Tragedy as Genre and/or Worldview

Tragedy is one of those terms which refers both to a specific literary genre and to a general world view. The two meanings are to be distinguished but cannot perhaps be fully separated since the ambiguous relation between art and life underwrites the power and significance of the form. At the same time this relation has a different meaning when approached from either side. Lawrence’s remark that “tragedy ought really to be a great kick at misery” sits at the heart of this ambiguity. It seems to be a Nietzschean affirmation of life through the tragic experience; an affirmation for which Yeats’s poem “Lapis Lazuli” provides perhaps the most striking example in English. Yet Lawrence was hostile to the mode of aestheticism represented by Nietzsche and Yeats. Where they assimilate life into art, he constantly distrusts any art, even an affirmative one, that claims a privileged standpoint on life.