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2008 contents

19 APR 2008

Julian Gough on divine comedy

"The Greeks understood that comedy (the gods' view of life) is superior to tragedy (the merely human). But since the middle ages, western culture has overvalued the tragic and undervalued the comic. This is why fiction today is so full of anxiety and suffering. It's time writers got back to the serious business of making us laugh."

--Introduction to essay "Divine Comedy" May 1997 at
www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9276

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