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Document Details : Title: Genres: Een pleidooi voor kwantitatief onderzoek Author(s): DE HAAS, Anna S. Journal: Spiegel der Letteren Volume: 44 Issue: 1 Date: 2002 Pages: 37-41 DOI: 10.2143/SDL.44.1.374 Abstract : Certain developments in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century drama can be detected by quantitatively establishing particular phenomena in, inter alia, the designation of genres and the variations occurring in their concomittant characteristics (i.e. their absence, presence or combinations thereof ). A case in point is the observation how in the course of the seventeenth century ‘tragicomedy’ with its mixed ending (poetic justice) gave way to ‘tragedy’ with a similar ending at the expense of ‘tragedy’ with an unhappy ending. This finding is supported by contemporary theoretical views which initially distinguish between ‘tragicomedy’ and ‘tragedy’ as different genres, but eventually reject the unhappy ending of ‘tragedy’ as unsatisfactory. In the early eighteenth century; ‘tragedy’ (with poetic justice) is exclusively favoured over ‘tragicomedy’. |
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