Achilles' Choice: Examples of Modern Tragedy (Princeton Essays in Literature) PDF
Preview Achilles' Choice: Examples of Modern Tragedy (Princeton Essays in Literature)
ACHILLES' CHOICE Princeton Essays in Literature Advisory Committee: Joseph Bauke, Robert Fagles, Claudio Guillen, Robert Maguire (For a list of the other titles in this series, see page following index.) Achilles' Choice ',1111""""""""",1"""""",',11,"""""1",1,',"" Examples of Modern Tragedy David Lenson Princeton University Press 1975 Copyright © 1975 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton and London All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation This book has been composed in Linotype Janson Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey for June Lenson Prefatory Note WWWWMM*MMMWWWMMMMMMMMMMMMWWWWWWM*********WWWWW*W************WWWWWW This study is undertaken as an act of speculative criticism, not as an act of scholarship, not as an act of literary his tory. I mean this to be a flat statement of fact, neither a boast nor an apology. Criticism of tragedy is an over- populated field. It has advanced beyond the stage of groundwork, perhaps even beyond maturation. It re quires, just as all developed areas of criticism require, a sense of exploration that neither ignores the precedent traditions, nor allows them to tyrannize. Works of specu lation at their best have given scholars new stimuli; at their worst they have been forgotten with no harm done. It is only because the public for such works is limited to specialists that it is necessary to issue the following disclaimers. I have tried to avoid deriving a definition of tragedy. In the period during which this book was written, the marriage of philosophy and linguistics has encouraged in criticism, as in, for example, the social sciences, a hunger for terminology. The prospect of devoting fur ther effort to these matters seems barren. The precise, useful, but ultimately reductive work of Oscar Mandel ought to remain the crowning effort of this kind in the field of tragedy. Definition, by definition, as it were, signals an erection of boundaries. Where such boundaries exist, a given point must lie on one side or the other. I have never found it illuminating to answer a flat "yes" or "no" to the question of whether or not such-and-such viii Achilles' Choice a work is a tragedy. It is more helpful in the final analy sis to think of tragic elements or "norms"—to borrow Wellek's term—which a given work may contain in greater or lesser density. The result of this attitude is a flexible, fairly liberal idea of a tradition. This proves a telling advantage in the interpretation of more recent events. On the other hand, an historical survey or "history of tragedy" during the modern epoch, done well, would be a collection of potential topics for research, or, done poorly, a blur of name-dropping. Such works exist, and there is no need for another. My more or less chrono logical arrangements of topics may seem to promise some species of diced-up history, a kind of linear gestalt. All that is meant is a choice of certain essential moments in the formation of the modern tragic tradition. Of neces sity, these selections must be viewed as examples. Ex amples point past themselves to a larger set, yet it is wrong, in my opinion, thereby to preclude interest in an example for its own sake. Admittedly, the points which make a particular work interesting to a student of tragedy may not be the same as those which award the work its place in general literary history. It is to be stressed that if I have given Kleist more space than Goethe this does not mean that I am making a heretical judgment about the comparative overall significance of the two. The books, friends, and teachers who have contributed to my thinking on this subject are too numerous to men tion. I have had the opportunity to listen to classes and lectures by some of the leading critics in this field, notably Francis Fergusson, Walter Kaufmann and George Stein- er, and I gleaned great benefit from them all. But my Prefatory Note ix primary debt is to the Program in Comparative Litera ture of Princeton University, in particular its chairman, Professor Robert Fagles, whose guidance and expendi ture of time extended long past the dissertational days of this project. It is customary at times such as these to grant a teacher the credit for what follows, while the author accepts the blame. So extensively have I looted this most impressive thinker, however, that I am tempted to assign him some of the blame as well.
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