Some Notes on the Problem of Modern Tragedy

Author(s): Haskell M. Block

Source: Comparative Literature Studies , Mar., 1972, Vol. 9, No. 1, Special Issue in Honor
of Maurice J. Valency (Mar., 1972), pp. 80-84
Published by: Penn State University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40245960

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Some Notes on the Problem

of Modern Tragedy
HASKELL M. BLOCK

ABSTRACT

Tragedy in strict conformity to classical models is impossible, but su

ments as the tragic hero still exist. Pirandello's Enrico IV illustrates the
formation from traditional to modern conceptions. (AOA)

In view/ of the many critics who have insisted on the impos

ity of modern tragedy, it is astonishing how many playwright
our century have continued to aspire to the composition of tra
dies. Those who contend that tragedy is dead commonly hav
mind tragic drama as written by the Greeks or the Elizabethan
tragedy as defined by Aristotle. There can be no doubt that th
concept of tragedy has undergone considerable change in our ti
to the point where commentators speak of a "tragic vision"
"tragic sense of life" that is wholly independent of theatrical p
formance. Yet, for most readers and spectators, tragedy contin
to be viewed essentially as a dramatic form, and in the drama o
the twentieth century, mixed forms dominate the scene. The
characteristic serious play in modern drama is likely to be trag
comedy or grotesque farce. This does not mean, however, that
concept of tragedy has disappeared; rather, that it has been tra
formed.
The arguments against the possibility of tragedy in our time
too well known to warrent detailed recapitulation. Realism, d
minism, the decline of myth, a diminished view of man, the ab
sence of community between playwright and audience- these
among the most common explanations. They serve, it seems

80

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SOME NOTES ON THE PROBLEM OF MODERN TRAGEDY 81

only to explain why tragedy in strict conformity to a classica

model is impossible; but rather than speak of the death of tra
we would do better to consider its persistence through transf
tion. Not all of the elements of ancient tragedies are present
their modern counterparts, but there are important similarit
continuities which should warn us against easy applications
formula to a large and varied body of dramatic literature.
By way of brief illustration, we may single out the charact
the tragic hero. The older protagonists were necessarily highb
and powerful, persons on whom the fate of communities d
Yet, the monumentality of an Oedipus or a Hamlet is not o
expression of his political and social role. It is derived from th
depth, intensity, and complexity of his suffering, a sufferin
through which the tragic hero acquires a knowledge of himse
of the human condition that he and we could not have gain
any other way. It is not enough to see the classical tragic hero
a victim, irremediably doomed to defeat and death. We sho
see him as affirming human dignity as well as his own nobilit
even in the moment of catastrophe.
I should like to argue that this same nobility and grandeur m
be found in the modern tragic theatre. This contention is not
It was forcefully asserted by Schiller in his view of sublime e
as the end of tragedy; the beauty of tragedy, he insists, is in
exaltation of the hero over his suffering. His natural greatnes
present as an affirmation of nobility of character transcendin
physical suffering. Thus, the tragic hero is not annihilated bu
transformed; he is, at the end, far greater than the circumst
and forces which defeat him.
This view of the tragic hero does not depend on his suffering
physical pain, excruciating though this may be. Rather, it expresses
a relationship of character to action. In sheer physical terms, minor
characters may suffer far more painfully than does the protagonist.
The paradoxical ennoblement of the tragic hero follows from his
illumination, from the new knowledge gained of himself and the
world as a result of his trial. The significance of this illumination
determines the ultimate grandeur of both the hero and the play as
a whole.
Many critics since Schiller have reasserted this or a similar view
of the nobility and grandeur of the tragic hero, and most of them
see at least elements of classical tragedy in some twentieth-century
plays. One may allude to the standard studies of T. R. Henn, Otto
Mann, D. D. Raphael, Elder Olson, Herbert Weisinger, Robert B.

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82 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

