Last week in the Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout offered a few thoughts on“Why Comedy is Truer to Life Than Tragedy.” … Well, not if you’ve seen news photographs from the Middle East over the past ten years or so, from the political prisons of Iraq to the streets of Syria, let alone elsewhere. When I read Terry’s pronouncement that “comedy is truer to life than tragedy” to my wife, she immediately got to the heart of the matter: “That depends on whose life you’re talking about, doesn’t it?” she said.
Truer to life doesn't mean identical with life. Art is not a transcription of life, but an attempt to make sense of it. Unhappy endings are somehow dissatisfying — like those horror movies that end by letting us know that the evil force has only had a temporary setback. The reason Oedipus Rex by itself is not entirely satisfying is that it lacks resolution. That resolution — the meaning behind the suffering — is found in Oedipus at Colonnus. We all know that horrific things take place in the world every day. An art that simply told us that would be no art at all. It would be the news.
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