I'm certain I'm not the first person to notice this, but why is it that so many works with high literary merit are generally quite sad? Especially when compared with most mainstream works, so many works of genre fiction or whatnot are generally depressing throughout and have a depressing ending, or at least one that isn't what you'd find in most mainstream fiction, e.g. Shakespeare's Tragedies, Dostoevsky, Moby-Dick, etc.

It seems to go beyond conflict being a driving force for a story to occur, and it seems that a story being tragic is almost essential to it having high artistic merit. This is certainly not a hard and fast rule, but even with works like the Divine Comedy, which has an objectively happy ending, the focus remains mostly on the part of the work set in literal hell.

The obvious answer is that "life is sad" and that "only those who are tortured can produce good works", or something, but Shakespeare made amazing tragedies despite being one of the richest men in England at the time, and while many authors are quite tortured, there seems to be something more to it than edgelords just being the best writers. Besides that, life has plenty good things to offer- love, success, etc, yet works that deal with these themes are typically less well received in the long run than works that deal with more tragic themes

>>24557046 (OP)

comedy is topical, it relates to specific moments and often is dated to time.

Tragedy is eternal and every reader for thousands of years can more easily relate to the sadness of life

>>24557046 (OP)
Shakespeare's comedies are also truly great works of art. And he definitely was not one of the richest men in England in his time. But if you're asking why the MOST famous and lauded works of literature are usually about deadly earnest subject matter, it's because that is the most important, the most revealing aspect of life, and important art wants to have important subject matter. The ultimate meaning and our ultimate understanding of life is informed by the tragic more than anything else. Without death life would be meaningless.