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Tragedian   Listen
Tragedian

noun
1.
A writer (especially a playwright) who writes tragedies.
2.
An actor who specializes in tragic roles.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tragedian" Quotes from Famous Books



... awaits each inevitable word, and how pleased he is to find that everything comes out as he expected! He reserves his full emotion for the true dramatic climax. If a great tragedian could be assured of having such an appreciative audience, how pleasant would be the pathway of art! The tragedy of Cock Robin reaches its hundredth night with no apparent falling off in interest. ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... Greece, so now in China, the words of the play are partly spoken and partly sung, the voice of the actor being, in both countries, of the highest importance. Like the Greek actor before masks were invented, the Chinese actor paints his face, and the thick-soled boot which raises the Chinese tragedian from the ground is very much the ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... of practice could make ME play like that," she said; "yet I have had two or three masters who were supposed to be first-rate. One of them was a German, who used to clutch his hair like a walking tragedian whenever I played a wrong note. I believe he got up his reputation entirely by that clutch, for he often played wrong notes himself without minding it. But just because he worked himself into a sort of frenzy when others went wrong, everybody praised ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... the stout tragedian; gray John Lowin, the walking-man; Diccon Burbage, and Cuthbert his brother, master-players and managers; Robin Armin, the humorsome jester; droll Dick Tarlton, the king of fools. There was Blount, and Pope, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... Radnor, into which Pope by stealth inserted some strokes, which the prudent painter did not appear to observe; and of this circumstance Pope was not a little vain. In proof of his proficiency in the art of painting, Pope presented his friend Mr. Murray, with a head of Betterton the celebrated tragedian, which was afterwards at Caen Wood. During a long visit at Holm Lacy in Herefordshire, he amused his leisure by copying from Vandyck, in crayons, a head of Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, which was still preserved there many years afterwards, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... case the pallor of his cheeks was intensified by the blackness of his hair and the purple-black bloom upon his chin and upper lip. He looked to Barbara like an undertaker who mourned the stagnation of trade. To you or me he would have looked like what he was, a second or third-rate tragedian. ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... *Bretagne, 10 to 20 frs. Alittle to the east of the church Ste. Philomne is a smaller house, the H. and Pension Cannet, 8 to 10 frs. Immediately opposite the church is the Villa Sardou, where in 1858 the accomplished tragedian Rachel died of consumption. At that time none of those broad roads existed which now encircle the house. Above the church is the "Place," commanding a very pretty view. Omnibus, 6 sous. Cab to Cannet, and return by the Grasse road, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... to communicate itself to the puppets, and they perform their parts with a fidelity to theatrical unnaturalness which is wonderful. I have witnessed death agonies on these little stages which the great American tragedian himself (whoever he may happen to be) could not surpass in degree of energy. And then the Burattini deserve the greater credit because they are agitated by the legs from below the scene, and not managed by cords from above, as at the Marionette Theatre. Their ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... counterfeit the deep tragedian! Speak, and look back, and pry on every side, Tremble, and start at wagging of a straw. Pretending deep suspicion; ghastly looks Are at my service like enforced smiles, And both are ready in their offices, At any ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... bishops as against vicars apostolic; he moved among bulls and rescripts, briefs and pastorals and canon law, with as much ease as if he had been arguing about taxes and tariffs. Through it all the House watched and listened in enchantment, as to a magnificent tragedian playing a noble part in a foreign tongue. They did not apprehend every point, nor were they converted, but they felt a man with the orator's quality of taking fire and kindling fire at a moral idea. They felt his command of the whole stock of fact and of principle ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... full immensity of Clithering's fatuousness until he uttered that mangled quotation from Macbeth in the tone of an old-fashioned tragedian. I believe the man actually revelled in harrowing emotion. It would not have surprised me to hear him assure me that the "multitudinous seas" would not wash out the blood-stains from his hands. He might very well have asked for "some sweet oblivious antidote." If he had known ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... fallacious reasoning. I was SURE, for once, that I had the best side of the argument. I boldly maintained the just distinction between a tragedian and a mere theatrical droll; between those who rouse our terrour and pity, and those who only make us laugh. 'If (said I,) Betterton and Foote were to walk into this room, you would respect Betterton much more than Foote.' JOHNSON. 'If Betterton were to walk into this room with Foote, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... also many mentions of Miss Mitford in the 'Life of Macready' by Sir F. Pollock. The great tragedian seems not to have liked her with any cordiality; but he gives a pleasant account of a certain supper-party in honour of 'Ion' at which she is present, and during which she asks Macready if he will not now bring out her tragedy. The tragedian does ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... course, that he is acquitted of the charge, and stands recorded as our friend and benefactor. Our case is just that of the Trojans, who entertained the tragic actor only to find him reciting their own calamities. Well, recite away, our tragedian, with these pests ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... interfere in a scuffle between his brother-in-law and Arbaces—who was by way of being a traitor; but the most sensational scene of all was the banquet in act the third, of which so glowing an account had been given to Austin by the great tragedian himself. That, indeed, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... decorum of the Central Hotel been so outraged. Its air of smug respectability seemed to have vanished. Even to the clerk's own disturbed imagination the establishment had suddenly grown raffish, and its dingy paint and drab upholstery resembled the make-up and cloak of a scowling tragedian. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... tea with David Garrick, the tragedian, and Peg Woffington, about the year 1735, was amused at Garrick's audible complaints that the fascinating actress used too much of his costly tea at a drawing. In 1745 the British yearly consumption of tea was but 730,000 lbs. The Scotch Judge, Duncan Forbes, in his published letters ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.

... Brentford, as this remarkable hostel dates its origin from the days of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson. It is frequently mentioned by the early dramatists, and appears at one time to have been in some repute, having had for its landlord the celebrated tragedian, John Lowin, cotemporary of Shakspeare, and one of the original actors in his plays, who died in this house ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... could so fully give you the flavor of the times. He recalls Froissart. If you are not affected by C——'s stories, you had better pretend to be. But that, I am sure, will not be necessary: a great tragedian was lost when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... counting noses at the theater doors. Booth's agent was one Matthew Canning, an exploded Philadelphia lawyer, who took to managing by passing the bar, and J. Wilkes no longer, but our country's rising tragedian. J. Wilkes Booth, opened in Montgomery, Alabama, in his father's consecrated part of Richard III. It was very different work between receiving eight dollars a week and getting half the gross proceeds of every performance. Booth kept northward when his engagement was done, ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... Dances of almehs, songs of gypsies, or Chinese jugglers? One of the Ivans brought a programme. It was not difficult to decipher the word "[Russian: MACBETH]," and to recognize, further, in the name of "Ira Aldridge" a distinguished mulatto tragedian, to whom Maryland has given birth (if I am rightly informed) and Europe fame. We had often heard of him, yea, seen his portrait in Germany, decorated with the orders conferred by half a dozen sovereigns; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... theatrical costume, theatrical properties. movie studio, back lot, on location. part, role, character, dramatis personae[Lat]; repertoire. actor, thespian, player; method actor; stage player, strolling player; stager, performer; mime, mimer[obs3]; artists; comedian, tragedian; tragedienne, Roscius; star, movie star, star of stage and screen, superstar, idol, sex symbol; supporting actor, supporting cast; ham, hamfatter *[obs3]; masker[obs3]. pantomimist, clown harlequin, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... repeating the dying scene so long as it suited the managers to prolong the sorry exhibition. Macready, whose dramatic genius and refined sensibilities revolted at a spectacle so degrading, describes him as he appeared at Bath, in 1815: "I was at the theatre," says the tragedian, "on the morning of his rehearsal, and introduced to him. At night the house was too crowded to afford me a place in front, and seeing me behind the scenes, he asked me, knowing I acted Belcour, to prompt him ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... chief badge of the actor's peerage, and it is of one of the born nobility that we have to speak. Amongst those who have few bodily disadvantages to overcome, and who, it would seem, should glide into an assured position more easily than others climb, we may include our foremost American tragedian,—EDWIN THOMAS BOOTH.[D] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... fame will last as long as old England's records, and who shall doubt 85that will be to the end of time? Here grew into manhood and renown the Lord Burleigh, King, Bishop of London, the poet Cowley, the great Dryden, Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, Dr. South, Matthew Prior, the tragedian Rowe, Bishop Hooper, Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Friend, the physician, King, Archbishop of Dublin, the philosopher Locke, Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, Bourne, the Latin poet, Hawkins Browne, Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery, Carteret, Earl of Granville, Charles Churchill, the English satirist, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... to the door of the shack and watched the man tramping up the beach toward the end of the point. What a dignified stride he had! Rather, it was the stride of a poseur—like nothing so much as that of the old-time tragedian, made famous by the ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... one of your 'country readers,' anxious to 'put the right names to them,' address—not one, but five or six—of his 'town correspondents,' he would get answers about as harmonious as if he had consulted the same number of German commentators on the meaning of a disputed passage in a Greek tragedian. Some of the personages are purely fanciful—for instance, Mr. Harrison—such a man as never did exist, but I imagine might very well exist, among us. But, as the development of these characters is still in manuscript, it would be premature to say ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... he declaimed "with a tongue of trumpets," leaped to his feet and struck an attitude that was really quite a good imitation of 'Enery's own mock-tragedian one. But the officers listening breathed awe and admiration; they did not, as the Towers did, laugh, because here, unlike the Towers, they saw ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... mystery, why not—although the idea revolts our feelings—an eternity of suffering? why not a God who is nourished by our suffering? Is our happiness the end of the Universe? or may we possibly sustain with our suffering some alien happiness? Let us read again in the Eumenides of that terrible tragedian, AEschylus, those choruses of the Furies in which they curse the new gods for overturning the ancient laws and snatching Orestes from their hands—impassioned invectives against the Apollinian redemption. Does not redemption ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... me laugh Joyously, riotously, Tall, dark villains, and heroes with blonde hair Make me laugh uproariously... (I could elope with a tragedian!) ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert

... the same consideration for us as for my aunt, she enjoyed us with a keener relish, because we had, in addition to our dignity as part of 'the family' (for she had for those invisible bonds by which community of blood unites the members of a family as much respect as any Greek tragedian), the fresh charm of not being her customary employers. And so with what joy would she welcome us, with what sorrow complain that the weather was still so bad for us, on the day of our arrival, just before Easter, when there was often an icy wind; while Mamma inquired after her daughter and her nephews, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... [343] Crebillon pere, tragedian and academician, is one of the persons who have never had justice done to them: perhaps because they never quite did justice to themselves. His plays are unequal, rhetorical, and as over-heavy as his son's work is over-light. But, if we want ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... Permit me to introduce myself: H. Tybalt Smith, Esq., tragedian of the A. B. C. Company. My companions are Mr. Kerrington, the heavy villain; Mr. Mill, the leading serious. Our juvenile, Mr. G. Alvarado Spotts, has already sufficiently introduced himself. The ladies are Mrs. Mackintosh, our ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... actor, who spoke very good English, though not without the "pure Parisian accent," took some kind of notice of me, desiring me to be sure and remember his name, and tell my father that Mr. Talma, the great French tragedian, had called. I replied that I would do so, and then added, with noble emulation, that my father was also a great tragedian, and my uncle was also a great tragedian, and that we had a baby in the nursery who I thought must be a great tragedian too, for she did nothing ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... moans and whistles. The clarinet flings an obbligato high over the heads of the dancers on the cabaret floor. It makes shrill sounds. It raves like a fireless Ophelia. It plays the clown, the tragedian, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... than Cibber, and a tragedian to boot, took a more business-like view of the proceedings, thinking thin houses the greatest indignity the stage could suffer. "Men of taste and judgment (said he) must necessarily form but a small proportion of the spectators at a theatre, and if a greater number of people were enticed to ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... then, (when all human Efforts must yield to inevitable Necessity) sinking in the irretrievable Plunge of Sorrow and Calamities, with that calm Resignation ever attendant on true Heroism; must convince any judicious Spectator of his being born a Tragedian. I must here declare, that what I have advanced on this Subject neither ariseth from Prepossession on one Side, or Prejudice on the other; having no Manner of Connection, nay, not even a personal Acquaintance, with Mr. Barry; nor any Objection to Mr. Sheridan, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... day as a dancer in the music halls, began as a fire-resister, and did his dance on hot iron plates. But the reader has two keener surprises in store for him before I close the long history of the heat-resisters. The first concerns our great American tragedian Edwin Forrest (1806-1872) who, according to James Rees (Colley Cibber), once essayed a fire-resisting act. Forrest was always fond of athletics and at one time made an engagement with the manager of a circus to appear as a tumbler and rider. The engagement ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... soul, and the affections of the mind should be held loosely, so that we may slacken or tighten them. That one soul should be in travail for two is a heavy burden." Euripides was regarded, and rightly, as no less a philosopher than a tragedian, and was not infrequently styled [Greek: sophos]. Cicero here veils his thorough conversance with Greek literature and philosophy, and assumes the part of Laelius, in whose time, though Greek was not omitted in the education ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... the little man; "the poorest tragedian that ever lived never wished himself the best of low comedians. The court fool had an excellent salary, no doubt; and, likely enough, had got two-thirds of all the brain there was in the palace. But not a wooden-headed man-at-arms but looked down ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... conversation naturally turned upon the dramatic art and upon Shakespeare. Every person present except the king of the feast was an American, and a Shakespeare fanatic as well. Rather to the surprise of even his most ardent admirers, the great tragedian proved to be a keen and intelligent Shakespearian scholar, not only of the roles that he has made his own, but also of the whole of the works ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... stage-manager, who, like Shakspere, became very wealthy by the profession. Burbage was the great tragedian, and the original performer of Richard III. Condell was a comedian, part-proprietor of the Globe Theatre; it is to him and Heminge we are indebted for the first complete edition of Shakspere's ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... than a man—he is a type or symbol. He is 'the old mystical tragedian of the Middle Ages, Everyman.' It is an epic, because it celebrates the universal man with all his glorious failings and glorious virtues. The love of Pendennis for Miss Fotheringay is a different thing to the ordinary ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... the only one of the company actually in the fabricated banquet hall itself. Clinging to him still were the grim flowing robes of the Black Terror. As though he were some old-fashioned tragedian, he was pacing up and down, hands behind his back, head bowed, eyes on the floor. More, he was mumbling to himself. It was evident, however, that it was neither a pose nor mental aberration. Shirley was searching for something, out in the open, without attempt at concealment, ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... his inward man, his mind, on the contrary, was richly furnished. No one could surpass him in depth of feeling or in readiness of intellect. The theatre was his ideal world. If he had possessed a slender well-shaped figure, he might have been the first tragedian on any stage; the heroic, the great, filled his soul; and yet he had to become a Pulcinella. His very sorrow and melancholy did but increase the comic dryness of his sharply-cut features, and increased the laughter of the audience, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... Roman tragedian, flourished during the time of Cicero, but the dates of his birth and death are not known. The name seems to show that he was a freedman of some member of the Clodian gens. Cicero was on friendly terms with both him and Roscius, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... to Edwin Booth, the famous tragedian, asking if he might be admitted to Booth's theater by a private door, because, though he very much wished to see Booth act, he didn't like the idea of being seen entering a theater. Booth wrote back, "Sir, there is ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... have arrived in port, but which every one had interpreted in his own way. Euripides was no more! But neither the news nor he who brought it could create more than a momentary stupor; and the tipsy fun soon renewed itself, at the expense of the living tragedian and the dead. Aristophanes alone remained grave. The value of the man whom he had aspersed and ridiculed stood out before him summed up by the hand of Death. He recalled the failure which had marked the now hopeless limitation of his own genius, and those last words addressed to him ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... ascend the mount, But like a person of some high account; The Cross shall be Thy stage, and Thou shalt there The spacious field have for Thy theatre. Thou art that Roscius and that marked-out man That must this day act the tragedian To wonder and affrightment: Thou art He Whom all the flux of nations comes to see, Not those poor thieves that act their parts with Thee; Those act without regard, when once a king And God, as Thou art, comes to suffering. No, no; this scene from Thee takes life, and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... up fifteen times, and fifteen times the quartette of artists, breathless, bowed in acknowledgment of the frenzied and boisterous testimony to their unique talents. No singer, no tragedian, no comedian, no wit could have had such a triumph, could have given such intense pleasure. And yet none of the four had spoken a word. Such ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... read so many of, and which I had translated one of for Lawrence Barrett in the far-off days before the flood of native American dramas now deluging our theater. That play was "Un Drama Nueva," by Estebanez, which between us we called "Yorick's Love" and which my very knightly tragedian made his battle-horse during the latter years of his life. In another version Barrett had seen it fail in New York, but its failure left him with the lasting desire to do it himself. A Spanish friend, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... being present at the sale of the books of Isaac Reed, the commentator on Shakspeare, when "a Treatise on the Public Securities" was knocked down at the humble price of sixpence—the great tragedian observed, "that he had never known the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various

