# What is the genre of life?



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Answer the question.

If you vote "other", please specify.


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## Lyricus (Dec 11, 2015)

Absurdist tragedy.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Lyricus said:


> Absurdist tragedy.


Vote "Tragedy" or "black comedy" then. Or other if those two seem completely inappropriate.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

The correct answer is Mockumentary


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Couldn't there just be a regular comedy option? Not slapstick or black. As in, the humor or happy times just happen despite the pain, not as a result of it. So yeah, that's my choice. Plain ol' comedy, in the Greek/Shakespeare sense of it.


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## Lyricus (Dec 11, 2015)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Couldn't there just be a regular comedy option? Not slapstick or black. As in, the humor or happy times just happen despite the pain, not as a result of it. So yeah, that's my choice. Plain ol' comedy, in the Greek/Shakespeare sense of it.


Isn't that essentially what a sitcom is?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Live is one big long running soap.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Lyricus said:


> Isn't that essentially what a sitcom is?


Nope. Think Midsummernight's Dream.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Where's the choice for "surrealism"? Oops, there it is.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Depends on the way you choose to live yours! After all, isn't life just one really, really damn big MMORPG?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Couldn't there just be a regular comedy option? Not slapstick or black. As in, the humor or happy times just happen despite the pain, not as a result of it. So yeah, that's my choice. Plain ol' comedy, in the Greek/Shakespeare sense of it.


"The comedy is over."


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## Lyricus (Dec 11, 2015)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Nope. Think Midsummernight's Dream.


That's sitcom! Well, I guess the other way around. New Comedy (the Greek Menander, the Roman Plautus, then the English Shakespeare, inter alia) pioneered comedy based around the situations people find themselves in. Modern television "sitcoms" are just a bastardization of that.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Lyricus said:


> That's sitcom! Well, I guess the other way around. New Comedy (the Greek Menander, the Roman Plautus, then the English Shakespeare, inter alia) pioneered comedy based around the situations people find themselves in. Modern television "sitcoms" are just a bastardization of that.


The technical Greek genre of comedy has to do with its beginning premise as something bad, like in the case of the complicated love quadrangle of Midsummernight plus the risk of harm to the first 2 who run into the forest, but after a series of convoluted mishaps which are absurdly funny, it all eventually _resolves_. Aristotle wrote on this. It wasn't considered a high genre though. Anyhow, that's what I mean. It's not just situational comedy, but the overall trajectory of the story from bad to good.


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## Lyricus (Dec 11, 2015)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> The technical Greek genre of comedy has to do with its beginning premise as something bad, like in the case of the complicated love quadrangle of Midsummernight plus the risk of harm to the first 2 who run into the forest, but after a series of convoluted mishaps which are absurdly funny, it all eventually _resolves_. Aristotle wrote on this. It wasn't considered a high genre though. Anyhow, that's what I mean. It's not just situational comedy, but the overall trajectory of the story from bad to good.


Yeah, though Aristotle was reductionist. There were ancient Greek comedies that didn't end happy (like Aristophanes' The Clouds), but otherwise we're not disagreeing. Maybe more Middle Comedy?

Remember too that Odyssey ends happily, at least as happily as it could be after the Ithacans go to war and the suitors' kin are slaughtered en masse. But Athena make it right.

I can see why you wouldn't want that to be lumped with New Comedy, but the development is there, at least.

New genres needed!


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I went for "surreal comedy" - comedy with magic realism and sometimes unexpected pathos.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Interestingly no votes for "Science fiction", despite this all crazy technology we have.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I voted 'other'.
As any fule kno , life is *lyric poetry* - defined by Wiki as 'a form of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person'.

In particular, it is a Sonnet Sequence, based on a string of seven epiphanies for each of the decades of a traditional life span.

The more thought that goes into its crafting, the better the Sonnet Sequence will be.

A great idea for a thread, btw! :tiphat:


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Dim7 said:


> Interestingly no votes for "Science fiction", despite this all crazy technology we have.


Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Clarke's Third Law )



> the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
> And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.


E.A. Poe


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> After all, isn't life just one really, really damn big MMORPG?


http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealLife


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Recently, my life seems to be stuck half way between French Farce and Kabuki Theatre.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Life is clearly--at least in my case--an educational experience. I'll be better-prepared next time.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

That's what I thought.........


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

"By the time you learn the rules, you're too old to play the game."

Anonymous


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm afraid I had to pick horror. I'd prefer it were science fiction, but that's not what I see and experience.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Soap opera, like "Days Of Our Lives".


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> Soap opera, like "Days Of Our Lives".


Things are going a lot faster in real life comparing to _Days Of Our Lives_.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I don't know what the director of life, or the composer of it's soundtrack, would think about it's work being categorized by genre. Genre limits our perception of art, and record companies and other powerful people created them just to dumb it down for the masses. It's all just artificial labels, man.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

A blend of historical fiction and magical realism

Just for clarification, that wasn't my dim7-style obtuse response, that's my fairly sincere obtuse response.


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2015)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> A blend of historical fiction and magical realism
> 
> Just for clarification, that wasn't my dim7-style obtuse response, that's my fairly sincere obtuse response.


Can you do any better than "fairly"?


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

dogen said:


> Can you do any better than "fairly"?


I mean, we're talking about which genres of literature life belongs to....I'd say any response is an approximation.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

My life is probably the most boring, languid television program in existence. Plot development is slow, too many side plots that distract from the main story, the acting is fantastic however, almost lifelike


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Cosmos said:


> My life is probably the most boring, languid television program in existence. Plot development is slow, too many side plots that distract from the main story, the acting is fantastic however, almost lifelike


Considering the Chinese curse 'May you live in interesting times!', you should probably consider yourself lucky!


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Ingélou said:


> Considering the Chinese curse 'May you live in interesting times!', you should probably consider yourself lucky!


Apparently the Chinese original does not exist. Wikipedia says so. Has Wikipedia ever been wrong about anything?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Like Walter Raleigh laying his cloak in a puddle for Queen Elizabeth? Ah well, it was a good story!


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Ingélou said:


> Considering the Chinese curse 'May you live in interesting times!', you should probably consider yourself lucky!


Couldn't imagine a stronger curse in a place where much of anything happening... basically means that you're going to be crushed into bonemeal.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I picked action, because if you don't move, you die.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

I couldn't decide between Theatre of the Absurd and Theatre of Cruelty, so I went with "Black Comedy."


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> Answer the question.
> 
> If you vote "other", please specify.


Life has no meaning. Everyday is same as each other. That is why I voted other. Life has nothing at all. I am not living.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

atsizat said:


> Life has no meaning. Everyday is same as each other. That is why I voted other. Life has nothing at all. I am not living.


I. Am. A. Potato.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Black comedy and tragedy have the most votes. TCers a bit morbid aren't they?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Dim7 said:


> Black comedy and tragedy have the most votes. TCers a bit morbid aren't they?


There is so much sadness in life.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

The horror! The horror!


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