Tragedy as Limitation: Comedy as Control and Resolution

Extract

This paper is one of six lectures on “Will and Psyche in Poetry.” These terms set up a bipolar, arbitrary framework for the study of poems against which, and between which, poems were evaluated in the context.

Will poetry exists because of the power in the cell beyond its energy to maintain itself. Will results in action, through wish, zeal, volition, passion, determination, choice, and command. Will makes something happen in poetry.

Psyche poetry pertains to the soul, to peace, quiet, tranquility, serenity, harmony, stillness and silence. It provides psychic states of passive pleasure.

It might be interesting in attempting to set limits to our Will-Psyche dichotomy to define, but not absolutely, what these types of poetry are not. I take it that they do not include the world of tragedy, a vast area of literature, because tragedy presupposes fatality, against which will is useless and because tragedy is self-contained, engaging its own laws, against which there is no recognition beyond itself.