I haven’t posted a blog for some time as I have been wrestling with how to approach analysing Anne’s major tragedies. In my last blog post I tentatively touched on what I was hoping to achieve by analysing these great tragedies. As I have dug deeper into the tragedies I have been beset with an innumerable number of questions around them.
What I want to articulate in this series of blog posts (starting with this one) is to share with you part of the critical process I engage with in coming to an analysis of the plays. Here I want to present the last thoughts I have had on what Anne’s view of the tragic entails (this is a draft of my critical analysis for Chapter 1 of this, the fifth book) and then to present the questions and thought process I have in entering into the world of Hamlet (these are just preliminary questions and observations) and from these I (hope) to create a critical story of Hamlet. But the general rule is that this process is the one I engage with for all the plays:
“The biggest question for tragedy is this: “What makes tragedy tragic?” We have seen that in ancient tragedies espoused by Aristotle as the basis for his definition of tragedy is that which raises pity and fear in the audience and through the catharsis (purging) of these emotions the tragic effect (pity and fear) is dissipated through clarification of why pity and fear had arisen. In the Aristotelian view tragedy then becomes quite a straightforward endeavour; as Bradley (1957, p. 3) noted (in accordance with Aristotle) that “To the medieval mind a tragedy meant a narrative rather than a play”, but I am arguing against an Aristotelian view of tragedy because Anne replaces this Aristotelian view of tragedy as inducing pity and fear for the tragic hero with empathy for the hero (which includes the women whom I consider to be as tragic as the male hero). And thus the question of “what makes tragedy tragic” must now find what it is in empathy that is tragic and how empathy is induced and if so, does catharsis occur to rid one of this empathic emotion? An Aristotelian view where the tragic hero induces pity and fear through their actions follows a predetermined order which is based on the character in conflict with the tenets laid by the gods for how people are to live their lives, usually according to the prescriptions of the gods and those that challenge these prescriptions or tenets face the wrath of the gods. In doing so they present a clear moral and ethical story which induces pity for the hero (that he has transgressed against the prescriptions and tenets of the gods) and fear that his punishment is something that could happen to anyone who thinks they can disregard these prescriptions and tenets of the gods. In Anne’s modernisation of the tragic, where the action shifts to one arising from the actions of men and it is they and through their character that the tragic arises. And in their character lies the reason for their actions but in following through with their actions they induce in the audience not pity and fear, but empathy for their plight and rather than being purged through catharsis the audience is left with this feeling of empathy and this feeling is intimately tied to the mystery of existence; our empathy is a feeling of connection to the hero but this feeling is one of unease, of unknowability, of why did they do this and we are left with this feeling of mystery (why did Macbeth kill his king; why did Othello listen to Iago; why did Hamlet prevaricate before exacting his revenge [and was it revenge he was seeking?] and why did Lear fail to understand Cordelia’s proclamation of love). Existence has not been explained, and the tragic hero’s existence has not been explained as to what it meant and why did they do this (the actions which led on to their death). It is not a nihilistic feeling, but an uncomfortable uneasiness left at their death: the final words of the hero do nothing to alleviate this feeling of empathy. Empathy is where we feel with the hero who has struggled and yet, even in their final moments, have not reached any conclusion to the meaning of their existence. What have they struggled with or against and why have they taken this path? Our empathy is tied to this inexplicableness of existence and because the tragic heroes have not been able to find an answer for it, then we, feeling empathy for the tragic hero, also come to feel this inexplicableness of our own existence (the tragic hero has not been able to definitively answer the question of the human condition concerning death). It is as if we are searching for an answer to the meaning of our own existence and thus come to identify with the tragic hero as they struggle with the existential questions of death and the human condition.
(To be continued)