The Tragic Comedians: A Study in a Well-Known Story — Complete
1880
The Tragic Comedians: A Study in a Well-Known Story — Complete
1880
George Meredith's 1880 novel takes its title literally: life, he argues, is neither tragedy nor comedy but an inextricable weaving of both. At its center stands Clotilde von Rudiger, an aristocratic young woman whose dissatisfaction with her parade of suitors dissolves the moment she encounters Prince Marko Romaris at the Hungarian Baths. Here, finally, is goodness incarnate - or so it seems. But Alvan soon arrives, a magnetic demagogue whose notorious reputation precedes him like thunder. Clotilde finds herself torn between the safety of virtue and the terrifying thrill of a man the world condemns. Meredith, the novelist Henry James called 'the author of an idea,' uses this romantic triangle not for melodrama but for something more unsettling: an examination of how we deceive ourselves about what we want, how society chains us to choices that were never truly ours, and how the tragic and the ridiculous share a single stage. The novel's subtitle - 'A Study in a Well-Known Story' - signals Meredith's intention: to dissect the familiar romantic narrative and reveal its hidden machinery.
