Okay. So maybe there is more than I thought that I can include. I can draw some solid through lines, and maybe get through it all pretty quickly. And it may be significant to *mention* trauma without relying on theorists such as DeCapra; I can talk about separation as essential (and Freudian) and introduce the idea of trauma as a subcategory. I could also add a footnote referring to the 20th century discussion of trauma. I can suggest, through that reading, that the genre of lament can be read both through and against the genre of elegy. I can also align those two generic categories with the aesthetic categories of the sublime and the beautiful, and show that this alignment is a reasonable one given the deep dichotomy underlying Burke's original distinction (namely, that the sublime is related to danger, while the beautiful is related to love). We could even say that, in psychoanalytical terms, the sublime is related to separation and separation anxiety, while the beautiful is related to attachment. As Sacks suggests, the project of elegy is fundamentally one of attachment or reattachment; as such, the aesthetic mode of the beautiful is natural to the genre. (I believe Klinck, or someone else--maybe Jose Mora??--implies a connection between elegy and the beautiful.) Conversely, the project of lamentation is to confront a loss, a separation, a threat to the integrity of the self; as such, the natural aesthetic mode of the lamentation is the sublime. After aligning, and demonstrating, these distinctions, I can bring up the Trauerspiel vs. tragedy distinction.

I really want this paper to be persuasive and craftsmanlike. I want it to have breadth, range, and discipline, and to show sensitivity to the type of argumentation that is most likely to be well-received. I want it to be persuasive, original, and non-trivial.