Last class Dr. Abernathy asked what was the title of the work we were reading. Well, there were some different answers to this question. Some people said their title was “The Tragedy of King Lear”, some others said it was just “King Lear”, but the rest said it was the “Story of King Lear”.
Due to this question I decided to do some research about what is a tragedy . What I found was that “tragedy” alludes to the pathetic. Edgar Allan Poe stated that the tragedy’s tones are pain and melancholy, while horror is its effect. People tend to use the word “tragedy” to refer to adversities. However, when talking about a play, a tragedy is a work that will show profound problems linked to the human condition, as well as the role humans play in the universe. Talking about the Greek tragedies, this literary genre shows existentialists issues. Why do men suffer? Why are they condemned to fight against liberty and necessity, right and wrong, light and darkness?
In Shakespeare’s work, there is one question that is very similar to these ones, which is not really a question but a lamentation. King Lear asks: “Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?” Act 3, Scene VI. This quote clearly shows the link between the tragedy and the pathetic.
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