Modern Tragedy

by Raymond Williams

Overview

In Modern Tragedy, Williams bridges the gap between literary and socio-economic study, tracing the notion of tragedy from its philosophical and dramatic origins with Aristotle. In addition, Williams discusses tragedy in Chaucher, Nietzche, Brecht, Sartre and other leading figures in the history of thought, as well as elements of tragic experience – both political and personal - in socialist revolutions of the 20th century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448191307
Publisher:	Random House
Publication date:	11/30/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	429 KB

About the Author

Raymond Williams was born in 1921 in the Welsh border village of Pandy, and was educated at the village school, at Abergavenny Grammar School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. After serving in the war as an anti-tank captain, he became an adult education tutor in the Oxford University Delegacy for Extra-Mural Studies. In 1947 he was an editor of Politics and Letters, and in the 1960s was general editor of the New Thinker’s Library. He was elected Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1961 and was later appointed Professor of Drama.

His books include Culture and Society (1958), The Long Revolution (1961) and its sequel Towards 2000 (1983); Communications (1962) and Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974); Drama in Performance (1954), Modern Tragedy (1966) and Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (1968); The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence (1970), Orwell (1971) and The Country and the City (1973); Politics and Letters (interviews) (1979) and Problems in Materialism and Culture (selected essays) (1980); and four novels – the Welsh trilogy of Border Country (1960), Second Generation (1964) and The Fight for Manod (1979), and The Volunteers (1978).

Raymond Williams was married in 1942, had three children, and divided his time between Saffron Walden, near Cambridge, and Wales. He died in 1988.

Table of Contents

Introduction : reading Modern tragedy in the twenty-first century

9

Pt. 1

Tragic ideas

1

Tragedy and experience

33

2

Tragedy and the tradition

37

3

Tragedy and contemporary ideas

69

4

Tragedy and revolution

87

5

Continuity

109

Pt. 2

Modern tragic literature

1

From hero to victim : the making of liberal tragedy, to Ibsen and Miller

113

2

Private tragedy : Strindberg, O'Neill, Tennessee Williams

133

3

Social and personal tragedy : Tolstoy and Lawrence

149

4

Tragic deadlock and stalemate : Chekhov, Pirandello, Ionesco, Beckett

169

5

Tragic resignation and sacrifice : Eliot and Pasternak

189

6

Tragic despair and revolt : Camus and Sartre

209

7

A rejection of tragedy : Brecht

227

Editorial Reviews

"A serious, unorthodox book on a much vexed subject. Is tragedy an event in our lives, or a literary form, or a body of dogma? Williams' analysis here is especially fine."

EBOOK COMMENTARY

A serious, unorthodox book on a much vexed subject. … Is tragedy an event in our lives, or a literary form, or a body of dogma? Williams’ analysis here is especially fine.” — New Society

“An impassioned, powerful book…splendid.” — The Guardian

From the Publisher

"An impassioned, powerful book."

The Guardian

"A serious, unorthodox book on a much vexed subject. Is tragedy an event in our lives, or a literary form, or a body of dogma? Williams' analysis here is especially fine."

New Society