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and slaves, and the city actively subsidized
poorer citizens attendance. Each tragedy was
part of a competitive festival to be judged by a
panel of citizens following democratic procedures. Classical tragedy at times (though not
always) addressed explicitly political topics,
such as the rule of law in the Oresteia trilogy,
and the conflict between religious obligations
and the authority of the polis in the Antigone.
Although the tragedies rarely focused on contemporary events, they typically used language
drawn from Athenian civic discourse, perhaps
to indirectly celebrate and provoke reflection on
the ideals of the polis (Goldhill 1990). While
most agree that tragedy was part of a patriotic
civic event, some scholars question whether
tragedy was understood to honor democracy
specifically or Athenian cultural and military
superiority in general (Carter 2004).
In the context of Greek democracy, tragedy
also evolved as an artistic genre with distinct
formal qualities and substantive themes.
Tragedy built upon the oral tradition of
Homeric epic and was considered a form
of poetry. However, the stage performance of
tragedy enabled increasingly complex and
vivid adaptations of mythical stories through
the use of actors in dialogue with the chorus.
Perhaps most important, tragedy developed its
distinctive thematic focus on suffering due to
limitations of the human will (Nussbaum
1986). These limitations take several recurring
forms in Greek tragedy: ethically complex situations that are beyond the control of the hero,
such as the choice between city and family
faced by Antigone; the power of fate over
human life, as in Oedipus failed attempts to
escape his future, as prophesized by the Delphic
oracle, and his past, the inherited curse on the
House of Laius that forms the background
ofthe Theban trilogy; the difficulty of governing the passionate and irrational components
of the soul, such as Orestes revenge impulse
and Antigones intense love for her brother;
and the human tendency toward hubris, or
excessive pride or overconfidence. Depending
on which of these particular narratives is
emphasized, subsequent thinkers distill
3
the citizens of the polis. Furthermore, Plato saw
tragedy as intertwined with democracy, which
he saw in equally critical terms. For instance,
in the Laws, Plato compares democracy to
a vicious theatrocracy (1970: 700a-d).
According to Plato, democracy, by emphasizing equality among citizens, breeds intemperance, immodesty, and injustice within the
polis. For Plato, philosophy is the only antidote
to the diseases that tragedy and democracy
cultivate within the soul and the polis.
The modern reader may have difficulty
appreciating the urgency of Platos critique of
tragic poetry. The classical tragedies do not
seem to present any immediate harm to
individual citizens, much less to the public as a
whole. Platos hostility to tragedy, however,
makes sense in the context of the central theme
of his philosophy: an ongoing struggle between
virtue and vice within each individual soul,
mirrored by the larger struggle between justice
and injustice in the polis. While later audiences
and critics have come to identify tragedy with a
sense of humility, Plato associates its arousal of
the passions with excess. As Plato puts it, a
dangerous, wild and lawless form of desire
haunts human life (1968: 372b). The only solution to this problem is certain knowledge of the
good, provided by philosophy, so that human
beings might lead virtuous and just lives. Platos
critique of tragedy is thus both epistemological
and moral-political in nature. That is, tragedy
interferes with knowledge of the good, first, by
substituting a representation of the good for
the thing itself; and second, by arousing the
irrational parts of the soul. Tragedy does
not educate or train the emotions, as Platos
studentAristotle later argued, but enflames the
passions, leading to a civil war within the
soul (603d).
Platos epistemological critique of tragedy
centers on its imitative form. Tragedy is imitative not only in the mundane sense that the
poets and actors imitate different characters,
but in a deeper sense insofar as tragedy is
concerned only with appearances and a semblance of the truth. Philosophy, for Plato, is
fundamentally defined as inquiry into the
4
suffering, ambiguous ethical situations, and
good characters suffering bad luck. Such narratives have adverse consequences for individual
morality and social order. They are impious
and harmful to people who hear them (391e).
This leads Plato to endorse the censorship of
poetry in the city in speech: such tales must
cease, for fear that they sow a strong proclivity
for badness in the young (392a).
Platos hostility toward tragedy is deeply
connected with his attitude toward democracy.
