Tragedy

Clifford Leech

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315279992
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literaturkritik

First published in 1969, this work examines the genre of Tragedy from its origins in ancient Greece, to the modern day. Beginning with an overview of the meaning of tragedy in Europe through the ages, it goes on to explore common aspects of tragedies such as the tragic hero, the chorus and unities, catharsis, peripeteia, anagnorisis and suffering.

This book will be of interest to anyone studying European drama and literature.

1

Some Definitions and Observations

ARISTOTLE

A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.

(The Poetics, Oxford, 1909, translated by Ingram Bywater, Chapter VI)

Plots are either simple or complex, since the actions they represent are naturally of this twofold description. The action, proceeding in the way defined, as one continuous whole, I call simple, when the change in the hero’s fortunes takes place without Peripety or Discovery; and complex, when it involves one or the other, or both. These should each of them arise out of the structure of the Plot itself, so as to be the consequence, necessary or probable, of the antecedents. There is a great difference between a thing happening propter hoc and post hoc.

(The Poetics, Chapter X)

There remains, then, the intermediate kind of personage, a man not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice and depravity but by some error of judgement, of the number of those in the enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity; e.g. Oedipus, Thyestes, and the men of note of similar families. The perfect Plot, accordingly, must have a single, and not (as some tell us) a double issue; the change in the hero’s fortunes must be not from misery to happiness, but on the contrary from happiness to misery; and the cause of it must lie not in any depravity, but in some great error on his part; the man himself being either such as we have described, or better, not worse, than that.

(The Poetics, Chapter XIII)

DIOMEDES (4th century A.D.)

[Tragedy is] a narrative of the fortunes of heroic (or semi-divine) characters in adversity.

(J. W. H. Atkins, English Literary Criticism: The Medieval Phase, Cambridge, 1943, p. 31)

ISIDORE OF SEVILLE (6th–7th centuries A.D.)

[Tragedy consists of] sad stories of commonwealths and kings.

(Atkins, p. 32)

JOHN OF GARLAND (12th–13th centuries A.D.)

[Tragedy is] a poem written in the ‘grand’ style, which treats of shameful and wicked deeds, and, beginning in joy, ends in grief.

(Atkins, p. 111)

CHAUCER

Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,

As olde bokes maken us memorie,

Of him that stood in greet prosperitee

And is y-fallen out of heigh degree

Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly.

(Prologue to The Monk’s Tale)

SIDNEY

… the high and excellent Tragedy, that openeth the greatest wounds, and showeth forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue; that maketh kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants manifest their tyrannical humours; that, with stirring the affects of admiration and commiseration, teacheth the uncertainty of this world, and upon how weak foundations gilden roofs are builded …

(An Apology for Poetry, English Critical Essays (Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries), edited by Edmund D. Jones, 1930, pp. 31–2)

GEORGE PUTTENHAM

Besides those Poets Comick there were other who serued also the stage, but medled not with so base matters: For they set forth the dolefull falls of infortunate & afflicted Princes, & were called Poets Tragicall.

(The Arte of English Poesie (1589), edited by G. D. Willcock and A. Walker, Cambridge, 1936, p. 26)

ANON

Murder be proud, and Tragedy laugh on,

I’ll seek a stage for thee to jet upon.

(Lust’s Dominion, or The Lascivious Queen, probably acted 1599–1600)

JOHN MARSTON

If any spirit breathes within this round,

Uncapable of waightie passion

(As from his birth, being hugged in the armes,

And nuzzled twixt the breastes of happinesse)

Who winkes, and shuts his apprehension up

From common sense of what men were, and are,

Who would not knowe what men must be; let such

Hurrie amaine from our black visag’d showes:

We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast,

Nail’d to the earth with griefe: if any heart

Pierc’t through with anguish, pant within this ring:

If there be any blood, whose heate is choakt

And stifled with true sense of misery:

If ought of these straines fill this consort up,

Th’ arrive most welcome.

(Prologue to Antonio’s Revenge, c 1600)

SHAKESPEARE

Whereupon it [Reason] made this threne

To the phoenix and the dove,

Co-supremes and stars of love,

As chorus to their tragic scene.

(The Phoenix and Turtle, 1601)

CHAPMAN

And for the authentical truth of either person or action, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth’s want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.

(Dedication to The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois, published 1613)

RACINE

Ce n’est point une nécessité qu’il y ait du sang et des morts dans une tragédie; il suffit que l’action en soit grande, que les acteurs en soient héroïques, que les passions y soient excitées, et que tout s’y ressente de cette tristesse majestueuse qui fait tout le plaisir de la tragédie. [It is not necessary that there shall be blood and deaths in tragedy: it is enough that its action shall be great, that its characters shall be heroic, that the passions shall be aroused through it, and that the whole effect shall be that majestic sadness which constitutes the whole pleasure of tragedy.]

(Preface to Bérénice, 1668)

THOMAS RYMER

These [the Greek writers of tragedy] were for teaching by examples, in a graver way, yet extremely pleasant and delightful. And, finding in History, the same end happen to the righteous and to the unjust, vertue often opprest, and wickedness on the Throne: they saw these particular yesterday-truths were imperfect and unproper to illustrate the universal and eternal truths by them intended. Finding also that this unequal distribution of rewards and punishments did perplex the wisest, and by the Atheist was made a scandal to the Divine Providence. They concluded, that a Poet must of necessity see justice exactly administerd, if he intended to please. For, said they, if the World can scarce be satisfi’d with God Almighty, whose holy will and purposes are not to be comprehended; a Poet (in these matters) shall never be pardon’d, who (they are sure) is not incomprehensible; whose ways and walks may, without impiety, be penetrated and examin’d.

(The Tragedies of the Last Age, 1677)

DRYDEN

The death of Anthony and Cleopatra, is a Subject which has been treated by the greatest Wits of our Nation, after Shakespeare; and by all so variously, that their Example has given me the confidence to try my selfe in this Bowe of Ulysses amongst the Crowd of Sutors; and, withal, to take my own measures, in aiming at the Mark. I doubt not but the same Motive has prevailed with all of us in this attempt; I mean the excellency of the Moral: for the chief Persons represented, were famous Patterns of unlawful Love; and their end accordingly was unfortunate.

(Preface to All for Love, published 1678)

ADDISON

The English writers of tragedy are possessed with a notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent person in distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his troubles, or made him triumph over his enemies. This error they have been led into by a ridiculous doctrine in modem criticism, that they are obliged to an equal distribution of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of poetical justice. Who were the first that established this rule I know not; but I am sure it has no foundation in nature, in reason, or in the practice of the ancients.

(The Spectator, 16 April 1711)

HEINRICH VON KLEIST

Man can be great in grief, ay, even a hero,

But only in happiness is he a god.

(Penthesilea, 1808, translated by Humphrey Trevelyan)

GOETHE

Even a noble Greek who well knew how to portray heroic characters did not disdain to let his heroes weep when they suffered such agony. He said: Noble are the men who can weep. Leave me alone – you who have a dry heart and dry eyes! I curse the happy for whom the unhappy is only a spectacle.

(Elective Affinities, 1809, translated by E. Mayer and...