Heilman, Geoffrey Brereton, Dorothea Krook,

among others. Even the most knowledgeable r
on what modern plays are or are not tragedies, b
inherent reason why tragedy cannot be written
century, and the refusal of playwrights to aban
in itself proof of its power of survival.
There is often a large gap between a playwrigh
his accomplishment, and there are all too man
tragedies wherein the playwright's failure in bo
and its realization belies his lofty claims. The
is no guarantee of significant accomplishment, a
or unheroic character of much modern drama, a
strident rhetoric and didacticism, undoubtedly m
creation of tragedy. All the same, the modern r
plays in which the suffering and self-knowledge
tragic hero are unmistakably present, even thou
tion of experience and the psychological preoc
drama have made for new conceptions of both
action.
There are several important modern plays which were conceived
as tragedies and which might justly deserve to be read or seen as
such. I believe that strong arguments for the presence of a tragic
hero as well as of a tragic vision could be presented for Strindberg's
The Father, Pirandello's Enrico IV, Anouilh's Antigone, and for
several other modern plays. Strindberg was not wholly wrong in
viewing the conflict of the Captain and Laura in Aeschylean terms,
and the Greek model in a transposed contemporary setting animates
Anouilh's play of the occupation period. Pirandello's Enrico IV is
altogether representative of the interiorization of tragedy in modern
times. A brief analysis might help to show the accord of Pirandello's
tragic hero and traditional conceptions in both drama and criticism.
It is at least of interest to note that Pirandello subtitled
Enrico IV, "tragedia in tre atti." His hero is an emperor only in
fantasy, but that fantasy is far more real and more durable than
ordinary everyday experience. It is enough for the well-to-do
Italian gentleman who imagines himself to be an emperor to claim
the role in order to raise himself to the plane of exceptionality.
His role, however, is far more an expression of inner rather than
external power. There is nothing mean or sordid about his charac-
ter, a fitting reminder that in modern drama tragic nobility is not
a matter of class or wealth. Enrico IV bears his greatness within
himself and expresses it both in his acts and in his realizations.

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SOME NOTES ON THE PROBLEM OF MODERN TRAGEDY 83

The drama of suffering and ennoblement lies essentially within.

Pirandello's play, like all of his major plays, depends for its
dramatic movement on the interaction of mask and reality, on a
view of life as masquerade asserting itself in lavish theatricality
costume and gesture. The stage directions tell us of Enrico's
"tragico pallore," but the intensity of his suffering can be gauge
only when the play is read or seen retrospectively. For the hero's
masquerade at the outset is an act of conscious volition. Pirand
blurs the lines between "sanity" and "madness," just as he
questions the ability of words to render intense personal experi-
ence. Enrico lives his fantasy with passion and even, at times, wi
fury; our subsequent discovery of his lucidity does not make him
any the less exceptional. His way of seeing and living is not like
that of anyone else.
One could dwell at length on the qualities which make Enric
a modern classic and which led Pirandello, according to Dome
Vittorini, to think of it as his best play. For our present purpose
it must suffice to ask: why did Pirandello consider his play to be
a tragedy? After all, the victim in the final outburst of violence
is Belcredi, a cynical libertine who is hardly the stuff of tragic
grandeur. The presence of physical violence and death does not
by itself, endow a play with tragic magnitude. If our reading is
correct, the tragedy lies within the hero, in the transformation
his "madness" from a willed and lucid choice to a coercive and
inescapable necessity. The permanent loss of freedom is recognized
in Enrico's last line: "ora si ... per forza . . . qua insieme, qua
insieme . . . e per sempre! " Enrico is thus his own victim, impris-
oned in his mask. His suffering is the loss of his essential freedom,
even though he transcends this suffering in his realization of his
imprisonment.
There is yet an additional aspect of the hero's consciousness of
his new condition that has been emphasized in performance by
actors aware of Pirandello's absolute separation of life and art.
When Enrico declares, in Edward Storer's translation: "Now,
yes . . . we'll have to ... Here we are . . . together . . . forever! "-
the leading actor may reinforce "Here" by pointing downward to
the floor of the stage, suggesting that the fixity and eternality
Enrico seeks is to be found only on the physical boards of the
theatre. I do not see the necessity for this emphasis and it may well
be gratuitous and forced, but it in no way cancels out the nobility
and dignity of the nameless twentieth-century Italian who confers
on himself the identity of a medieval emperor.

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84 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

Pirandello is among the few modern playwri

able to invest a hero with tragic grandeur. Ne
hero is not in any way average or typical or r
ceptionality lies not in any ability to perform
rare insight into the human condition and his
consequences of his choices. It is this insight a
endow the hero's knowledge with dignity and
The driving introspectiveness and philosop
Pirandello's hero constitute but one mode of
tion. Yet, in this respect, Enrico is cut from
Hamlet. Other tragedies may give more weigh
but we should do violence to the concept of tr
only one mode of tragic action is possible. A t
or modern, is perforce part of a pattern of d
his suffering and his reaffirmation of human
viewed in the context of the whole play. With
see a simultaneous enlargement of being that
hero and mankind at large. This enlargement
being is far removed from the optimistic "ha
times imposed but more often parodied in mo
and it is not found in many plays that lay cla
Nevertheless, the fact that such action and ch
ist in the modern drama should remind us of
great and even monumental dramatic art in ou
the inevitably protean character of dramatic
confront the problem of modern tragedy sim
point of the Greek tragedians or Aristotle or
we admit that modern playwrights, at their b
tragic drama proper to our time, we may also
of constant elements shared by classic and mo
alike.

HASKELL M. BLOCK . City University

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