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Tragedy and the Tragic
Form:
An Argument For the
Pessimistic View of Life
No
one really understands the genre of tragedy; the art form began with the
Greeks, probably in the 6th century B.C.E., and consists of only 33 plays
that took place between 430 and 355 B.C.E., or a brief 75 years. Yet no
other expression of humanity's fears, pains, or justifications for life
itself manifests itself as strongly. The seminar planned for the spring will
examine the idea of tragedy and the tragic mood in all its social and
philosophic implications. In particular, I want students to see that tragedy
stems from the much misunderstood philosophic concept of pessimism, the
wellspring of creativity that responds to passion, not reason. Whatever
one's academic interests, this class is first and foremost about the urge to
create, to turn unanswerable, senseless suffering into meaningful artistic
achievements.
B eginning with the Greek dramatists,
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, we will see how the
Greeks attempted to explain life, to use their mythologies to express
instinctive feelings about human nature. We will also study creative and
philosophic forms not usually associated with tragedy, because tragedy is
not a static art form. What about the "tragic" life, for example? How do we
view an artist such as Van Gogh, whose art vividly documented his madness
and changing attitude to his world? Or the life of Christ, if we look at the
New Testament as literature? Or Freud's "death instinct," in which all life
hungers to return to its origins? Or an event such as the Challenger space
disaster, where people lost their lives seemingly bravely, nobly, and
certainly publicly?
Many
people believe that true tragedy is no longer possible, that we have lost
the ability to tap into our hidden, instinctual feelings because reason
plays such an important part in our lives. But I want to examine how true
this is. Novels, for instance, may best express the spirit of tragedy today,
especially books that appeal to our collective, national consciences. A work
such as William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner, in which a
slave leads a futile, bloody revolt, repeatedly asks "why must we suffer?
how did this happen to us?" Styron's novel, itself controversial, has a
remarkable comparison to a work such as Euripides' The Bacchus,
demonstrating that so long as people fight against the unconquerable tragedy
can be relevant, even in our own world.
What
tragedy means has never been an easy question; but in its many formal
aspects, tragedy remains an important cultural concept in Western
literature, visual art, and philosophy. Toward this
end, I want to explore the urge of creativity--the need we all share for
expressing humanity's attempts at reconciling life with the fears and pains
of living. Today we attempt to impose order and meaning on the meaningless
by redefining the tragic in new social, artistic, and philosophic ways, and
this class will ask the same questions that people have asked for thousands
of years. No matter what your academic interests, the tragic spirit is part
of us all--a universal statement of what it means to be human.
The
course discussion will focus principally upon the development of the idea of
tragedy and the tragic mood in all its social and philosophic implications.
The spirit of tragedy is one of pessimism, a much misunderstood philosophic
concept that is the wellspring of creativity. In this course we will look at
the more traditional ideas about tragedy (ideas frequently misinterpreted in
history and today), beginning with Aeschylus and the Greek drama. However,
attention will as well be paid to forms not usually associated with
tragedy--visual art, the Bible, the novel, historic events, and Freudian
psychology--in an attempt to further understand the impetus that gives rise
to the expression of tragedy, what that expression says about us, how the
pessimistic spirit equates with creativity, and why that expression has
changed in the modern world.
T he question of what tragedy is has
never been an easy one. It is far simpler, in fact, to define the many
elements that constitute the tragic, thereafter using them as touchstones in
an attempt to formulate a necessary criteria for such an elusive term. Yet
tragedy, in its many formal aspects, is an important cultural concept in
Western literature, visual art, and philosophy; toward this end the purpose
of this course will be to explore the idea of tragedy as a universal
expression of humanity's attempts at reconciling life with the fears and
pains of living. The term itself demonstrates the elusiveness of the
concept. In literature, we think that all tragedies must end in death or
that heroes demonstrate fatal "flaws." We describe well-documented lives as
being tragic by the degree to which they differ from our own
experiences--biography becomes a voyeuristic necessity not unlike
Aristotle's concept of catharsis. Events such as the Challenger space
disaster must qualify as tragic, since people lost their lives seemingly
bravely, nobly, and certainly publicly.
By
examining not only the purest of tragic forms, the drama, but also works not
ordinarily associated with the genre, we will discover that tragedy suggests
more an innate mood and questioning about life than a term given to easy
definition. We will also discuss how "pessimism," that misunderstood clich頴hat
erroneously stands as the opposite of "optimism," is at the heart of
creativity. For the Greeks, life did not make sense but tragedy as an art
form did. Today we attempt to impose order and meaning on the meaningless by
redefining the tragic in new social, artistic, and philosophic ways. Tragedy
seeks understanding and purpose in otherwise purposeless existences--to
understand that need is to touch the universality of life.
