Literary tragedy, so often praised for "telling it like it is," does not portray catastrophe as we experience it in real life. It omits, in the words of C.S. Lewis, "the clumsy and apparently meaningless bludgeoning of much of real misfortune and the prosaic littleness which usually rob real sorrows of their dignity" and present instead suffering "that is always significant and sublime."

-Leland Ryken