Great IdeasStories, art and words

Tragedy and suffering

Stories of great people brought low, and what they teach.

The question

Why do people watch stories of great people brought low? What can tragedy teach?

The stops on a time line 9 stops, from 458 BC to 1931. Each number is a stop below, placed at its year.
  1. 1 Aeschylus 458 BC
  2. 2 Sophocles 429 BC
  3. 3 Euripides 415 BC
  4. 4 Aristotle 335 BC
  5. 5 Geoffrey Chaucer 1385
  6. 6 William Shakespeare 1604
  7. 7 William Shakespeare 1606
  8. 8 Jean Racine 1677
  9. 9 Eugene O'Neill 1931

How the books answer

Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.

  1. 458 BC (the Oresteia); seven plays survive

    Aeschylus, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, and his other plays

    Aeschylus shows a family caught in a chain of crimes and revenge. The chorus sings that Zeus has made it a law that we learn through suffering. Tragedy, for him, is how wisdom is won.

    “Zeus, who sets mortals on the path to understanding, Zeus, who has established as a fixed law that wisdom comes by suffering.”

    Go to the rung: Aeschylus: The Oresteia

  2. c. 441–401 BC

    Sophocles, Oedipus the King

    Oedipus, a good and clever king, sets out to find who brought a plague on his city, and discovers it was himself, without knowing it. Sophocles shows how a person can be great and still be ruined. The ending warns against calling anyone happy too soon.

    “Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the final destined day, we must call no mortal happy until he has crossed life’s border free from pain.”

    Go to the rung: Sophocles: Oedipus and Antigone

  3. 438–405 BC

    Euripides, Medea, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, and his other plays (nineteen in the set)

    Euripides puts ordinary feelings and suffering, especially of women and the defeated, at the center of tragedy. His characters argue fiercely and are torn by passion. Aristotle later called him the most tragic of the poets.

    Go to the rung: Euripides: The Plays

  4. c. 335–322 BC

    Aristotle, Rhetoric and Poetics

    Aristotle studies how tragedy works. The best tragedy shows a good but imperfect person falling through some error, with a reversal and a moment of recognition. It stirs pity and fear and leaves the audience cleansed, a word whose meaning critics still debate.

    “Now a whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end.”

    Aristotle, Poetics 7, 1450b. Translated by Ingram Bywater (The Works of Aristotle, vol. XI, Clarendon Press, 1924). Internet Archive.

    Go to the rung: Aristotle: Rhetoric and Poetics

  5. c. 1385

    Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde

    Chaucer tells of Troilus, a Trojan prince, who loves Criseyde and loses her when she is sent to the Greek camp. He calls his poem a tragedy, a fall from happiness to misery. At the end, Troilus looks down from the heavens and laughs at how small earthly troubles seem.

    Go to the rung: Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde

  6. c. 1603–1604

    William Shakespeare, Othello

    Othello, a noble general, is tricked by his trusted officer Iago into believing his loving wife is unfaithful. Jealousy destroys him. Shakespeare makes the audience watch, knowing the truth, as a good man is ruined by a lie.

    “It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.”

    William Shakespeare, Othello, Act III, scene 3 (Iago). (First printed in the First Folio, 1623). Project Gutenberg.

    Go to the rung: Shakespeare: Othello

  7. c. 1605–1606

    William Shakespeare, King Lear

    King Lear gives away his kingdom to the daughters who flatter him and loses everything. Out in a storm, he learns humility and compassion for the poor. Many think it the greatest and darkest of tragedies.

    Go to the rung: Shakespeare: King Lear

  8. 1670, 1677

    Jean Racine, Berenice and Phaedra

    Racine's Phaedra is torn by a love she knows is wrong and cannot master. Written in elegant verse that follows strict rules, the play shows a person destroyed by a passion she fights against. Racine based it on a play by Euripides.

    “Strength fails me, and I needs must rest awhile.”

    Jean Racine, Phaedra, Act I, Scene III. Translated by Robert Bruce Boswell (The Dramatic Works of Jean Racine, George Bell & Sons (Bohn's Library), 1890). Project Gutenberg.

    Go to the rung: Racine: Berenice and Phaedra

  9. 1931

    Eugene O'Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra

    O'Neill sets Aeschylus' story of a cursed family in New England after the Civil War. Instead of gods and Furies, the family is driven by hidden feelings and the past. It shows how the old tragic shapes still speak to modern audiences.

    Go to the rung: O'Neill: Mourning Becomes Electra

For young readers

A tragedy is a sad story where something goes badly wrong, often for a good person. Why would anyone want to watch that? Because tragedies help us feel for others and learn from their mistakes.

In many tragedies the hero has one big flaw, like pride, jealousy or not listening. Think of a story you know that has a sad ending. What could the character have done differently?

Talk about it

  • Why do people like sad stories?
  • Aeschylus says we learn through suffering. Have you ever learned from something hard?
  • Othello believed a lie. How can we avoid being fooled?
  • Is a tragedy's hero to blame for what happens, or is it bad luck?

Where else on the site

Every rung tagged with this idea:

These pages are our own short synthesis, written for families. They were inspired by Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon, the index of great ideas in volumes 1 and 2 of Great Books of the Western World, but the questions, summaries and groupings are ours, not the Syntopicon's. Short excerpts come from public-domain translations, credited where they appear.

@teddyrookbook GitHub Sources and credits