Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2001

Keywords

Dramatic metaphor, Dramatic fiction, Tragicomedy, Comic mirror

Abstract

This article examines the tragi-comic mode and some strong contemporary examples of the form, probing in detail the tragi-comic fabric through a look at farce, and searching for those ironic contours which shape our ideas of justice. The most powerful of these ironic contexts emerges as we see that our reforming ideas of justice are at one and the same time crucial, deep-rooted, fundamental, and almost ineluctable on the one hand, and fragmented, perspective-dependent, and hypercontextual on the other. The fundamental dimensions come out in tragic, comic, and farsic forms. The contextual elements are embedded in the content that fills out, and in ironic ways transforms, these ancient structures.

Publication Title

Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature,

Volume

13

Issue

1

First Page

107

Last Page

118

Required Publisher's Statement

Published as Drama and Justice IV: Passions for Justice: Fragmentation and Union in Tragedy, Farce, Comedy, and Tragi-Comedy," Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 13:1(Spring 2001) © 2001 by the Regents of the University of California/Cardozo School of Law.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/info/10.1525/lal.1.2001.13.1.107#abstract

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Metaphor; Tragicomedy--History and criticism

Subjects - Names (LCNAF)

Laurel and Hardy (Series); Mamet, David. Oleanna

Genre/Form

articles

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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