I wrote a few days ago:

"Rick, I'm starting to write on Tragedy, as per your request. Before I consult dictionaries and encyclopedias, I'll let associations flow freely. As I was planning this, a few minutes before, I thought of watching new ideas appear as I write. This is a not yet edited essay, presented for study for you, Rick, having you been the instigator..."

Now I am editing and HTMLing for definitive posting:

What happened is that as I was just thinking about the subject, my thought process made me consider any emerging --'new'-- idea, as representing an 'epiphany' or an 'eureka.' Immediately I realized that 'eureka' should be the term to use, because the other one has a religious denotation, while 'eureka' is clearly related to ideas, not to apparitions.

Tragedy derives from Greek 'tragos,' goat, with no clear reason why. Aristotle wrote in his 'Poetics' on 'Comedy' and on 'Tragedy.' The former is not extant. This fact served as the subject for the magnificent book 'The Name Of The Rose' by Humberto Ecco. It is impossible to understand the movie without reading the book, which explains what the story is about.

The transcendence of Tragedy over Comedy might reside on its stronger emotional impact. Even children are more excited listening to fear-rousing tales, 'Redhood' being a classic example. Such children tales, however, have a happy ending, which we can equate to the 'comic relief' described by Aistotle. But in Tragedy the end is unhappy, even if some didactic value is squized out from the misfortune. Thus the connotation of 'tragedy' and 'tragic.'

Without going into archetypal interpretations, let us assume that the spectator, or reader, obtains special satisfaction from the deep feelings aroused by a tragedy, which are a welcome relief to the reader's flat daily emotions. Again, there is the more or less suppressed satisfaction from misfortune befalling others, especially when their tragedies surpass our own.
It was common, I would daresay, to obtain some measure of relief when in a Nazi camp somebody else was chosen as a victim, because this meant to the many others: "It is not I who has been selected to be killed..." I would suggest that the consequent guilt feelings felt by survivors, are expressed by the question, "Why was I spared?" which might be taken as reflecting the survivors moral repulsion toward their previous elation when others were the victims...

The constellation considered as defining the art form called 'Tragedy' might be defined as follows: A state of happiness, or just of routinary existence, drastically takes a very undesirable turn. The spectator (or reader) empathizes with the affected. Such empathy must lie at the root of a well written Tragedy, I realize at this moment. The writer knows this intuitively, and he develops the story in a form that plays on such empathy.

Romeo and Julia: Shakespeare well understood that a love ending in happy marriage doesn't make for an interesting story to be remembered. When lovers undergo many travails before they can be reunited, the play belongs to Drama, but not in the branch of Tragedy. Thus, a tragedian is a dramatist writing tragedy. Shakespeare must have had this sort of tragic story in mind... The clever twist he 'eurakaed' was to present a situation of 'what if..' What if the silly friar had arrived on time, or if Romeo had not hasten to kill himself, or if Julia had awakened a few minutes before? But this is not D-SP reasoning..

Rick, after repairing to dictionary and encyclopedias, I continue:

The dictionary was not helpful... I started to think that what I wrote before, on the selfish feelings in the face of other's misfortune, is what Aristotle referred to --without realizing it clearly-- as 'catharsis.' This 'purging' is then a sort of 'eliminating' inner fears of misfortune by seeing it visiting 'others.' A happy individual, then, would not be 'purged' watching --and less reading-- a Tragedy.
But immediately I understood that unaware of the fact, I was actually dealing with THE BAD, which was the first evolutionary development inducing the advancement of the organism. If so, what about THE GOOD, the second development, which allowed the advance of groups?
Well, indeed, in the Nazi camps there were individuals who offered themselves as the chosen victim, to spare the other! Therefore, there should be in Tragedy an element of identification with the victim, a desire to help him/her, even to take his/her place... Thus, perhaps the self-recrimination of the survivors --including war's-- leading even to suicide, germinates from the unfulfilled societal GOOD, of sacrificing oneself for others. If so, then Tragedy encompasses THE BAD and THE GOOD, making it of unscapable archetypal significance. Tragedy, then, was developed by Homo sapiens, under the dictate of archetypes recalling very primeval phenomena in life's history.

Now, to the encyclopedia. I consulted ENCARTA and The Britannica. I will summarize the information I acquired, and some associations I made.

Tragedy as theatrical play started in seriousness with Thespis in the 6th century B.C.E., when he intervened as actor, thus changing the chorus-only style. Of the dozens of Tragedies written in ancient Greece, 31 remain from Aeschylus, Sofocles and Euripides only. They presented their plays at the Donysia, festivals in honor of Dionysus, in spring. Of course, because he was the god of the fruits, which were 'reborn' in spring. He also represented wine, which is made from a fruit, having very peculiar 'spiritual' effects.

The idea of being born, suffering, dying, and then resurrecting, was common in many cultures. In ancient Egypt, Amon-Re dying at 'sunset' and resurrecting at 'dawn' shaped the deat-rebirth Egyptian idea. But with the Greeks and other cultures, it were the seasons, clearly defined, what configured the symbolisms.

