*takes the potatoes*
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*takes the potatoes*
did we ever get this thread back on track??
I agree, but frankly as far as our youth are concerned, I'm more troubled by the preponderance of demonic and evil characters being portrayed as "cool".
At the risk of raising some hackles, when young, highly impressionable minds are no longer shocked by blood, violence, perversion, or just plain sick! ~ then it is readily acceptable to them exhibit behaviors which aren't exactly fun anymore. When saturated by so many vivid images that become acceptable as norm, it is no wonder that children and teens are shooting at each other just to see if blood is real!
Ah yes, tragedy.
I am lugubrious on the gradual decay of apolaustics or the dedication to aesthetic beauty and philosophy. It is currently undergoing dilapidation or decay and perhaps eventually be sown its utter dissolution or abjuration. I agree that the tragic spirit or element is being disregarded for unrealistic happy endings. Contemporary society in such a context is chimerical and blindly pursues mere chimeras or hollow and senseless specters.
Melancholy is generally seen as a means and process of dilapidation or decay, fragmentation of a whole, and a disintegration of common purpose. However, melancholic passions and sheer atrabiliousness or despair, as an aesthetic experience, is tinged with elements of pleasure. Melancholy as argued by European Romantics through a process of tension and opposition has the potential to lead to transcendence from barberous propensities as through catharisis. Catharsis is an Aristotelian tragedic element in which the downfall of an individual, mainly due to the two polar extremities of hubris and pusillanimity [lack of self-knowledge], leads to the downfall of the tragic figure/hero but it allows for the audience to transcend from vulgar and base passions, even if ephemeral and transient, to virtuous conduct by the dissolution/abjuration of the fallen Aristotelian figure. Either disintegration and fragmentation would occur as a process of decay or one could transcend and no longer be subservient/obsequious to base passions.
My thesis: In general, regarding literary criticism and theory, and through my own philosophical viewpoints, tragedy seeks for the process of upheaval and turmoil, or through processes of discord and dissonance, to destroy equipollence and usher in a wholly unique situation from the decayed ashes of the prior whilst comedy, in general, seeks to maintain equipollent forces and a general framework or state of equilibrium.
Example #1:
John Milton's Paradise Lost detailed the fall of humans from divine grace and the rebellion of Satan. The Miltonic Satan was hubristic, contumelious, contumacious and vastly superior in both general intellect and ability. However, he is tinged with atrabiliousness and undergoes pangs of despair and internal turmoil as well as disintegration and disunity due to his loss of the grace and goodwill of the divine will, or God. Themes of redemption and hope are mingled with the dark themes of mendacity, perfidy, hubris, chaos, dissonance and moral dilapidation. Within such a context, happiness is intertwined and coexists with atrabiliousness; the two elements and states of being cannot be broken apart. Milton's epic poem revealed that the eventual redemption of Man through the Son of God was tempered with Satan's subservience to lascivious passions [regarding the birth of Death with his lu****l and salacious actions with Sin], hubris, and internal vacillation and cowardice. The Miltonic Satan decays from a proud and contumacious figure or "hero" [according to certain English Romantics such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley] to a pusillanimous and opprobrious creature: a mere hollow specter of delusions and petty passions.
Example #2:
Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Triumph of Life details the haunting specter of illusions or the perils of pursuing chimeras. Shelley's guide being Jean-Jacques Rousseau fulfilled similar roles to Dante Alighieri's Virgil on the purpose of existence and of the roles of the individual within the societal context. Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Shelley's Triumph of Life attempted to prevent moral dilapidation by the consumption of petty and false passions [hubris, pusillanimity, lust, perfidy, etc] that lead to the degradation of self-worth and the denigration of the inviolability of the self-autonomous individual; and that the mighty flame of imagination or the divine spark that leads to self-autonomy and self-determination, and creative thought should be treasured as it has the potential to either consume with voracious desire and/or to be shackled and subservient to the imperious will of the collective whole: the collective representation to dissolve the individual. Such exhibits that a mixture/combination of tragedy and success, or failure and triumph has the potential to lead to moral transcendence and great inner integrity.
Example #3:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's tragedy The Fall of Robespierre detailed tragic elements: the onslaught and social rapacity with the murder of thousands upon thousands of the innocent; the decay to a socio-political order of a timocracy [a 'timocracy' has the potential to become sanctimonious or self-righteous and is eventually consumed by hubris, delusion, immoderation and seeks to render all obsequious to its will with ordinary individuals being mere appendages of the "virtuous and noble state". The political thought of Jacobinism produced such vile and perfidious individuals such as Robespierre, Saint-Just, Marat, etc]; and the imposition of will by the Committee of Public Safety upon civil society. However, elements of hope and salvation still flickered for the dissolution or at least for moderation and tolerance that would lead to an end of revolutionary turmoil. The Thermidorean Reaction and the formation of the French Executive Directory from 1795-1799 C.E proved fruitless and ephemeral as Napoleon Bonaparte established a dictatorship through the coup of 18th Brumaire. [The political thought of Bonapartism is fascinating; it consists of a highly centralized and cohesive socio-political unit that is based on popular support by such organs of government as a plebiscite.]
