Word: tragic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cause, was content to remain in Paris, for instance, chasing young ladies and flying kites in thunderstorms. Thomas Jefferson, the greatest propagandist of the age, also sought refuge in Europe, where he lived with his beautiful black mistress and continued his mischief-making for another 43 years. A fascinating, tragic figure, Jefferson became an inspiration to generations of novelists, poets and composers. Sir Walter Scott used him as the hero of Monticello, and after one apparently jolly dinner at Jefferson's Italian villa, Shelley was moved to write...
...fail. Bernard is determined to return their relationship to its old obsessive level. When Mathilde resists emotional imprisonment, he creates a scandalous scene at a party. The incident cauterizes his wounds, but it opens hers. This role reversal leads to her breakdown, and to the film's surprisingly tragic denouement...
...music. In his wake came the generations of rock compounds: -abilly, acid, punk, and, inevitably, Beatlemania. The first to mesmerize the millions of white teen-agers of mid-'50s America, Elvis all too soon degenerated into rhinestone rumbling, and his act, his records and films, even his bloated, tragic end, contained elements of self-parody...
Take, for example, my favorite article in the parody, a feature on the people of Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, whose children have been turned into household appliances by radiation. The tone is perfect--genuine concern for the tragic victims, yet with a sense that everything will turn out all right in the end. The relentless good cheer comes through mostly in the writing. Snappy puns and appealing alliteration make everything seem a little less gloomy. To wit: "Some people, however, are wearing their nuclear designer genes with a smile...(or)...the problem has the Middletown populace as irritated as they...
Each side claimed that the tragic events in Egypt last week made its case more compelling. Opponents of the Reagan Administration's plan to sell five AWACS surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia argued that the murder of President Sadat illustrated the folly of selling some of America's most advanced weapons technology to potentially unstable Middle Eastern regimes. Proponents answered just as vigorously that Sadat's death underscored America's need to support its few remaining allies in the area. Both arguments swirled in and around the Senate, where the Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled...