Before we move onto Julius Caesar next week, be sure to read Chapter 6 from Poole's Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction since it talks about a very important subject: the razor thin line between comedy and tragedy (something we even address in class on Wednesday!).
Remember, too, that Paper #1 was due today, and if you haven't turned it in yet, you can still turn it in late on Thursday or Friday, losing 10 points a day (so be careful!).
Answer TWO of the following:
Q1: What does Poole mean when he suggests "first time tragedy, second time farce?" Why does repetition kill an audience's sense of tragic potential? Does this suggest, too, that we've seen tragedy too often to be honestly moved by it? Does all tragedy by default become melodrama?
Q2: We talked in class on Wednesday that tragedy is in the eye of the beholder, and this chapter certainly agrees with that. But it goes even further, quoting Mel Brooks (the famous comedian and director), who once said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die" (70). If this is true, why does an audience watching someone else's tragedy not always laugh? How might tragedy prevent this?
Q3: We discussed, too, how in Romeo and Juliet, the most tragic moments (or potentially tragic moments) often end in comedy: either with 'low' characters making jokes, or the Prince giving a bathetic speech that is hard not to laugh at in performance (esp. if you've heard it once too often!). According to Poole, why are such moments a necessary part of tragedy? What do they do for the play and for the audience (besides give us some relief from the drama)?
Q4: Poole quotes a passage from Anton Chekhov's notebooks where an old woman comes into a traveler's room and gives him an enema; he doesn't complain bcause he assumes that's what people do here. It turns out she had the wrong room. It this just a comic story, or a tragedy in miniature? What would make it one or the other? Or does it have to be both?
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