in their own right?

* If plays are all about words/speaking, why are the silences equally important—especially for Tragedy? How does Shakespeare do this in his plays, that you’ve seen?

* Related to this, what does Poole mean when he writes, “Breaking the silence has become a modern way of thinking about tragedy”?

* Why might the role of the ‘messenger’ be one of the greatest tragic roles of all time? And why do all tragedies employ this device—of someone who has to report of a tragedy that happened off-stage?

* Why does the ancient Greek mask of Tragedy (with open eyes and mouth) represent an important theory or message of Tragedy? How can this empower artists writing in the wake of events like 9/11?

* Why is sound in general so important to Tragedy, meaning the sounds other than speech? How do plays take advantage of other aural mechanisms? Think of movies as well.