Michigan State University Press The Centennial Review

THE ELEMENTS OF TRAGEDY
Author(s): Isadore Traschen

Source: The Centennial Review, Vol. 6, No. 2 (SPRING 1962), pp. 215-229
Published by: Michigan State University Press
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THE ELEMENTS OF TRAGEDY
Isadore Traschen
I want to propose a new way of approaching Greek and

Shakespearean tragedy. My proposition is that the tragedy I
speak of dramatizes the relations among three attitudes: the
tragic, the orthodox, and the profane; and that to see it in
the light of the competing claims of these attitudes will en
large our sense of it. As I shall point out, some aspects of
these relations have been treated by critics, others not at all.
What novelty my theory has probably lies in my attempt to
formulate these attitudes, to establish the fact of their co
existence, and to examine some of the implications of this
fact.
What do I mean by the profane, the orthodox, and the

tragic? By the profane I mean an attitude shaped by ex
pedience and practicality, by material comforts and social
status, or by a violation of orthodox moral standards; it is
embodied in figures like Polonius, Osric, Talthybius (in The
Trojan Women), the messenger in Oedipus Rex, Odysseus
(in Philoctetes), lago, Edmund, Regan, and Goneril. Though
the profane attitude is normally opposed to the religious, in
what I have to say the more significant opposition will be to
the tragic. By the orthodox attitude I mean a prevailing view
which unifies life and gives it order. This order is codified
through religious and moral doctrine, or through stabilizing
values such as love, friendship, loyalty, or codes of honor;
examples would include the Chorus in Greek tragedy, Kent,
Horatio, Antigone, Cordelia, and Edgar. The orthodox oc
casionally reveal profane tendencies, but these do not figure
importantly in the action. Lastly, by the tragic attitude I
mean a new sense of things that begins with the belief that
the orthodox explanation of life is no longer adequate.
But to fully define my idea of the tragic I will need to
215
THE CENTENNIAL REVIEW
outline the pattern of tragedy as seen from

Like all abstractions, it is an ideal patter
holds for the great plays—Oedipus Rex
Lear—the standards by which we defin
pattern evolves out of the conflict betw
orthodox, and the tragic and profane a
developing it, I will at the same time be
in demonstrating the fruitfulness of my v
to rule out other possible patterns—the
see an underlying similarity between
Murray and Burke. The pattern will als
of my judgment of the tragic quality of
reader may disagree with these judgme
persuaded of the validity of my general
deals with the relation among the tragic
fane attitudes.
II
The tragic pattern may be divided into these phases: The

Breakdown of the Orthodox Order, The Conflict Between
the Tragic and the Orthodox and Profane Attitudes, The
Discovery of the Tragic Self, and Transcendence and Trans
figuration. We will now examine the substance of these
phases.
The Breakdown of the Orthodox Order. The tragic sense
arises out of the breakdown of the orthodox order. Once the
hero thrived in the serenity of his orthodox beliefs, but under
the pressure of events these are damaged sufficiently to bring
on the tragic crisis. Religious breakdown is manifest in
Oedipus' cry: "If I was created so, born to this fate,/Who
could deny the savagery of God?" and in Lear's questioning
of the justice of the gods; moral breakdown is manifest in
Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon; in Gertrude's hasty,
incestuous second marriage; and in Regan and Goneril's
treatment of King Lear. The time is out of joint; the hero
finds himself shipwrecked. And though a drowning man
grabs at what he can, though the hero may hang on to some
floating fragment of orthodoxy, it is now comfortless; it seems
2l6
TRAGEDY
largely irrelevant to his new sense of thing

that no a priori doctrines can account for hi
ence. The orthodox attitude is now the mer
things, and the tragic the expression of reality
The Conflict Between the Tragic and the O
Profane Attitudes. Within the hero there d
flicts, one between the tragic and the orthodox
other between the tragic and the profane. H
conflict with the orthodox as one of good
draws his example from Antigone, where A
the higher law of God against the lower law
This of course is the conflict each person fac
in the service of the state. Elaborating on Hege
says: "Truth opposes truth, and must defend
own rightful claims not only against inju
against the rightful claim of other truths."
the tragic view competes with orthodox, est
Now in Greek tragedy some cosmic force (f
god) is generally the tragic agent which un
tional harmonies of the orthodox view; in S
ever, the agents are profane figures: evil, l
and Goneril; ambitious, like Claudius and Edmund; sensual,
like Gertrude; and from Greek tragedy we may cite the
ambitious Jason, in Medea. In Macbeth the profane force
springs from within the hero. Thus in Shakespeare, and some
times in Euripides, the conflict between the tragic and the
profane is significant, though not as fundamental as that be
tween the tragic and the orthodox. In such cases we have a
double conflict. The hero is racked inwardly by the com
peting claims of the tragic and the orthodox attitudes; and
this is precipitated by the outward conflict between the tragic
and the profane. There is, incidentally, an apparent simi
larity in the situation of the tragic and profane figures. Like
the tragic hero, the profane breaks from the orthodox; the
difference is that he breaks with calculation. In this calcula
tion, an lago serves hell but does not descend into it, as the
hero does, for lago does not suffer. Thus he is substantial,
but not profound; with no sense of guilt, he is at bottom
217
shallow, particularly so in a world preoc

questions.
Since the hero feels that no a priori doctrine can account
for his particular experience, the old doctrinal equations of
sin and punishment, virtue and reward now seem to be the
harmonious mathematics of some ideal deception. Where the
hero may initially have been to blame, as with Macbeth, he
soon feels his suffering is incommensurate with his fault. The
action develops according to a logic of its own, beyond any
just, reasonable consequences—it becomes tragic. Lear cries:
"I am a man more sinned against than sinning." Thus, though
hubris (roughly translated as pride) or sin is a consideration
in tragedy, these do not account for the tragic consequences.
If they did, we would have a morality, in which evil is pun
ished and good rewarded. But a morality would finish tragedy;
the tragic vision would then be deflected into the ways of re
ligious doctrine. Aristotle pointed out that the tragic hero
could not be an extremely bad man, and that his fall should
not be brought about by vice and depravity but by some
error of judgment. It is clear that Aristotle did not see tragedy
as a mere illustration of a moral lesson. But I would question
his stipulation that the hero is at fault through an error of
judgment. What is wrong with any tragic theory which rests
on this—or sin or hubris—is that it implies an alternative to
the tragic end, that if the hero had not been at fault he would
not have suffered. This we may call a rationalist theory of
tragedy, in which effects follow causes. I am more sympathetic
to the irrationalist, or demonic theory in which effects (tragic
events) occur without any cause, simply being in the nature
of things. This is the sense that anything can happen at any
time, that the best laid plans go astray, that not all the pro
tection and security of parent and state can prevent the beast
in the jungle (flood, famine, plague, or bomb) from spring
ing. To feel this is not to have the tragic sense, only to lead
us to it; we should not confuse calamity with tragedy. Tragedy
implies a superior consciousness as well as extreme suffering;
I will develop this point further on. A tragic theory can sur
vive, I feel, only by declaring that unreasonable suffering is
2l8
TRAGEDY
our natural condition, that our fate may hav

with our moral character, though the fate o
he handles himself in a situation) is of cour
caused, by his total character, his hubris an
and spiritual resources together. (It may be
actions stem from irrational, unconscious n
this sense the argument that character cau
rationalist view of tragedy.) In any case,
have done nothing wrong, morally. Thus th
suffering is arbitrary, altogether inexplicable.
the rational, moral harmonies of the orthodox
mystery of things, and he discovers an irrat
a malign, evil universe, one of cosmic injust
indifference. But unlike the modern tragic
a desperate connection with God, though m
in the Greeks than in Shakespeare. But the
revocably altered; he feels that God has willf
outside and closed the doors of grace and ju
The argument that the hero's suffering i
would not seem to account for tragedies like
the hero's profane act precipitates the tragedy
to be getting what he deserves. Yet this is n
What happens, what makes these plays trage
moralities is that an abyss is revealed which
the orthodox equation of sin and suffering. As
or less blameless hero, the action develops a
and the hero comes to a tragic vision whic
do with the idea of cause and consequence.
it in speaking of Macbeth: . . the ideas o
desert are . . . untrue to our imaginative ex
action.
The Discovery of the Tragic Self. Deprived of the con
solations of orthodoxy, the tragic hero dies out of the old
cosmic life. Dying, he is bound to a wheel of fire, like Lear;
or he tears out his eyes, like Oedipus; or he talks to ghosts and
skulls, like Hamlet. The orthodox image of eternity is re
placed by the tragic image of our mortality. He feels the
desolation of man's first winter. His consciousness of his tragic
219
fate drives him to invent a new existence,

sense. An epic hero like Achilles is certain
of his imminent fate, but there is littl
amination of its implications; he does n
orthodox view, and he feels no need to invent a new exist
ence. The tragic hero uncovers his orthodox illusions and his
private pretensions and pride. He discovers his limits, that
he is a poor, naked, forked thing, born to suffer and to die;
he discovers that we live in an inexplicable cosmos; he dis
covers that beneath the fair skin of appearance lies grinning
reality: if not a skull, then woman's frailty. He discovers his
tragic self. It may be said that the orthodox figure is equally
aware of the self. There is this difference, though: the ortho
dox discovers himself through a medium—God, a moral code,
or, for a Wordsworth, Nature; but the tragic hero is deprived
of all media. His crisis is precisely that he can discover him
self only through himself. And it is this discovery of the self
which shapes the greatest tragedies. What makes Oedipus,
Hamlet, and Lear supreme is their relentless probing of the
self, and so it is that the soliloquy is a natural tragic device.
Aristotle says: "Discovery is a change from ignorance to
knowledge." But a tragic discovery is of oneself, not as
Aristotle goes on to say, of others. External discovery converts
tragedy into romance; it is the classic device of romances
like the Odyssey and Pericles, or of comedies like Twelfth
Night; it is in part the end towards which these forms drive.
In tragedy, however, it is used best when it serves, as in
Oedipus Rex, as a means to self-knowledge.
Transcendence and Transfiguration. The suffering and
symbolic death of the tragic hero are the preconditions of
his new sense of life; the hero must carry Yorick's skull in
his pocket always. By coming to terms with his limits, his
fate, the tragic hero begins to remake it. Though his fate is
determined, though he must suffer and die, though the Gods
are indifferent, yet the manner of his suffering transforms his
fate. In this way he resolves the dilemma of free will and
fate; though fated, he is free to die meanly or greatly. I
would like to say that he dies nobly, but this grand Roman
220
TRAGEDY
Renaissance word has been reduced to Victorian stuffiness

and sentimentality. And the word is in any case mislead
ing for the Shakespearean hero. Returned from the grave,
he is not merely graver but gayer—suffering is the source of
true gaiety. He speaks in impassioned declamations, but also
with passionate gaiety. Hamlet is gay as he fingers Yorick's
skull, and mad Lear too when, in a moving and brilliant
pun, he declares to blind Gloucester: "I shall be jovial." As
Yeats puts it in "Lapus Lazuli": "All perform their tragic
plays,/ There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,/ That's Ophelia,
that Cordelia,/ Yet they ... If worthy their prominent part
in the play,/ Do not break up their lines to weep./ They
know that Hamlet and Lear are gay; / Gaiety transfiguring all
that dread." Greatly dying, gaily or otherwise, the tragic hero
transcends and transfigures his fate.
In Greek tragedy, it is true, the hero's transcendence of his
fate and his consequent transfiguration are frequently ac
complished with the help of the arbitrary device of the deus
ex machina. But in my view this appearance of the God
converts tragedy into a divine comedy. My ideal pattern
stops short of the meditation of a divine agent; I should say
that through his suffering and his new tragic consciousness
the hero has already transcended his fate and been trans
figured before the appearance of the God. His tragic hero
ism is precisely that he relies only on his own resources.
Ill
Let us turn now for a further look at the conflict between

the tragic and orthodox attitudes. The tragic pattern reveals
the conflict as it takes place within the hero. But this conflict
is reflected externally too, in the hero's relation to the others.
Tension is perhaps a better word here; there is no conscious
conflict, but only the uneasiness, the tension deriving from
the co-existence of incompatible attitudes. The relations be
tween the hero and the orthodox Chorus in Greek tragedy is
the classic example, and it can bear some elaboration. Funda
mentally, the Chorus serves as the orthodox contrast to the
tragic; it represents an alternative solution to the tragic crisis.
221
The claims of the traditional values of

balanced against the demands of the
Oedipus uncovers the abyss, the Choru
reverent in the ways of right." But the ch
At times the insistent vision of the trag
profoundly that it drops its orthodox alte
an involuntary reflector of the tragic
preceding Phaedra's suicide:
Would that I were under the cliffs, in t
secret hiding-place of the rocks,
that Zeus might change me to a wing
and set me among the feathered flock
I would rise and fly to where the sea
washes the Adriatic coast. . . .
In reflecting the tragic vision, the chorus would fly from it.
But, in general, the orthodox can not stand the tragic vision.
So we frequently see the orthodox in distress over the obdur
acy of the tragic hero, persuading and pleading with him to
go no further in the direction of the unknown, as with
Tiresias, Jocasta, and the shepherd. The fearfulness of the
orthodox underlines the heroism of the tragic encounter.
This heroism, the tragic descent into the abyss, penetrates
the consciousness of the community; the community resonates
with the foreboding of the tragic crisis, as in the choral odes.
Though it would turn from the tragic vision, it can not. Its
sensibility is at first slowly affected, at last deeply modified. At
the close, the orthodox, together with the profane, gather
round the dying hero. This is a natural ritual, symbolizing
the communal sacrifice of the old fertility year-god, the
scapegoat whose death restores the community. The hero
takes on a holy character, and the community partakes of his
mana; in naturalistic terms, it is transformed by the tragic
example. All but the profane: lago, Edmund, Regan, and
Goneril remain steadfast in their allegiance to greed and
sensuality; I speak symbolically of the last three, since they
die before Lear.
It is in this sense that we may understand Hegel's argu
ment that at the end the exclusive claims of both the com
222
TRAGEDY
munity and the tragic hero are denied. The

denied by the hero's death, and the orthodo
through its profound modification by the t
Ellis-Fermor puts it: "The tragic mood is b
the religious and the non-religious interpr
trophe and pain. . . ." It should be added, th
some the tragic example renders the ortho
gether intolerable. Horatio seeks "felicity"
Jocasta does in fact find it this way.
The orthodox view is manifest in all who find the old
values adequate. Like the Chorus, these figures point up the
fact that the tragic view is not the only honorable response
to events. In this way they too help define the hero: he can
not maintain himself without breaking from things as they
were; they can, yet without compromise, unlike the profane.
This difference is made clear in Lear, where the responses of
Lear and Gloucester-Edgar express the alternatives of the
tragic and orthodox solutions. Lear questions the justice of
the gods, but Gloucester and Edgar accept it, as in Edgar's
remark that: "The Gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
make instruments to plague us." For some, suffering does not
lead to a break with old beliefs, to a tragic sense, a point I
will return to later. These alternatives define one difference
between the main plot and the sub-plot in Lear. And this is
of course the difference between Job and his comforters. Job
questions the riddle of life, while they riddle him with argu
ments that he is paying for his sins. Some comforters seem to
find the universe to be, in Unamuno's ironic phrase, a "tran
scendental police system," harsh but sensible.
In some plays the question needs to be asked: is the cen
tral figure tragic or orthodox? Our distinction between the
orthodox and the tragic may help us resolve this question,
especially vexing in the case of Antigone. I suggest that
Antigone is not a tragic heroine because her values have not
broken down; on the contrary, she affirms them violently. She
feels no need to invent a new existence; she develops no new
vision; most of all, perhaps, she does not come to know her
self. It is Creon, tyrant though he may be, who does come to
223
know himself: "Whatever my hands ha

to nothing./ Fate has brought all my p
dust." Here is the beginning of a new s
gone is more a martyr to orthodoxy tha
IV
Though we have accounted for profane figures like lago,

those who play a direct role in precipitating the tragedy, we
have still to explain the presence of those profane not given
to evil or serious ambition; bawds like Juliet's nurse, fops
like Osric, time-servers like Oswald, gulls like Roderigo, or
genial self-seekers like the messenger in Oedipus. What are
we to make of these, so ubiquitous yet so anomalous, clutter
ing up the tragic action, yet always summoned to it? One
familiar explanation for most of these is their dramatic func
tion of comic relief—as with Polonius, the porter in Macbeth,
the clowns in Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra, and, to a
lesser extent, the sentry in Antigone. The Greeks, with their
concentrated focus, did not fully exploit the comic in tragedy;
but that they understood its use as relief is evident in the
satyr play which burlesqued the tragic matter of the trilogy.
But to think of the comic only as relief tends to cheapen its
significance and leads to serious misuses of it such as the
meaningless jokes and gags in what passes for mature drama
on Broadway. More importantly, not only do we misuse the
comic but we misunderstand it if we see it only as relief: we
miss its meaning. And to get at its meaning we should see the
comic as a variety of the profane attitude.
What is the meaning of profane figures in tragedy? Obvi
ously, they fill out the world of the tragic action—profusely
in Shakespeare, and more than is commonly recognized in
the Greeks. The profane root the tragic hero in the every
day world, among the practical, the compromising, the com
fort-seeking, and the sensual. But they are not mere decora
tion or background. Fundamentally, the significance of the
profane is that they respond to the tragic crisis with values
different from those of the tragic hero. The profane person is
class conscious, a social climber; to the tragic hero class is
224
TRAGEDY
meaningless; he embodies human stature, n

The tragic hero seeks consolation, the profan
forts; if the latter suffers inwardly, it is from
greed, or envy of his social and economic b
fane dances in adjustment to a social arrange
hero confronts the universal derangement: O
down in the social whirl, Lear and Hamlet on t
The profane person finds his significance in so
beyond society; thus the one is concerned with
the other with his private self. In all this, it
tragic is like the orthodox in their common
osophical-religious vision; but for the tragic
dox center no longer holds. At bottom, the
tions of the profane and the universal conce
reflect an indirect yet nonetheless strenuou
ferent values, the profane offers a differen
tragic crisis. At stake is the quality of life.
Though these profane types are trivial, the
especially in Shakespeare, is so frequently give
with them that we may say they create a min
than the major conflict generated by the e
lago. This tension is defined by the distinc
fore between the tragic and the profane; in
the ultimate philosophical concerns of the
the immediate concerns of the profane. Wh
himself, Creon and the messenger seek self
Romeo and Juliet touch palm to palm in ho
Mercutio, Benvolio, and the Nurse circle th
dance. The tragic sense develops through an
the profane as well as the orthodox. It defin
encounter with all rival truths.
Generally, the profane alternative does not vie directly
and openly with the tragic, as it does in Hippolytus with the
Nurse; instead, it makes its statement obliquely; it plays its
game off to the side while the tragic crisis blows upstage. Out
of the effrontery of this absurd rivalry emerges the role of the
profane as the mocking mirror of the tragic, a parody of it.
This gives us another perspective on the hero. Above, the tra
225
peze artist launches into his potentially

the grinning clown trips and falls. Oedip
his true self is parodied by Creon's and th
for self-comfort; Hamlet's speculations on
digger's professional remarks on the d
Macbeth's hell by the drunken porter's ve
plot by the sub-plot of low life, as William
with regard to The Changeling; an entire t
play. Parody operates at times in those
hero himself is the mystery, as in Ham
tragic search is mocked by the comic
Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. And wh
defines their difference. The tragic hero
existence, while the profane peek and pr
the measurable facts. They assume there
tion of the hero's behavior. When Hamlet sees that the
"engineer" Guildenstern goes on this rationalist assumption
he explodes: "Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing
you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem
to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery. ..." [my italics]. This is the passionate sense, too,
of the hero's intuitive revulsion against the political finger
ing by the profane, who believe they can manipulate anyone.
The relation between Hamlet and figures like Polonius has
been beautifully put by Martin Buber as the confrontation
of "the ironic man (Eiron), who does not say what he knows,
and the boaster (Alazon), who says what he does not know."
The profane regard the tragic hero much like a thing, an
object to be probed and analyzed; they may be likened to
the quasi-scientific detective. They convert the tragic action
into a detective story, that bastard of science got by the rape
of tragedy. These examples provide further testimony that
the comic is more than relief. The comic relieves the tension
only on the surface; below, through parody and other means
it heightens the tension by questioning the validity of the
tragic attitude. Clowns and fools belittle, unnerve, enrage,
and amuse the tragic hero; they multiply tensions as they
seem to relieve them.
226
TRAGEDY
It is a commonplace that the tragic hero i

alienated from the others: Oedipus from
Jocasta, and the Chorus; Creon (in Antigone)
Ismene, Haemon, Eurydice, Tiresias, and
beth from Banquo, MacDuff, and the others
of the profane allows us to refine the idea
make a distinction between the hero's alienation from the
orthodox and from the profane. This distinction is implied
in much of what I have been saying, but we may put it now
in this way: the hero is agonized at the separation from the
orthodox forced on him by his new tragic sense, but he
breaks with amusement, contempt, wrath, or horror from
the profane. Much of the power of tragedy derives from this
aspect of the hero's alienation; consider for example, Ham
let's revulsion against the lust of his mother, the treachery
of Claudius, and the time-serving of Rosencrantz and Guild
enstern; Oedipus' against the ambition of Polynices and
Creon; Lear's against the greed and ingratitude of Regan
and Goneril. The profane defile existence for the hero. And
though he feels warmly about the orthodox, even they can
not understand him; he can not speak to them of what he
knows: Hamlet can not unfold his "tale of horror" to
Horatio. Those who love the tragic hero may restore him
for the moment, as Cordelia does Lear, but the hero has seen
too much; after a man has been to hell, earthly life is a
parody, a freak show, a horror, as the returned Lazarus feels
in Lagerkvist's Barabbas. It is natural for Hamlet to speak
in wild and whirling words, occasionally to Horatio, always
to the profane Polonius and Claudius; or for Lear and the
Fool to engage in tragic dialogues which are incoherent to
everyone else; or for Phaedra's nurse to complain: "Child,
why do you rave so? There are others here./ Cease tossing
out these wild demented words/ whose driver is madness."
The tragic hero talks to both the profane and the orthodox,
but they do not understand each other. Ultimately, the idea
of alienation means that there is no community of gods or
men for the tragic hero.
227
V
Before I conclude, let me illustrate the usefulness of the con
cepts of the orthodox and the profane in refining our sense
of the hero's alienation; in the instance I have chosen, the
hero is Hamlet, the scene the graveyard. The returned Ham
let has undergone a sea change, a transformation; he is rid
of his antic disposition; he is more controlled; he is prepared
now to discover his ultimate self—the grinning skull. He is
now irrevocably alienated from common concerns; and since
the grave is the place of our ultimate alienation, the setting
is exactly right. But the art of the scene lies in defining
Hamlet's alienation by recapitulating his encounters with
the profane, the orthodox, and the tragic. The first step in
this definition is in the organization of the scene, the fact
that these encounters take place in the sequence named.
Thus they take on an ascending order of seriousness, reflected
in the deepening intensity of Hamlet's feeling. The scene be
gins with the gravediggers' profane trade jokes, an indirect,
comic prelude to the theme of death. Hamlet enters as one
sings, and he summarizes the profaneness of the song: "Has
this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave
making?" He then points to the skull on the ground and re
flects wryly on the common end of various profane ambitions,
those of politicians, courtiers, court ladies, and lawyers. He
next engages the gravedigger in a conversation which thrives
on the joke of the life expectancy of corpses, the best that
profane materialists can hope for. This marks the end of the
profane encounters. Merely wry with the profane, he is
deeply moved by the orthodox, by Yorick's grinning skull, a
reminder of his golden, ordered childhood. His feeling is
sustained as he reflects on the trivial end of Alexander and
Caesar, both representative of the orthodox epic hero and

conqueror, counterparts of Fortinbras. But all this is only
preparatory to the full demonstration of his feelings about
death, his ranting liebestod, over Ophelia; he feels most
deeply here, not only because he loved her, but because she
is his own tragic counterpart; indeed, one who "spurned
enviously at straws" [took offense at trifles] while he could
228
TRAGEDY
not "find quarrel in a straw." Fully aliena

clares shortly after, "If it be now, 'tis not to
not to come, it will be now: if it be not now, y
the readiness is all. Since no man knows aug
leaves, what is't to leave betimes. Let be." Th
tells us that Hamlet not merely accepts but c
His alienation is complete, yet through it he
The simple fact seems to be that Greek and
tragedy are made up of three attitudes: the t
dox, and the profane. Put more precisely, it i
way tragic, orthodox, and profane figures respo
of failing traditional beliefs. These attitudes
elements, a kind of trinity, though not all
which the unity of the tragic form is revealed.
harmony, but whatever final harmony tragedy
best a rending harmony, is realized only thro
of competing claims. Thus one interest lies
and tensions which rise out of throwing char
who speak for each attitude. The conflicts a
manifold, and the ingenious reader will disco
the few I have touched on here, though I ho
I have presented has in some measure poin
prising variety of the austere tragic form.
In a sense this theory opens up a way of re
which is perhaps repellent, for it may be on
ducing tragedy. This of course is the wicked
stract thought. Fortunately, no theory can p
our distinctive reactions to the rich texture of the individual
play. Still, I hope I have shown that a theory can be benefi
cent by intensifying our reactions, and by giving them
another dimension: that if it reduces, it may also enlarge
our sense of a play. Our consciousness of the three attitudes
should heighten any particular moment; my own experience
has been that even ordinary, merely serviceable passages turn
out to have unexpected life. I like to believe, in short, that
this theory leads to a more rewarding reading, which in turn
means a livelier and perhaps at times a profounder one.
229

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Michigan State University Press The Centennial Review

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THE ELEMENTS OF TRAGEDY

Author(s): Isadore Traschen

I want to propose a new way of approaching Greek and

What do I mean by the profane, the orthodox, and the

outline the pattern of tragedy as seen from

The tragic pattern may be divided into these phases: The

largely irrelevant to his new sense of thing

shallow, particularly so in a world preoc

our natural condition, that our fate may hav

fate drives him to invent a new existence,

Renaissance word has been reduced to Victorian stuffiness

Let us turn now for a further look at the conflict between

The claims of the traditional values of

munity and the tragic hero are denied. The

know himself: "Whatever my hands ha

Though we have accounted for profane figures like lago,

meaningless; he embodies human stature, n

peze artist launches into his potentially

It is a commonplace that the tragic hero i

Caesar, both representative of the orthodox epic hero and

not "find quarrel in a straw." Fully aliena

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