The Republic presents a city in speech, an
attempt by Plato to illustrate the virtues of the
individual soul to an audience of young men
who are questioning the concept of justice
(368b). In this context, Plato seems to view
democracy as a larger metaphor for the disorder unleashed by tragedy, just as the ideal
city in speech is a metaphor for the virtuous
soul. The emphasis within Athenian democracy on equality among citizens exemplified
by the selection of officers by lottery and by the
reliance on majority rule within the assembly
levels the distinctions between the educated
and the ignorant, the virtuous and the vicious.
The democratic polis is full of freedom and
freedom of speech; it is where each citizen can
arrange his own life in whatever manner
pleases him (557b). By definition, then, democratic regimes are unjust, since they encourage
citizens to play a variety of roles and they distribute a sort of equality to both equals and
unequals alike (558c). Democracy empowers
the lowly and the ignorant, just as tragedy cultivates the spirited and erotic parts of the soul.
The result is injustice, chaos, civil war, and ultimately tyranny (562a). Just as individual virtue
depends on eliminating the educative force of
the tragic poets, justice in the city depends
upon an ordered regime controlled by philosopher kings.
While Platos criticisms of tragedy and
democracy seem unrelenting in their severity,
contemporary political theorists including
Peter Euben have contextualized these criticisms within Platos debts to the intellectual
traditions and political practices that defined
the Athenian polis (Euben 1990). Moreover,
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imitative medium of tragedy as potentially
aligned with the pursuit of truth.
The Poetics also reflects a more favorable
assessment of the emotions associated with
tragedy. Aristotle praises tragedy for aiming at
the arousal of pity and fear, and recommends
paradigmatic plot devices to maximize these
effects, including the ironic peripeteia, or
reversal of expectations; and anagnorisis, or
moment of recognition (1452a). Aristotle
praises Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannos as the
paradigmatic narrative for eliciting pity and
fear through these devices (1452a; 1453ab;
1455a). In Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics,
Aristotle applies the doctrine of the mean to
the passions. There Aristotle acknowledges
that pity and fear can take extreme forms, but
he also claims that they can be experienced in a
correct way: to feel them at the right times
and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of
excellence (1106b). Although the concept of
katharsis arguably implies that Aristotle values
the moderation or eventual purgation of the
tragic emotions, the Poetics illustrates a
complex view that genuinely values the tragic
emotions, at least in limited circumstances,
rather than seeing them as opposite to or inherently incompatible with rational thought. At
the same time, Aristotle neglects to directly
challenge the ultimate superiority of reason to
emotion and philosophy to poetry.
There is little question that Aristotles
treatment of tragedy is more favorable than
Platos, but considerable debate remains over
the extent and larger implications of these
departures. One view is that Aristotle recovers
important but limited benefits of tragedy, while
reaffirming the ultimate superiority of philosophy. (For example, Hegels attempt to reconcile art and philosophy draws heavily upon the
Poetics.) Critics, however, see Aristotles rehabilitative project as a domestication, rather
than vindication, of tragedy. According to this
view, tragedy is a source of insight into the
fundamental chaos of human life, fundamentally at odds with any philosophical attempt to
see the world as a rational order. Aristotle, in
6
G. W. F. Hegel was a central figure in these
developments. Building upon Aristotles rehabilitation of tragedy, Hegels thought aims at
comprehensive logical syntheses of art and philosophy, reason and emotion, and conflict and
order. The distinctive feature of Hegels understanding of tragedy is his central focus on
themes of ethical conflict and reconciliation.
Even if they disagree with Hegels conclusions,
contemporary scholars such as Martha
Nussbaum are indebted to Hegel for their
studies of ethical conflict in tragedy (Steiner
1961; Nussbaum 1986; Vernant and VidalNaquet 1990). Although Hegel maintains Platos
view of philosophy as the ultimate human task,
like Aristotle, he regards tragedy as a complementary expression of the human spirit, fully
compatible with and developmentally necessary to the insights of philosophy.