... tragedian, who strains after what in stage parlance are called points, and calculates on being interrupted by loud clapping before the sense of the sentence be complete, or else wants breath to finish it, a Philadelphian audience might prove a slippery dependence, since they come evidently to ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... drama, or the engagements, merits, and adventures of the performers. Neither the Lord Chancellor nor the Archbishop of Canterbury is ever so familiarly known by name and person to the public, as the first tragedian and comedian of the day; and the theatrical belles and heroines are either elevated to the peerage by matrimony, or lowered by the undertaker into Westminster Abbey. As some French Vaudevillist observed, "Moliere was denied in France ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various

... which prove there are no gods. Euripides the tragedian durst not openly declare his sentiment; the court of Areopagus terrified him. Yet he sufficiently manifested his thoughts by this method. He presented in his tragedy Sisyphus, the first and great patron of this opinion, and introduced himself as one ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... so popular with the jokers of the day, that we have serious thoughts of reserving a corner entirely to his use. Amongst the many hits at the young tragedian, the two following are not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various

... in his glory, "no less superintendent of literature than of finance," and he undertook to recall to the stage the genius of Corneille. At his voice, the poet and the tragedian rose ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of Liverpool is the village of Prescot, where Kemble the tragedian was born, and where the people at the present time are largely engaged in watchmaking. Not far from Prescot is one of the famous homes of England—Knowsley Hall, the seat of the Stanleys and of the Earls of ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... Pepper Sneed were the ones who made the most trouble for the manager. Mr. Bunn was an former Shakespearean actor. With his tall hat and frock coat—which costume he was seldom without—Mr. Bunn was a typical tragedian of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope

... this fitting for the obituary of a comic actor? Yes, we reply, and as both are but occasions of appeal to the passions, we may think the death of a tragedian less striking than the former, since all tragedies end with death, and death in itself is but a scene of tragedy. Is any lament of Shakspeare's heroes more touching than his apostrophe to the scull of Yorick, the King's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... 60. Quintilian alludes several times to the extreme beauty of his voice and his commanding delivery—better, he thinks, than that of any tragedian he had ever seen. To read, his ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... duties, to designate half of which would occupy a chapter. He was strict to a fault in the discharge of his duty, as every urchin of that day who attempted to sneak into the circus can testify. Conway the tragedian called to see me one evening, and in attempting to pass was stopped by Billy, armed ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... they even quoted classical authority to prove that a "stage-player" was considered infamous by the Romans; among whom, however, Roscius, the admiration of Rome, received the princely remuneration of a thousand denarii per diem; the tragedian, AEsopus, bequeathed about L150,000 to his son;[148] remunerations which show the high regard in which the great actors were held among ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... least some of her work, may be said to have anticipated) that grave and solemn harmony of the French Huguenots of the sixteenth century, which in Du Bartas, in Agrippa d'Aubigne, and in passages of the tragedian Montchrestien, strikes notes hardly touched elsewhere in French literature. The Triomphe de l'Agneau displays her at her best in this respect, and not unfrequently comes not too far off from the apocalyptic resonance ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... period of the republic, was the comedian, whom all Rome admired for his talents. The great esteemed and loved him for his morals. AEsop, the tragedian, was his contemporary. Horace, in the epistle to Augustus, has mentioned them both with their proper and ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... him; accordingly, he was exceedingly spoiled, never annoyed by the sight of a book, and had as much plum-cake as he could eat. Happy would it have been for Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy could he always have eaten plum-cake, and remained a child. "Never," says the Greek Tragedian, "reckon a mortal happy till you have witnessed his end." A most beautiful creature was Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy! Such eyes—such hair—such teeth—such a figure—such manners, too,—and such an irresistible way of tying his neckcloth! When he was about sixteen, a crabbed old uncle represented ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various

... Beasley and Miss Gibbs had consented to play the two heroes, and might be expected to appear in tights, with flowered waistcoats and cocked hats. In the imagination of the gossipmongers Professor Marshall, as a Greek tragedian, and Mr. Browne, garbed as a highwayman, were to be added to the list of artists. It was even whispered that the Reverend T. W. Beasley, M.A., who was booked to arrive on Monday, had consented to come earlier, for the purpose of joining in the festivities, and would ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... of research, the figure of William Shakespeare in London remains very dim. He is reputed to have been a good actor; but Richard Burbage the tragedian and William Kemp the comedian were greater actors than he. He played with them before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich Palace, in a couple of scenes designed to celebrate Christmas. We are told that he took the part of the Ghost in a performance of his own "Hamlet" and the part of old Adam ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan

