0
Cao Lynh Posted 21 years ago
Need help with The Tragic Fallacy
In the following passage, some of the sentences that make me keep thinking and I cannot understand what they mean. Once again, would you please explain them for me?
"True tragedy capable of performing its function and of purging the soul by reconciling man to his woes can exist only by virtue of a certain pathetic fallacy far more inclusive than that to which the name is commonly given. The romantics, feeble descendants of the tragic writers to whom they are linked by their effort to see life and nature in grandiose terms, loved to imagine that the sea or the sky had a way of according itself with their moods, of storming when they stormed and smiling when they smiled. But the tragic spirit sustains itself by an assumtion much more far-reaching and no more justified. Man as it see him lives in a world which he may not dominate but ehich is always aware of him. Occupying the exact center of a universe which would have no meaning except for him and being so little below the angels that, if he believes in God, he has no hesitation in imagining Him formed as he is formed and crowned with a crown like that which he wears, he assumes that each of his acts reverberates through the universe. His passions are important to him because he believes them important throughout all time and all space; the very fact that they can sin (no modern can) means that this universe is watching his acts; and though he may perish. a God leams out from infinity to strike him down. And it is exactly because an Ibsen cannot think of man in any such terms as these that his persons have so shrunk and that his "tragedy" has lost that power which real tragedy always has of making that infinitely ambitious creature called man content to accept his missery if only he can be made to feel great enough and important enough. An Oswald is not a Hamlet chiefly because he has lost that tie with the natural and supernatural world which the latter had. No ghost will leave the other wprld to warn or encourage him, there is no virtue and no vice which he can possibly have which can be really important, and when he dies neither his death nor the manner of it will be, outside the circle of two or three people as unnecessary as himself, any more important than that of a rat behind the arras.
"Perhaps we may dub the illusion upon which the tragic is nourished the Tragic, as opposed to the Pathetic, Fallacy, but fallacy though it is, upon its existence depends not merely the writing of tragedy but the existence of that religious feeling of which tragedy is an expression and by means of which a people aware of the dissonances of life manages nevertheless to hear them as harmony."
1. What is the pathetic fallacy?
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Pathetic Fallacy is describing inaminate objects as if they are living things with feelings; but i don't think it is the meaning in the context, and am I right if I understand it as some kind of illusion that provokes people's feeling of pity?
2. I don't understand what the sentence "but the tragic spirit sustains itself by an assumption much more far-reaching and no more justified" means.
- What is the tragic spirit?? is is the deeply sad spirit or the spirit of a tragedy?
3.In "His passions are important... watching his acts", does "no modern" mean "no man in modern times", and who is the "he" standing right before "no modern"?
4. In the last paragraph "perhaps ...harmony",
- What does the author mean with "the illusion"? and once again what is "the tragic spirit"?
- Would you please write this paragraph in simpler sentences?
Thank you so much.
"True tragedy capable of performing its function and of purging the soul by reconciling man to his woes can exist only by virtue of a certain pathetic fallacy far more inclusive than that to which the name is commonly given. The romantics, feeble descendants of the tragic writers to whom they are linked by their effort to see life and nature in grandiose terms, loved to imagine that the sea or the sky had a way of according itself with their moods, of storming when they stormed and smiling when they smiled. But the tragic spirit sustains itself by an assumtion much more far-reaching and no more justified. Man as it see him lives in a world which he may not dominate but ehich is always aware of him. Occupying the exact center of a universe which would have no meaning except for him and being so little below the angels that, if he believes in God, he has no hesitation in imagining Him formed as he is formed and crowned with a crown like that which he wears, he assumes that each of his acts reverberates through the universe. His passions are important to him because he believes them important throughout all time and all space; the very fact that they can sin (no modern can) means that this universe is watching his acts; and though he may perish. a God leams out from infinity to strike him down. And it is exactly because an Ibsen cannot think of man in any such terms as these that his persons have so shrunk and that his "tragedy" has lost that power which real tragedy always has of making that infinitely ambitious creature called man content to accept his missery if only he can be made to feel great enough and important enough. An Oswald is not a Hamlet chiefly because he has lost that tie with the natural and supernatural world which the latter had. No ghost will leave the other wprld to warn or encourage him, there is no virtue and no vice which he can possibly have which can be really important, and when he dies neither his death nor the manner of it will be, outside the circle of two or three people as unnecessary as himself, any more important than that of a rat behind the arras.
"Perhaps we may dub the illusion upon which the tragic is nourished the Tragic, as opposed to the Pathetic, Fallacy, but fallacy though it is, upon its existence depends not merely the writing of tragedy but the existence of that religious feeling of which tragedy is an expression and by means of which a people aware of the dissonances of life manages nevertheless to hear them as harmony."
1. What is the pathetic fallacy?
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Pathetic Fallacy is describing inaminate objects as if they are living things with feelings; but i don't think it is the meaning in the context, and am I right if I understand it as some kind of illusion that provokes people's feeling of pity?
2. I don't understand what the sentence "but the tragic spirit sustains itself by an assumption much more far-reaching and no more justified" means.
- What is the tragic spirit?? is is the deeply sad spirit or the spirit of a tragedy?
3.In "His passions are important... watching his acts", does "no modern" mean "no man in modern times", and who is the "he" standing right before "no modern"?
4. In the last paragraph "perhaps ...harmony",
- What does the author mean with "the illusion"? and once again what is "the tragic spirit"?
- Would you please write this paragraph in simpler sentences?
Thank you so much.
Top answer
1-- Yes, that is the pathetic fallacy being referred to-- the dark skies frown, the sun smiles, etc. 2-- The tragic spirit is the source of the effect of tragedy upon us-- that part of our nature which sees ourselves as unhappy centers of the universe. And the latter is the tragic fallacy : the dark skies frown with our misery, the sun smiles along with us in our days of joy.
- 1-- Yes, that is the pathetic fallacy being referred to-- the dark skies frown, the sun smiles, etc.
- 2-- The tragic spirit is the source of the effect of tragedy upon us-- that part of our nature which sees ourselves as unhappy centers of the universe.
- And the latter is the tragic fallacy : the dark skies frown with our misery, the sun smiles along with us in our days of joy.
- 3-- He is the Romantic (Wordsworth and his ilk), the topic of this sentence.
- No modern (as you surmise) = no modern man .
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
1 Answers
0
1-- Yes, that is the pathetic fallacy being referred to-- the dark skies frown, the sun smiles, etc.
2-- The tragic spirit is the source of the effect of tragedy upon us-- that part of our nature which sees ourselves as unhappy centers of the universe. And the latter is the tragic fallacy: the dark skies frown with our misery, the sun smiles along with us in our days
2-- The tragic spirit is the source of the effect of tragedy upon us-- that part of our nature which sees ourselves as unhappy centers of the universe. And the latter is the tragic fallacy: the dark skies frown with our misery, the sun smiles along with us in our days
0
Related Questions