Principles of Tragedy: A Rational Examination of the Tragic Concept in Life and Literature

298 Pages·2022·17.495 MB·English

by  Geoffrey Brereton

Routledge Revivals
Principles of Tragedy
What is tragedy? What does the term imply? The word had outgrown its
original context of literature and art and acquired wider and looser meanings.
Originally published in 1968, Dr Brereton seeks to establish the basis of a
definition which will hold good on various planes and over a wide range of
dramatic and other literature. Various theories are examined, beginning with
Aristotle and taking in the Marxist interpretation and the two main religious
theories of the sacrificial hero and the built-in conflict in fallen human nature.
These theories are tested out on representative works by Sophocles, Shake-
speare, Racine, Ibsen, Beckett and others, and the findings which emerge are
developed in the course of the book. This is conceived as a re-exploration of a
widely debated subject in the light of a few clear basic principles.
The result is a lucid study which will be especially valuable for students of
literature and drama.

Principles of Tragedy
A Rational Examination of the Tragic Concept in
Life and Literature
Geoffrey Brereton
Firstpublishedin1968
byRoutledge&KeganPaulLtd
Thiseditionfirstpublishedin2022byRoutledge
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andbyRoutledge
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©1968GeoffreyBrereton
All rightsreserved.No part ofthis bookmaybe reprintedor reproducedor utilisedin
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invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
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ALibraryofCongressrecordexistsunderISBN:0710061684
ISBN:978-1-032-25303-9(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-003-28262-4(ebk)
ISBN:978-1-032-25310-7(pbk)
BookDOI10.4324/9781003282624
Principles of Tragedy
A Rational Examination of the Tragic Concept
in Life and Literature
by
GEOFFREY BRERETON
ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL
London
First Published 1968
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane
London, E.G.4
Printed in Great Britain
by Butler & Tanner Ltd
Frome and London
© Geoffrey Brereton 1968
No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without permission from
the publisher, except for the quotation
of brief passages in criticism
SBN 7100-6168 4
Contents
Foreword page vii
I. TRAGEDY IN THEORY
1. The Notion of Tragedy 3
2. The Legacy of Aristotle 21
3. Tragedy and Religion 48
4. The Tragic Sense of Life 56
II. TRAGEDY IN PRACTICE
5. Some Classic Tragedies: Oedipus, Hamlet, Macbeth,
Phedre 77
6. Some Constants of Dramatic Tragedy 107
7. An Anti-Tragedy: Candide 127
III. THE DUALITY CONFLICT
8. Two Worlds or One? Neoplatonism, Pascal 139
9. Imagination Enthroned: Blake and Romanticism 172
10. Imagination Dethroned: Ibsen, Chekhov 189
IV. TWENTIETH-CENTURY POSITIONS
11. Claudd: Partage de Midi 225
12. Beckett: Waiting for Godot 244
13. Consequences 266
Index 281
V

Foreword
This book originated in a search for a definition either of tragedy or
of the main tragic elements which would hold good on various planes
and over a wide range of literature and drama. It seemed that if the
term 'tragic' had any validity at all when used by a modern com-
mentator it ought to include factors common at least to Sophocles,
Shakespeare, Racine, and probably Ibsen and others, irrespective of
the difference in their historical and ethical backgrounds. The simple
conviction that this should be so runs into truly formidable objec-
tions, but the author eventually reached the conclusion that they are
not insurmountable providing one confines oneself to essentials.
The first results of an inquiry of this kind are a number of nega-
tions. It quickly became apparent that the concept of tragedy has
been over-extended by some commentators to include elements which
do not belong to it necessarily or exclusively. If empirical and local,
they fail when transposed to a different context. If 'universal', they
can embrace too much and the concept becomes nebulous. An out-
standing example, which can be attached to either category according
to the angle of approach, is the nineteenth-century persuasion of the
existence of a 'tragic' duality in human nature. Other interpretations
appear on examination to be equally wide of the mark, not on the
grounds of their general validity as explanations of the human con-
dition, which the present writer claims no competence to assess, but
on the narrower issue of their relevance to tragedy.
The wider issues cannot of course be ignored. Any general investi-
gation of the nature of tragedy inevitably broaches questions belong-
ing to theology or philosophy, or even (particularly when considering
the function of tragedy) to sociology and psychology. Indeed the
potential field of exploration is so wide that no one specialist could
hope to cover it, while a symposium of specialists—if past experience
is any guide—would fail to arrive at any agreed conclusions at all.
It therefore seemed necessary, given the primary objective of pro-
gressing at least some way towards a clear definition, to conduct this
inquiry along deliberately restricted lines. This involved, among other
vii