Name : VYAS NUPUR HITESHBHAI.Roll No: 43

Year: 2015-2016

Paper No: 3 Literary Theory and Criticism

Submitted to Department Of English, Bhavnagar University

Topic: Tragedy is superior to Epic

Email id: nupurvyas1995@gmail.com

Index

• Difference between Tragedy and Epic.

• The difference between Object, Medium , Manner in Tragedy and Epic

• Which is better Tragedy or Epic?

• Conclusion

Difference between Tragedy and Epic

Epic• Epic is less vulgar. Vulgar

means uneducated and unrefined in manner.

• Epic are not performed, not spectacle.

• It can be read.

• It is written in twelve parts and cantos.

• Epic has no time limit.

Tragedy• Tragedy requires more

skills.• Compact, limited time,

brevity.• More vulgar.• Written in brief,

important, precise.• More concentrated

,deeper impact on human mind.

Continue…

Epic• In between epic take

detraction from the topic.[i.e] pouring down, go to hell and heaven.

• Loosely constructed plot.

• Get long time for releases emotions.

• Breaks down unity of time, place and action and also completeness.

• It fails to become literary text.

Tragedy

Punch of time. [i.e] Advertisement.

Traffic emotions and suddenly releases.

Literary text criticized by others. [i.e] Banned books week, Midnight’s children and Satanic verses by Salman Rusdie.

Continue…Epic Epic is not banned by others.

Peoples emotions and religious sentiments connected with wider peoples.

It is irrational.[i.e] Batman –super heroic.

It is connected with theology and religious myth , tradition ,superstition.

Materialistic way of thinking

Narrowness.

It is the story of past.

Vocally narrated.

Tragedy

• It is rational.[i.e] Spiderman movie.

• Logical thinking.

• Wider aspects –interpreted in many ways regarding our own perspective.

• It is acted.

Object , Medium, Manner in Tragedy and Epic

Object: Art has two dimensions – great, mean.

Tragedy deals with basic human nature while Epic deals with superheroes and extreme powerful.[i.e]

Bahubali is epical hero.

Medium means words . Tragedy- poor choice of words , no metre. Epic – highly ornamental language, meters and figures of speech, good choice of words.

Manner- Tragedy should be realistic and tragedy is acted while epic is narrated and not realistic.Tragedies is not make an epic but one epic can make many tragedies.

Which is better or superior Tragedy orEpic

• Tragedy performed before large audiences , which results in melodramatic performance or overacting to please the crowd.

• Epic poetry is more cultivated than Tragedy because it does not rely on acting/gesture at all convey its message.

• Aristotle says that tragedy does not need to be performed ,it can be read just like epic poetry and all its merits will still be evident.

• Music and spectacle can certainly add to emotional , which gives tragedy an edge that epic poetry lacks.

• Tragedy provide more powerful emotional punch.• Tragedy produces catharsis, mysterious “purging’’of our emotions

of pity and fear when we witness the unfolding of tragedy.• It is necessary to follow law of cause and effect and that of

probability and necessity in tragedy.Drama is a representation of a story in the present.

•

Conclusion: Tragedy is superior to Epic :How? And Why?

• Tragedy is richer in its effects , adding music and spectacle to epic resources; it presents its story even when read no less vividly than the epic; it has stricter unity; its methods are more concentrated ; and it produces more effectively the requisite emotion requisite emotional results ,[i.e] the pleasure arising from Catharsis of pity and fear.

• The major difference between the two is ‘method’. Tragedy attains the same end as the epic , but in more direct and concentrated fashion and as such it has a claim to be recognized as the of the two kinds.

Resources

• I have taken these information from my class-notes and Tragedy and epic material.