If anyone has any questions regarding the themes of tragedy within the literary tradition as in different historical contexts [Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Neo-Classical and/or Romantic tragedy] and/or regarding the socio-political scene, I would be glad to provide information and to help anyone to achieve a greater understanding/comprehension of such elements.
Oh no! Someone who's more smarter than me! *dies*Quote:
Originally Posted by Conrad_Jalowski
There's a book I'm thinking of, that has a really very tragic ending.
Two travelers set off on some journey, to explore parts of their world which have never been seen before (Specifically, the top of a very high cliff. By very high, I mean so high that you can't see the top from 5 miles in the air.)
The male traveler is going insane, because of a curse that was passed to him by the female traveler, unknown by anyone until near the end.
The male and female traveler are sort of, kind of in love, but then they get to hate each other.
Anyways, the female traveler starts doing it with one of the hired bodyguards.
They split the group, and end up at the top of the cliff at separate times and places.
They find savage people, who kill most of the remaining bodyguards, leaving only the travelers and a few bodyguards alive. (The female is captive, not yet dead because she's pregnant.)
The male is exploring some ancient city.
Anyways, long summary short, the find an evil god on top of that cliff, they bust it out, the travelers still hate each other, the guy is still insane, and the female gets carted off by this evil god who starts destroying the world.
So, in conclusion: Awesome example of stories that don't need happy endings.
If this were to be happy ending:
The guy would have had his insanity cured somehow.
The evil god would have been killed.
The female and the bodyguard she did it with would have gone and lived happily ever after.
And the world wouldn't have been destroyed.
On another note: Does anyone know what this book is called? I can't remember.
The retelling of a story in a different way, I think, is a good thing. Everyone views a story differently, so I think a different twist on a story can be a good thing. I do have to agree though that changing a story completely to sugar coat things and turn it into a fairy tale is a massacre of a culture more than anything. Most of the Disney stories were at one time fables handed down through the ages and are a part of the culture they came from. The biggest problem I have with retelling of stories is when Disney takes historical tales and turns them into their sugar coated brain washed formula.
A happy ending to a story is great for kids, it can give them hope at an early age and a sense of wanting to achieve something in life. I do think that many original tales however were perfectly fine in the form they were in, they denote that the world isn't all gumdrops and teddy bears. That bad things can happen, specifically if you do not follow advice. As in every story something bad happens because someone didn't follow simple advice. That in itself is a lesson that needs to be taught to all children.
The Bible Of Cthulhu?Quote:
Originally Posted by StormSurge
No.... It's a much more recent book then that... and it's also not a fictional religious text. All religious texts are fictional.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerevar2
I didn't really read the past 5 pages...especially since the first post on this page doesn't look very on topic...
In response to candles OP, though...
Most of the fairy tales out there have been deformed into some lovefest for the kids. I always grew up watchin' tv shows and cartoons, movies, always wonderin' why the baddies never seemed to catch a break. The goodies would always find some stroke of luck of miraculous turnaround and defeat the bad guy against all odds....but then I would read a newspaper and see five pages about people gettin' murdered and attacked, houses burned down and criminals escapin' the justice system...good never seemed to prevail in the real world.
Perhaps there's a fear that everythin' is tiltin' towards the evil, bad, corrupt or otherwise undesired and folk are tryin' to bring some light back into the lives through fiction and fantasy...although I agree that flooding children with such things only sets them up for dissapointment in life. There's a variety of good/bad endings in fiction for older folk, but when it comes to kids there seems only to be super-happy-mega-love-joy-cheery-sunshine-super-duper and it gets pretty old. I can only speculate that that comes from this ideology of "protect the kids" and the absurd belief that children need watched over and protected at every turn without incident...but then again I'm a believer that turnin' on various censors and filters in forums for the sake of the kids, and selectively choosin' what books go in primary schools and otherwise controllin' eveyrthin' that kids see and do is a terrible, counter-proudtive notion.
It's the same principle as playin' in the mud. Sure, they might scrape their knee and get filthy and ruin their clothes or w/e...they may even come in cryin' after it all and I get that folk are only tryin' to protect their kids from that. But at the end of the day they always come out better off than the kids who were never allowed to play in the mud in the first place.