A  tragedy is “a play with an unhappy ending”...

... but this is just too simple : there's more !

Tragic plays can be traced back all the way to the beginnings of drama in Ancient Greece. In "Poetics", one of the first books of literary criticism, Aristotle set out the key features of tragedy. Tragic plays would mainly involve :

- a protagonist (the leading central figure) - a tragic hero ;

- a fatal flaw ;

- an antagonist (the opposite of the protagonist).

The protagonist is usually of royal or noble birth. In the course of the play, he/she reveals a character defect (a fatal flaw) which gets him/her  to go from success and happiness to failure, misery.... and, often, death -at the hands of an antagonist.

A tragedy was set out to provoke feelings of fear and pity in the audience [...] : a catharsis.

17 videos from the Education Portal English Courses

explaining  literary terminology

~ PART II ~

In this lesson, learn about catharsis, a purging of feelings that occurs when audiences have strong emotional reactions to a work of literature. Explore examples of literary works which lead to catharsis, including tragedies.

Have you ever heard of the "L.U.S.A." ? :o)

Have a glance at this map :

it's a map of the Literary United States of America !

The map was created by Geoff SAWERS and Bridget Hannigan, and dealt with by Simon GARFIELD "Mapping America Writers", an article from  The Economist 's Intelligent Life website (November 2012).

Nowadays word clouds allow us to create any kind of picture-shaped meaningful groups of words. Computers help us do them, but... literary maps aren't recent !

Geoff Sawers and Bridget Hannigan also created literary maps of....

Ireland :

the United Kingdom :

The literary map of Wales

was created by Geoff Sawers and Gwyn Tudur Davies

Mind that the authors' names are not randomly located on the map : as Simon GARFIELD explains in his article, as for the U.S.A., "The project exposed literary trends : a tight concentration of old-school stars in the east, and of younger, more experimental writers spreading, pioneer-style, westwards."

This funny song about how to write limericks... is partly a limerick itself !

Nick, from the 'Imagine Learning English' software indicates you the steps to write a great  limerick :

Writing a limerick : 9 steps

#1 Know the basic characteristics of a limerick :

A limerick contains five lines. In this mini-poem, the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme, and the third and fourth lines rhyme.

#2 Choose the ending of your first line, usually a geographical place.

#3 Think of lots of different things to rhyme with your first line ending.

#4 Make associations with the rhyme words.

#5 Pick a story that appeals to you, and decide on who the person(s) is you introduce in line.

#6 Make the first line nice and fitting with the meter.

#7 Choose a situation or action in which your person starts off.

#8 Think of a 'turn' or 'twist' in your story, while considering rhyme words for the 3rd and 4th line, but save the punchline for your last line.

#9 Go back to your list of rhyme words and find a nice one to wrap up the story with a punchline.

Where does the word 'Limerick' come from ?

It derives from Limerick, an Irish town. Apparently a pub song, or tavern chorus based on the refrain "Will you come up to Limerick ?" where such bawdy songs or 'limericks' were sung...

Kathryn Stockett's book  "The Help"

somehow started 'buzzing' onlist :)

Up to now, I've only read several excerpts from the book -and watched the official film trailer :

Several passages might be used in ESL class (the author's intentions / fiction VS reality / etc...).

I've started gathering resources that might prove useful to ESL teachers interested in having their students discover "The Help" -of course the result will be selective and keep... in progress :)