The word ‘tragedy’ has lost all meaning
From our UK edition
The Chancellor of the University of Cambridge has said the university has ‘lessons to learn from the Jason Arday tragedy’. Well, you can make words mean what you want – the ancient Greeks invented the word tragôidia and it meant ‘goat-song’ – but is ‘tragic’ really the word for Arday? Tragedies reworked the fate of great ancient heroes, whose death was of high significance and meaning to the watching audience. Such dramas were typically characterised by a number of markers. They could include prophecies, warnings, ignorance of the true state of affairs (generating irony), over-confidence accompanied by self-delusion and understanding too late to avoid disaster.