... Francois Joseph Talma (1763-1826), the great French tragedian. Lamb, introduced by John Howard Payne, saw him in "Regulus," but not understanding French was but mildly interested. "Ah," said Talma in the account by James Kenney printed in Henry Angelo's Pic Nic, "I was not very happy to-night; you must see me in 'Scylla.'" ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... old friend, Captain (afterwards General) Richard Tyldin Auchmuty of New York, who since I had last seen him had passed through the Civil War. This reception was given in honor of the then young but gifted tragedian, John E. McCullough, with whom the Beale family had formed a friendship in ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... think I have a genuine hatred for anybody. I am well aware that I differ herein from the sturdy English moralist and the stout American tragedian. I don't deny that I hate THE SIGHT of certain people; but the qualities which make me tend to hate the man himself are such as I am so much disposed to pity, that, except under immediate aggravation, I feel kindly enough to the worst of them. It is such ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... Ambassadress falls madly in love with him; the Prince becomes furious at his ill success, and the Ambassador dreadfully jealous. They pursue Kean to his dressing-room at the theatre; where, unluckily, the Ambassadress herself has taken refuge. Dreadful quarrels ensue; the tragedian grows suddenly mad upon the stage, and so cruelly insults the Prince of Wales that his Royal Highness determines to send HIM TO BOTANY BAY. His sentence, however, is commuted to banishment to New York; whither, of course, Miss Anna accompanies him; rewarding him, previously, with ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... stage career just before our time, but I know that Richard at least saw him and heard that wonderful voice of thunder. It seems that one day, while my mother and Richard were returning home, they got on a street-car which already held the great tragedian. At the moment Forrest was suffering severely from gout and had his bad leg stretched well out before him. My brother, being very young at the time and never very much of a respecter of persons, promptly fell over the ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... been the more anxious after patronage, because I wished the actress whom I have mentioned to play my heroine. There was no tragedian whose powers were in the least comparable to hers. But the difficulty of getting a piece on the stage, at the theatre to which she belonged, all the town told me was incredible. It was a chancery-suit, which ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... than Gothic work, it does so, not because it is better proportioned, but because it has nothing but proportion to depend upon. Gesture is in like manner of more importance to a pantomime actor than to a tragedian, not because his gesture is more refined, but because he has no tongue. And the proportions of our common Greek work are important to it undoubtedly, but not because they are or even can be more subtile than Gothic proportion, but because that work has no sculpture, nor color, nor ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... which there is a continual decline. The theory of the fragment is expressed by a series of authors from the same and the immediately succeeding period. It occurs in Euripides; a later and otherwise little-known tragedian, Moschion, developed it in detail in a still extant fragment; Plato accepted it and made it the basis of his presentation of the origin of the State; Aristotle takes it for granted. Its source, too, has been demonstrated: it was presumably Democritus who first advanced it. ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... following the river, joins the main line. The steamer now passes Riverdale, with its beautiful residences and the Convent of Mount St. Vincent, one of the prominent landmarks of the Hudson, located on grounds bought of Edwin Forrest, the tragedian, whose "Font Hill Castle" appears in the ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... variety of the Panther is, however, easily tamed and trained to the chase of deer, the gazelle, &c.—for which purpose it has long been employed in the East, and also during the middle ages in Italy and France.—Mr. Kean, the tragedian, a few years since, had a tame Puma, or American Lion, which he kept at his house in Clarges-street, Piccadilly, and frequently introduced to large ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... whispered intercourse with that happy gentleman, who was allowed to find a resting-place on her sofa. The signora had a way of whispering that was peculiarly her own, and was exactly the reverse of that which prevails among great tragedians. The great tragedian hisses out a positive whisper, made with bated breath, and produced by inarticulated tongue-formed sounds, but yet he is audible through the whole house. The signora, however, used no hisses and produced all her words in a clear, silver tone, but they could only be ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... the young prodigy. Their failure was worth a dozen successes to Liszt. The ball of the marvellous was fairly set rolling. Gall, the inventor of phrenology, took a cast of the little Liszt's skull; Talma, the tragedian, embraced him openly with effusion; and the misanthropic Marquis de Noailles became his mentor, and initiated him into the art ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... Norseman!" he wrote once. "Oh, for the deep Scandinavian scourge of pain, the inbrooding, marrowy soul-ache of Ibsen! That is the fertilizing soil of tragedy. Tragedy springs from it, tall and white and stately like the lily from the dung. I will never be a tragedian. Oh, pebbles ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... of silk, and in their cupboards they locked up silk and gold—therefore, "ormoire" is right and "armoire" is an innovation. Potier, Talma, Mlle. Mars, and other actors and actresses were millionaires ten times over, and did not live like ordinary mortals: the great tragedian lived on raw meat, and Mlle. Mars would have a fricassee of pearls now and then—an idea she had taken from some celebrated Egyptian actress. As to the Emperor, his waistcoat pockets were lined with leather, so that he could take a handful of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... Aristophanes, in the tear shed by him to the memory of his rival, in the hour of his own triumph; and we may be quite sure that when Mr. Browning depicted that scene, and again when he translated the great tragedian's words, his own eyes were dimmed. Large tears fell from them, and emotion choked his voice, when he first read aloud the transcript of the 'Herakles' to a friend, who was often ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... her as far more of the tragedian than the singer. "Her voice, since I have known it," observes Mr. Chorley, in his "Modern German Music," "was capable of conveying poignant or tender expression, but it was harsh and torn—not so inflexible as incorrect. Mme. Schroeder-Devrient resolved to be par excellence ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... if you'll fight like a man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard, Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you rant and you roar, Through the horrible grin of your larva's wide bore. Nay, farther, which makes me complain much, and frump it, You make his long nose your loud speaking-trumpet; With the din of which tube my ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... tragedian walk as taken off on the comic opera stage, the termination of each strutting, dragging step accentuated by cymbals smashed together F-F-F? That was how the god walked. He was all in scarlet, with a long feather sticking straight ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... declared that Eckhof was a great tragedian, who rivalled successfully the great French actor, Monsieur Dennis. This public voice, though but the voice of the people, found entrance everywhere, even in the saloons of the nobles and cabinets of princes. Berlin resounded with the name ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... (Dr. Drury, headmaster of Harrow) who was the means of introducing Edmund Kean, the great actor, on the London stage. Procter delighted to recall the many theatrical triumphs of the eccentric tragedian, and the memoir which he printed of Kean will always be read with interest. I heard the poet one evening describe the player most graphically as he appeared in Sir Giles Overreach in 1816 at Drury Lane, when he produced such an effect on Lord ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... up betimes in the morning; but he had scarcely begun to dress, notwithstanding, when he heard footsteps ascending the stairs, and was presently saluted by the voices of Mr Folair the pantomimist, and Mr Lenville, the tragedian. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... anticipated, so much more human and simple; so much more easy to fit into the every-day shake-up of life, and full of that divine allowance for other people's shortcomings. It was impossible to act the tragedian before her. And, most wondrous of all, she was a "live wire." He had gone to her abasing himself; he came away as her employer, subtly cheered, encouraged, and lifted to new heights ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... Rantzau is the title of MASCAGNI'S new Opera. The title, anglicised, would be suitable for an old-fashioned transpontine melodramatic tragedian, who could certainly say of himself, "I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various

... parts, made a tour of the provinces, and finally, in London, engaged in a remarkable war with the great tragedian, Edmund Kean, which divided the town into two factions. But Booth tired of the struggle, in which the odds were all against him, and in 1821 sailed for America. He won an instant success, and was a great popular favorite until the day of his death. He was a short, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... the olden times you must remember that we had none but English actors in this country,—and as soon as they came here, they wanted to own land. They could not do it in England. The elder Booth owned a farm at Bellaire. Thomas Cooper, the celebrated English tragedian, bought a farm near Philadelphia, and it is a positive fact that he is the first man who ever owned a fast trotting horse in America. He used to drive from the farm to rehearsal at the theatre, and I believe has been known on some occasions, when in convivial company, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... "I have seen a man who had a walk on him that suggested spring-halt and locomotor ataxia combined impersonating my graceful self in a manner that drove me almost crazy. I've heard my 'To be or not to be' soliloquy uttered by a famous tragedian in tones that would make a graveyard yawn at mid-day, and if there was any way in which I could get even with that man I'd ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs

... manual habit and the world's encouragement were wanting to perfect, in the concrete, the conceptions of those plastic minds. Who will deny that Hogarth was a novelist and play-wright, if not indeed a heart-rending tragedian? Who will refuse to those nameless monastic architects who planned and fashioned the fretted towers of Gloucester, the stern solidity of Durham, the fairy steeple of Strasburg, or the delicate pinnacles of Milan, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... querulous but not mean—petted eyes they were—and the mouth had little lines at each corner which seemed to say he had endured much, much pain, which of course he had not, but which nevertheless seemed to ask for, and I suppose earned him some, sympathy. Dick in his way was an actor, a tragedian of sorts, but with an element of humor, cynicism and insight which saved him from being utterly ridiculous. Like most actors, he was a great poseur. He invariably affected the long, loose flowing tie with a soft white or blue or green or brown linen shirt (would ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... present," I explained to Zulime, "and most of us were deeply interested in the radiant figure of that happy girl. To me she was a princess, and I observed that as the curtain rose after each act and the great tragedian came forth to bow, his eyes sought his daughter's glowing face. Each time the curtain fell his final glance was upon her. Her small hands seemed the only ones whose sound had value in ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... unanimously approved by scholars. It is surely easy then to conjecture what a heavy task it has proved to render verse in verse, particularly verse so varied and unfamiliar, and to do this from a writer not merely so remote in time, and withal a tragedian, but also marvellously concise, taut and unadorned, in whom there is nothing otiose, nothing which it would not be a crime to alter or remove; and besides, one who treats rhetorical topics so frequently and ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... There is a superabundance of harsh energy, and a want of simplicity, tenderness, and repose throughout, which fatigues me, until admiration becomes an effort instead of a pleasurable feeling. Marochesi, a celebrated tragedian, who, Minutti says, understood "la vera filosofia della comica," used to recite Alfieri's tragedies with him or to him. Alfieri was himself a bad actor and declaimer. I am surprised that the tragedy of Mirra should be a great favourite on the stage here. A ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... the first place, he was of a chastity so inviolate that, after the loss of his wife he never indulged in any sexual pleasures, recollecting what is told in Plato of Sophocles the tragedian, that being asked when he was a very old man whether he still had any commerce with women, he said "No," with this further addition, that "he was glad to say that he had at all times avoided such indulgence as ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... regret for me is the manner of the great tragedian's death. Sire, would it not be worthy of the reign, the breast, the conscience of Charles X., to draw this class of artists from the cruel position in which they are left by that excommunication that weighs upon them without distinction? Whether ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... time the matter had attracted a good deal of attention, for I had carried on my conversation with the cow in the voice of a tragedian when the chief villain of the play has stolen his girl, and my next neighbor, an old sea-captain from Mattagorda Bay, and his hired men had come over to assist me. They were of the nature of a reenforcement, which consisted of the captain, a Mexican, a Michigan man that stuttered, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... appear in the rags of a beggar ["Odyssey," book xiii. v. 397], we are at liberty to represent his image to our mind more or less fully, and to dwell on it as long as we like. But in no case will it be sufficiently vivid to excite our repugnance or disgust. But if a painter, or even a tragedian, try to reproduce faithfully the Ulysses of Homer, we turn away from the picture with repugnance. It is because in this case the greater or less vividness of the impression no longer depends on our will: we cannot help seeing what the painter ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... painted pedantry and sweetly torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I remember I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer, the pride of the English stage; and all I then heard and all I now remember of the tragedian was that in which the tragedian had no part; simply Hamlet's question ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... actor, Gurn—Fantomas was not! Not enough of one at least to venture to take the place on the boards of such a consummate player, such a famous tragedian. ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain

... cease, His halcyon days brought forth the arts of peace; He still in his triumphant chariot shines, By Horace drawn, and Virgil's mighty lines. 'Twas certainly mysterious that the name [2] Of prophets and of poets is the same; What the tragedian[3]—wrote, the late success 79 Declares was inspiration, and not guess: As dark a truth that author did unfold, As oracles or prophets e'er foretold: 'At last the ocean shall unlock the bound Of things, and a new world by Tiphys ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... photograph of her husband, done by some horrible posthumous "process" and draped, as to its florid frame, with a silken scarf, which testified to the candour of Greville Fane's bad taste. It made him look like an unsuccessful tragedian; but it was not a thing to trust. He may have been a successful comedian. Of the two children the girl was the elder, and struck me in all her younger years as singularly colourless. She was only very long, like an ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James