Dionysus, later called also Bacchus, is associated with "mysteries" and "orgies" which only much later 'degenerated,' as males became participants, becoming then proscript, having acquired a pejorative connotation. It is quite accepted that Dionysus, the "mysteries," and the Tragedy plays, had a common denominator: to muse about suffering, death and resurrection, to learn from the errors of mythic Homeric personages, who had a "tragic flaw." This flaw was mainly hubris, arrogance, but also the germ of madness. The Tragedies were meant to be a didactic warning to the INDIVIDUAL spectator, but... the people at large --the SOCIETY-- were urged to assist. They would wonder about TRUTH versus deceit, GOODNESS versus evil (BADNESS), BEAUTY (morals) versus spiritual ugliness.

At this point of my essay, I presumed of having found confirmation to my inclination toward explaining Tragedy as deriving exclusively from the archetypal THE BAD and THE GOOD, both evolutionary values, and was about to consider the subject as closed, when the eureka flashed again, and at that very moment I UNDERSTOOD Yehoshua of Nazareth's unwittingly playing a role of POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE! A role meant to save the unique character of the Land of Israel, known at the time as Judea, part of a Roman province.

Helenistic polytheistic culture --folowed immediately by the Roman one-- steeped in Dionysus mysteries of life after death, were overwhelming the sober, boring, drab, and simplistic Mosaic religion, at the time of Yeoshua in Judea.
Yeshu, as he was called, was a visionary well versed in Torah and Talmud, but he started to preach very revolutionary ideas --which included a Kingdom of God and life in the hereafter, not accepted by strict Jewish religion, whose doctrine was based on man's acts in THIS WORLD. Yeshu performed better 'miracles' that many other 'miraculous' rabbis performed and still perform to this day, unaware of the help he was getting behind the curtains.

It so happened that a group of fanatics, bent on 'saving' the Torah from the villanous --ah, but how deliciously villanous...-- pagans, concocted a plan to exploit meek, trusting Yeshu.
At the right time, they arranged for Judas, who actually became fond of the rabbi, to do what was necessary to frame Yeshu and have him crucified by the Roman authority. After all, he was a blasfemer, proclaiming that God was not only the spiritual Father of the Jewish people, but his own flesh and blood. The right day was chosen when a storm was brewing, by the bribed Roman officer; Yeshu's suffering had to be prolonged, Roman soldiers were subborned to offer him vinager, and so, the Tragedy play was set up, surpassing any of those simply written by the pagans...

The Mystery of life after death, the body 'disappearing,' later seen by chosen and also naive 'witnesses'...

And so, the Word of the God of Israel was saved from the malignant influence of "The Protocols of the Pagan Hellenists." There was just a problem: those cunning fanatics overdid it...

A play or story belonging to the genre Tragedy, deals with The Bad, as represented by the acts of the tragic figure, but only when they conflict with The Good, represented by a group, be it a family, a clan, organized religion, state laws, or pagan gods.
The tragedian creates varying degrees of tension between these two reference points, which are not opposites, but guiding forces configured by evolution. The tragedy is determined by the incapability of the hero/heroin/both to ADAPT, to find the happy medium.

Original, Greek tragedy, dealt with pagan gods, as when Prometheus acts for his own pleasure by conferring to man the knowledge of fire and of the arts. He represents evolutionary BAD, while Zeus is the GOOD, the authority in charge of law and order. But in Oedipus the King, the city of Thebes represents the Good. Oedipus has done what he thought was his right; he will contend that he is not a criminal, because there was no premeditation. No matter, the gods punish the inhabitants of the city for harboring in its midst a violator of customs and mores, thus introducing the seeds for dreadful disorder. How great is Sofocles, the tragedian, when putting in the blind seer's mouth these words:

"How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be, when there is no help in truth."
Yet it was the revelation of truth what lead to Thebes salvation...

It will not be difficult for the reader of this D-SP essay-Interdialog to analize Tragedies written when pagan gods had been dethroned, and later on, when heavenly figures were discarded as representing The Good.
The Jews could not write Tragedies, because their God was not representable in any form. This situation gave rise to the 'Haggadot,' or folk stories, meant to compete with pagan attractions for Jewish minds. Passover's Haggadah belongs to this genre. But the fact remains, Judaism is not an attractive religion, especially in its Orthodox version, with its vision of resurrecting "dry bones" included...

The question remains, though: Are believers in Judaism interested in its becoming a 'popular' religion? Is this question a subject for a modern Tragedy?: A religious Jew is bent on making Judaism attractive to others. This is THE BAD, his egotistical wish to see his desires realized. The 'authority'(THE GOOD) is the Orthodox religious establishment... Oh, the dialogs, the arguments, the anguish... Does the tragic hero commit suicide? Does he learn a lesson, does he convert?
Or does he simply become secular?