Course
Outline
Part I. The Tradition
of Tragedy: Understandings and Misunderstandings; Pessimism and the
Pessimistic Spirit. Traditional Tragic Forms in literature, religion,
philosophy.
Week One: Introduction to course; background on the Attic drama;
tragedy as an expression for the
inexpressible; what tragedy is not; the festival of Dionysus; Aristotle's
Poetics.
Week Two: Aeschylus, Oresteia; Sophocles,
Oedipus Tyrannus
Week Three: Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus,
Antigone
Week Four: Eurpides, Medea; Aristotle's Poetics (Book
Six)
Week Five: Religion and the tragic spirit: The Book of Job
Week Six: Pessimism and Religion: Pagan/Christian. Augustine and the
Church; Seneca and Roman Tragedy; the medieval concept of
tragedy and the fall of princes
Week Seven: Variations on the traditional: Shakespeare,
Othello
Part II. Redefining the Tragic:
visual art, psychology, philosophy,
and literature.
Week Eight: Philosophic questions and answers: Nietzsche, "The Birth
of Tragedy"; Hegelian dialectic
(A.C. Bradley, "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," Oxford Lectures on Poetry, pp.
69-95), Miguel
Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life.
Week Nine: The New Testament: Christ as literary, tragic figure.
Week Ten: Modernity: questions about religion and fate, free will and
determinism; Freudian
Psychology and the urge toward creativity.
Week Eleven: Tragedy in the visual arts, Goya and Van Gogh; does the
author's life equate to
tragic expression?
Week Twelve: Modern considerations: Ibsen, Ghosts; O'Neill,
Long Day's Journey into Night
Week Thirteen: O'Neill continued; Miller, Death of a
Salesman
Week Fourteen: The novel and tragic expression: William Styron, The
Confessions of Nat
Turner; social implications: the objections in the Black community to Styron's novel.
Week Fifteen: Pathos and Tragedy: the Challenger disaster and other
"tragic" events; Freud,
the psychology of tragedy, Jones: On Oedipus and Hamlet

Course
Requirements
Students will be required to read all the
primary works listed in the syllabus; there will be a midterm and final
examination, as well as a sizeable term paper. In addition, reports will be
assigned on works not listed on the syllabus, with students paired off on
two different positions--on an assigned work, one will defend the material
as tragedy while the other will be asked to argue against that label; these
discussions will take place throughout the semester.
As well, students will be asked to read material
as a basis for discussion that will transcend any particular work; that is,
evaluation of the text or painting will not be our primary concern, but how
these works enforce or distort our notions of the tragic and how they
demonstrate (or fail to) a spirit of pessimism. Guest lecturers from
Philosophy, Psychology, and Art History will be invited to address the
class.
Required
Reading
The required readings are indicated in the
Course Outline; the following list gives both required and recommended texts
(secondary texts will be place on reserve at the library).
Aeschylus. Oresteia. Penguin.
Aristotle. The Poetics. Penguin (or Bywater trans.).
Battenhouse, Roy. Shakespearean Tragedy. U Indiana P, 1969.
Bradley, A. C. "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy." In Oxford Lectures on
Poetry: 69-95.
Euripides. Medea. Meridian.
Freud, Sigmund. On Oedipus and Hamlet. In Basic Writings.
Brill. (See
also Ernest Jones. Hamlet and Oedipus, Norton.)
_ _ _. Character and Culture. New York: Collier Books, 1963.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm, sections on tragedy in Aesthetics: Lectures
on
Fine Art. Trans. F. P. B. Osmaston. London: 1920.
Ibsen, Henrik. Ghosts. Signet.
The Book of Job (Anchor Bible recommended text).
Miller, Arthur. Death of A Salesman. Viking Press.
The New Testament (The Gospels; special attention
given to the
non-synoptic The Gospel According to
John; Anchor
text recommended).
The New York Times. All material on the Challenger disaster
for
January 1986.
O'Neill, Eugene. Long Day's Journey Into Night. Yale University
Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. "The Birth of Tragedy." In The Birth of
Tragedy
and The Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Francis Golffing. New York,
1956.
Sewall, Richard B. The Vision of Tragedy. Yale UP, 1959.
Shakespeare, William. Othello. Signet.
Sophocles. The Oedipus Cycle. Trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert
Fitzgerald.
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Steiner, George. The Death of Tragedy. New York: Galaxy/Oxford,
1961; 1980.
Styron, William. The Confessions of Nat Turner.
Random House.
de Unamuno, Miguel . The Tragic Sense of Life.
Williams, Raymond. Modern Tragedy. Stanford UP, 1966.
Van Gogh, Vincent. Complete Letters. 1959.
Zimmermann, Bernhard. Greek Tragedy: An Introduction. Trans.
Thomas Marier. Johns Hopkins UP,
1991.
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