... simplicity, that modest demeanour, those eyes humbly declining, those unstudied gestures, that passionate tone, that mild countenance of a man penetrated with his subject, conveying to the mind the most luminous ideas, and to the heart the most tender emotions. Baron, the tragedian, coming out from one of his sermons, truth forced from his lips a confession humiliating to his profession; "My friend," said he to one of his companions, "this is an orator! and we are ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... stage. She gives lessons just to a very few; it's a great favour. Such a very nice person! But above all, Signor Ruggieri—I think he taught us most." Mrs. Rooth explained that this gentleman was an Italian tragedian, in Rome, who instructed Miriam in the proper manner of pronouncing his language and also in the art of declaiming ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... a prima donna (they will tell you) made her initial bow to the public while turning handsprings on an amateur night. One great matinee favorite made his debut on a generous Friday evening singing coon songs of his own composition. A tragedian famous on two continents and an island first attracted attention by an amateur impersonation of a newly landed Scandinavian peasant girl. One Broadway comedian that turns 'em away got a booking on a Friday night by reciting ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... far surpassed all the advocates at the bar. At first, it is said, he as well as Demosthenes, was defective in his delivery, and on that account paid much attention to the instructions, sometimes of Roscius, the comedian, and sometimes of Aesop, the tragedian. They tell of this Aesop, that while representing in the theatre Atreus deliberating the revenge of Thyestes, he was so transported beyond himself in the heat of action, that he struck with his sceptre one of the servants, who was running ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... fears, and the hopes, which convince the inmost heart that their final cause is not to be discovered in the limits of mere mortal life, and force us into a presentiment, however dim, of a state in which those struggles of inward free will with outward necessity, which form the true subject of the tragedian, shall be reconciled and solved;—the entertainment or new comedy, on the other hand, remained within the circle of experience. Instead of the tragic destiny, it introduced the power of chance; even in the few fragments of Menander and Philemon now remaining ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... delegation of industry to the slave. That audience was probably the liveliest, most quick-witted, most appreciative, and most critical that the world ever saw. Prizes were given to the authors of the best pieces. Each tragedian exhibited three pieces, which at first formed a connected series, though afterwards this rule was disregarded. After the three tragic pieces was performed a satyric drama, to relieve the mind from the strain of tragedy, and perhaps also as a conventional ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... that art. Tragedy dogged my footsteps and marked me for her own from the first. I was bullied; that was bad enough. I was caned; that was worse. I had to learn Latin verbs; that was worst of all. I was a practised tragedian at seven. Acts one, two, and three were performed as a rule once a day, and now and ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... little-foot girl is the daughter of Hom Kip. You remember the story, don't you? The old plug tried to sell this daughter of his for wife to a merchant in Portland. She had her own ideas—she eloped with the second tragedian from the theatre over there. Hom Kip put detectives on them, and caught her at Fresno. But she'd already married her actor American fashion; and the Portland bridegroom is waiting until father makes his little ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... the tragedian from Marlboro, obtained the floor. He is one of the most amusing characters connected with the big show. He hadn't "seen any chairs raised," and, folding his arms and throwing himself back in a tragic and majestic position, said: "I, gentlemen, was the coolest ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... the name given to an actor named Henderson (1782), whose friends did not think him quite so great a tragedian as ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... or Music can do for such a Philistine is to "send him away to another city, pouring ointment on his head, and crowning him with wool," as Plato would dismiss the tragedian (Republic III. 398). The author of the Magna Moralia well says (I. i. 13): "No science or faculty ever argues the goodness of the end which it proposes to itself: it belongs to some other faculty ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... vi. and vii.), 'to thinke that after he had lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should triumphe againe on the Stage, and have his bones newe embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at severall times) who, in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding!' There is no categorical record of the production of a second piece in continuation of the theme, but such a play quickly followed; for a third piece, treating ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... grateful sigh where the breeze played over him. He was a big, bearlike, swarthy man with the square-hewn, deep-lined face of a tragedian, and a head of long, curly hair which he wore parted in a line over his left ear. Jones was a character, a local landmark. This part of Texas had grown up with Blaze, and, inasmuch as he had sprung from a ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... something better should offer, but his resolution was soon broke by an accident. Being to play the part of Guyomar in Dryden's Indian Emperor, who kills Vasquez, one of the Spanish generals; and forgetting to exchange his sword for a foil, in the engagement he wounded his brother tragedian, who acted Vasquez, very dangerously; and though it proved not mortal, yet it so shocked the natural tenderness of Mr. Farquhar's temper, that it put a period to his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... of the theatre. Actors have greatly exaggerated the extent of his patronage and friendship. But he more than once took supper with Sir Henry Irving and it is understood to have been by his advice that the great tragedian was knighted. He it was who encouraged the late Queen to resume her patronage of the theatre and to begin by having Mr. and Mrs. Kendal appear before her at Osborne. He never liked, however, the ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins



Words linked to "Tragedian" :   player, author, histrion, writer, role player, thespian, actor



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