According to Hegels system, absolute
spirit is the unity of subjective spirit
(individual self-consciousness) and objective
spirit (the collective social world, including
the structures of the family, civil society, and
the state). This harmony is expressed in the
trinity of art, religion, and philosophy. Despite
obvious differences, Hegel sees this trinity as
expressing the same underlying content: the
unity of ideal and real, freedom and necessity,
individuals and their social world. Art achieves
this unity through intuition, while philosophy
employs rational thought, but both express the
unity of subjective and objective spirit. Within
this framework, tragedy, according to Hegels
Lectures on Fine Art, points through and
beyond itself (1998: 9) and is therefore
the highest stage of poetry and of art generally (1158). Rather than a source of conflict
and disorder, in Hegels system tragedy
becomes an expression of the unity and
rationality of the world.
Hegels analysis centers on the distinct ability
of tragedy to portray complex ethical conflicts.
According to Hegel, each character in tragedy
embodies a pathos, a legitimate ethical principle that establishes the sympathy of the audience. For example, in his influential reading of
the Antigone, Hegel views Antigone and Creon
as equal protagonists representing the unconscious bonds of the family and the human law
of the state, respectively (Hegel 1977). Hegel
argues that tragic heroes are driven to actions
for which they are culpable in a specific ethical
sense, due to the one-sided nature of the
pathos. Although their ethical principles are
independently sound, circumstances drive
them into conflict, pushing them to extremes.
The inevitable conflict provides the central
action of the drama: For although the characters have a purpose which is valid in itself, they
can carry it out in tragedy only by pursuing it
one-sidedly and so contradicting and infringing
someone elses purpose (1977: 1197).
According to Hegel, tragedy not only problematizes ethical dilemmas, but also provides a
sense of Vershnung, or reconciliation. Applying his dialectical logic, Hegel argues that
tragedy reveals the excesses of the protagonists
while restoring the unity of their essential principles: In tragedy the eternal substance of
things emerges victorious in a reconciling way,
because it strips away their false onesidedness, while the positive elements it displays as what is to be retained, without discord
but affirmatively harmonized (1199). This
means that the ethical conflicts are not, in fact,
conflicts in any fundamental sense. Tragic reconciliation results in the cancellation of conflicts as conflicts, thereby restoring the unity of
the ethical system (1215). While a primitive
consciousness (like that of an innocent child)
may have an undeveloped sense of unity,
tragedy provides a more absolute reconciliation by confronting and working through
compelling ethical conflicts.
In Hegels dialectical logic, tragedy arouses
emotions in order to purge them; problematizes ethical conflict to restore order; and
questions the state to deepen its authority.
Tragedy brings the audience to despair only to
supply a more powerful sense of reconciliation. Far from a disruptive force, tragedy
provides an intuitive reconciliation that is
necessary for and leads logically toward philosophys rational ordering of individuals and
the social world.
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bellwether for political turmoil. For Nietzsche,
the deep suffering portrayed in tragedy is an
ennobling experience, whereas for Plato it is a
degradation of the human soul. According to
Plato, the just and virtuous man suffers the least,
even if he is being actively persecuted, harassed,
or in the case of Socrates executed by the
state. For Nietzsche, on the other hand, the
suffering portrayed in tragedy and conveyed
through the choral music is the basis for an overcoming of the narrow life of moral rectitude in
the name of creative individual achievements.
For Nietzsche, it was the moralistic rejection
of Dionysian excess that infiltrated Greek
tragedy and led to its demise through the teachings of Socrates. This spirit appeared on the
tragic stage through the plays of Euripides,
under whose influence tragedy alienated itself
as much as possible from the Dionysian
elements (XII, 72). Euripides aesthetic
Socratism de-emphasized the role of the
chorus and made the dialectical arguments
between the actors the central dramatic element.
For Nietzsche, Euripides further embodied a
Socratic optimism that demanded poetic justice, whereby the suffering hero onstage is ultimately redeemed, often through the last-minute
appearance of the deity (XVIII, 111). For
Nietzsche, Euripidean drama supplants the
Dionysian joy of existence in all its horrible,
terrible ugliness with a philosophical demand
for justice and earthly happiness (XVIII, 111).
This process was completed by Aristotle, who
Nietzsche saw as domesticating tragedy by subjecting works of art to ethical rather than
aesthetic standards (XXII, 132). Aristotle takes
for granted Platos view of philosophy as inquiry
into certain knowledge of the good, thereby
obscuring the true implications of tragic insight.
Through dialectic and the redemptive force of
the deus ex machina, Greek drama lost its connection with its Dionysian roots.
Although Nietzsche grew disenchanted with
The Birth of Tragedy, several themes from this
text reappear in his later work. Following the
decline of tragedy, Nietzsche saw western culture
as internalizing Platos view of philosophy as
the pursuit of true moral principles. Nietzsche
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works in phenomenological, psychoanalytic,
and anthropological traditions see tragedy as
reinforcing gender norms and kinship systems
by dramatizing the negative consequences of
their transgression, even in complex and
understandable circumstances.
For example, Hegel conceives of Antigone as
representing the feminine, irrational, and
unconscious aspects of human nature, in contrast to the rational law of the state. The play
describes women as the eternal irony of
community because the family is necessary
for the reproduction of the citizenry, yet creates
obligations that appear to be in conflict with
the state (Hegel 1977: 288).
In psychoanalytic theory, Freuds classic
works appropriate the Oedipus story as an
illustration of erotic and aggressive desires that
are repressed in the course of individual and
social development. According to this account,
internal erotic compulsions force humans into
a traditional family structure; yet these same
kinship relations breed an intense form of
conflict conscious and unconscious that
plagues human relations. This irresolvable
conflict mirrors the struggle between order
and chaos in Greek tragedy (Freud 1961: 956).
Yet in offering this narrative, Freud arguably
reifies kinship and gender norms and neglects
their socially constructed character.
Just as classical psychoanalysis has held
tragedy to reflect normal patterns of individual
development, anthropology has historically
held tragedy to reflect fundamental social patterns. Claude Lvi-Strauss, a leading influence
on structuralist anthropology, sees the Oedipus
myth as a reflection of the incest taboo, a
prohibition that is at the foundation of all social
life (1969). Whether tragedy is seen as affirming or complicating the fundamental binary
value systems of Greek culture (such as male
female, statefamily, civilizedbarbaric) contemporary classical scholarship is deeply
indebted to structuralist theory (Vernant &
Vidal-Naquet 1990; Goldhill 1997: 3316).
In the late twentieth century, however, more
progressive views of tragedy and its implications
for gender identity have emerged. To many
feminist political theorists, Antigone has represented possible models for feminist resistance
to patriarchy and the state. A key issue within
this literature is whether the Antigone celebrates femininity or subverts gender distinctions altogether. For example, Jean Elshtain
(1991) appeals to Antigone as a model for feminist politics rooted in the distinct experiences
of women in social and familial settings
independent of the state. Luce Irigaray (1985)
sees in the play a melancholic drama of the
essential differences between masculine and
feminine consciousness. In contrast, Judith
Butler (2000) sees Antigone not as a vindication
of feminine identity but rather as a challenge to
all gender and kinship systems. Relatedly, postcolonial scholars have deployed tragic themes
to avoid excessively romantic narratives of
emancipation (Scott 2004). Despite important
differences, these works have a strong affinity
with recent classicist scholarship that has come
to see tragedy as complicating or problematizing the exclusions of the polis while simultaneously celebrating its democratic ideals
(Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 1990; Goldhill
1990). As reflected in this debate, political theorists have nearly inexhaustible resources at their
disposal within the genre of tragedy, yet
inherent in the genre is a degree of ambiguity
that prevents any lasting consensus. This sense
of the complexity and ambiguity of the human
condition may be the most important contribution that tragedy has made to political theory.
SEE ALSO: Aristotle (384322 bce); Athenian
Democracy ; Epistemology ; Ethics; Euben, J. Peter
(1939); Freud, Sigmund (18561939); Gender and
Sex; Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (17701831);
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (18441900);
Nussbaum, Martha Craven (1947); Passions;
Plato(429347 bce); Reason
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