" If this theory be true, the _peripeteia_ was
at first a change from sorrow to joy--joy in the rebirth of the
beneficent powers of nature. And to this day a sudden change from gloom
to exhilaration is a popular and effective incident--as when, at the end
of a melodrama, the handcuffs are transferred from the wrists of the
virtuous naval lieutenant to those of the wicked baronet, and, through
the disclosure of a strawberry-mark on his left arm, the lieutenant is
recognized as the long-lost heir to a dukedom and L50,000 a year.
But when, as soon happened in Greece, the forms appropriate to a
celebration of the death and resurrection of Dionysus came to be blent
with the tomb-ritual of a hero, the term _peripeteia_ acquired a special
association with a sudden decline from prosperity into adversity. In the
Middle Ages, this was thought to be the very essence and meaning of
tragedy, as we may see from Chaucer's lines:
"Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,
As olde bokes maken us memorie,
Of him that stood in gret prosperitee,
And is y-fallen out of heigh degree
Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly.
Pages:
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359