Re: Comedy of Survival

["Jay Ball" <ageeball@gmail.com>]

To Professor Richards: I had rather more to say than that, didn't I? And to
the List: my apologies for the extra tag of text at end of my last message.
I meant to edit that out completely.

JB

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Doug Richards <DRICHARD@mail.keuka.edu>wrote:

> "ofcourse, life is more interesting and complex than the genres we have
> received from the past"
>
> Really?
>
>
>
> Douglas Richards
> Professor of English
> Keuka College
> drichard@mail.keuka.edu
> 315-279-5242
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Jay Ball" <ageeball@gmail.com>
> To: asle@interversity.org
> Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:23:00 -0400
> Subject: Re: [asle] Comedy of Survival
>
> > I would have to dispute with Rinda that tragedy is unconcerned with the
> > "community." Whether we are speaking of the Greeks, Shakespeare or
> > Arthur
> > Miller, tragedy has historically been tightly wound to the fate of the
> > polis. Hamlet and Denmark are inseparable. Comedy, on the other hand,
> > has
> > more often represented a retreat from the civic to the domestic sphere.
> > The
> > irritation that attaches itself to any discussion of genre is that we
> > can
> > always find exceptions - and often times the exceptions and the works
> > that
> > mix genre are the most interesting and enduring literary artifacts.
> > And, of
> > course, life is more interesting and complex than the genres we have
> > received from the past. However it has to be said that genre has hardly
> > disappeared, especially in popular forms of performance. And as Fred
> > Jameson
> > got it right in the Political Unconscious, all but the most open-ended
> > narratives finally choose to enforce closure that is designed to
> > produce a
> > certain attitude to its contents. Put simply, stories still tend to
> > resolve
> > in either happy or sad endings. Sometimes loss is averted and one is
> > left
> > touched by hope; in tragic endings, loss is presented as final and hope
> > is
> > replaced by despair. Sometimes issues are binary or 'dichotomized.'
> > Polar
> > bears, for example, will or will not become extinct because of global
> > warming. So however we wish to define our terms with respect to genre,
> > people - such as the directors of An Inconvenient Truth - remain
> > confronted
> > with decisions about how to frame these issues.
> >
> > Thanks for following up on my query, Rinda.  ;) [a comic frame]
> >
> > Jay
> >
> >
> >
> > choices have to be made: is it better to represent the survival of
> > polar
> > bears as imaginable (comedy) or should we start to frankly mourning
> > their
> > inevitable decimation in the more deferred hope that a sustained
> > confrontation with loss
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 12:31 PM, Rinda West <rindaw@comcast.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Good comedy contains tragedy, and tragedy contains comedy.  In the
> > first
> > > couple of acts of Shakespeare's plays there are characters and events
> > that
> > > could lead to a comic resolution, but the characters are killed
> > (Mercutio,
> > > Polonius) or banished (Kent) or the moments backfire.  Characters
> > make
> > > choices that lead to the tragic outcome. Similarly, the comedies
> > teeter on
> > > the verge of tragedy and some choice or, often, miracle of conversion
> > or
> > > discovery yields the happy outcome.  Genre is a choice.  I agree that
> > > dichotomizing comedy and tragedy doesn't serve environmentalism.
> > Meeker
> > > makes the point that the focus of tragedy is the individual (I am
> > going to
> > > die someday!) while comedy foregrounds the community (we are going to
> > > survive!), but both are part of our toolkit for bringing the moral
> > and
> > > emotional content of the environmental crisis into focus for people
> > for whom
> > > it's not as immediate a concern as the mortgage payment or job
> > insecurity.
> > >
> > > Rinda
> > >
> > > Rinda West Landscape Designs
> > > 773-575-1205
> > > www.rindawestdesigns.com
> > > My new book, Out of the Shadow:  Ecopsychology, Story, and Encounters
> > with
> > > the Land, is now available from
> > > http://www.upress.virginia.edu/books/west.HTM or at Amazon.com
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: asle-owner@interversity.org
> > [mailto:asle-owner@interversity.org] On
> > > Behalf Of Frank McGill
> > > Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:53 AM
> > > To: asle@interversity.org
> > > Subject: Re: [asle] Comedy of Survival
> > >
> > > I'd add that Meeker's very formulation--comic versus tragic--is
> > itself a
> > > tragic view of the world, an us-vs.-them dichotomy that lies at the
> > heart of
> > > much of what he classifies as a tragic attitude. Wouldn't a more
> > comic
> > > formulation strive to accommodate the tragic view (and others) rather
> > than
> > > demonizing or directly opposing them? Live *and let live*, isn't it?
> > >
> > > Frank
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > >From: Richard Kerridge <r.kerridge@bathspa.ac.uk>
> > > >Sent: Sep 24, 2008 9:28 AM
> > > >To: asle@interversity.org, asle@interversity.org
> > > >Subject: Re: [asle] Comedy of Survival
> > > >
> > > >I've always found Meeker's argument troubling because it seems so
> > close to
> > > fatalism. Survival, mere survival, is its highest ambition. Tragedy,
> > at
> > > least in its Romantic form, can come to fatalism from the opposite
> > > direction, accepting death and the loss of the world because the
> > world is
> > > not worthy of the Romantic idealist. I'm not sure either provides the
> > right
> > > framing for environmentalism.
> > > >
> > > >Richard
> > >
> > >
> > > Tell me, what is it you plan to do
> > > with your one wild and precious life?
> > >                        --Mary Oliver
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