Henry Ansgar Kelly's
Ideas and Forms of Tragedy:
from Aristotle to the Middle Ages
"Tragedy" has been understood in a variety of conflicting
ways over the centuries, and the term has been applied to a wide range of
literary works. In this book, H. A. Kelly explores the various meanings given
to tragedy, from Aristotle's most basic notion (any serious story, even with a
happy ending), via Roman ideas and practices, to the Middle Ages, when Averroes
considered tragedy to be the praise of virtue, but Albert the Great thought of
it as the recitation of the foul deeds of degenerate men. Professor Kelly
demonstrates the importance of finding out what writers like Horace, Ovid,
Dante, and Chaucer meant by the term, and how they used it as a tool of
interpretation and composition. Referring to a wealth of texts, he shows that
many modern analyses of ancient and medieval concepts and works are
oversimplified and often result in serious misinterpretations. The book ends
with surveys of works designated as tragedies in England, France, Italy, and
Spain.
About the author
Henry Ansgar Kelly is Professor in the Department of English, University of
California, Los Angeles, where he has taught since 1967. He has published
numerous books and articles on the history of ideas and on English and European
literature.
Jacket illustration: illuminated frontispiece from a fourteenth-century
manuscript of Nicholas Trevet's commentary on Seneca's tragedies (Vatican MS
Urbinas lat. 355, fol. 1v) illustrating an imagined performance of Hercules
furens. Seneca himself stands in the "scene", a small covered structure in
the middle of the semicircular stage, reciting the dialogue, while the actors
in appropriate costumes pantomime their actions accordingly; members of the
audience are seated beyond. Note that the poet as well as Juno and King Lycus
is crowned. Reproduced by permission of the Vatican Library.
Ideas and Forms of Tragedy: