CHANGING FACES OF TRAGEDY IN THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE AND MODERN PERIODS

ABSTRACT

The framework of this research falls on its search to draw a comparative analysis of the concept and characteristics of Classical, Renaissance and Modern tragedies. The tragic conception from the time of the Greeks to the present has undergone a metamorphosis in definitions and experience. Based on this premise, this thesis shows the diversity of the tragic conception and characteristics, its continuity and deviations. Even though there have been changes over the centuries in the concept of the tragic genre, its essence remains the same. The study also employs the Patho- Cathartic approach to the interpretation and determination of the tragic vision.

1.0 CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Tragedy, as a dramatic genre has faced a lot of interpretations. As one peruses the different interpretations and definitions of tragedy, one is bound to discover an avalanche of definitions sometimes leading to generalizations on the subject. According to McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, tragedy is, “one of the basic forms of drama treating in a serious style the misery and misfortune that man suffers as a result of conflicts within himself, with his fellowmen or with the inescapable and uncontrollable forces of fate”. (305) The tragic writer in all ages has always been chiefly concerned with man’s struggle with fate. This struggle is seen as a conflict with necessity. Necessity is the embodiment of life’s smallness, absurdity, and fragility; it is the acknowledgement of the limitation and mortality of all human experience. The nature and terms of the struggle vary in direct relationship to the dramatist’s belief in the meaning of the struggle. The tragic character may lose or win, but it is the struggle itself that is the source of the dramatic significance, and it is out of this struggle with necessity that heroism is born.

Tragedy was born in Greece in 534 B.C. The most generally accepted origin is that it evolved from the improvisations of the leaders of the dithyramb, which were hymns, sung and danced in honour of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine  and  fertility.  John  Gassner  endorses  the  emergence  of tragedy out of Greek rituals in the following terms:

It was on the Greek Peninsula that tragedy emerged out of ritual into art. In Greece, the ancestral tomb, the magic circle, and the temple became the theatre. The ancestral spirit became the living hero, the wraith of the primitive ‘vegetation spirit’ assumed the body of a god, and the god took the shape of a man. (…) the god was displaced or made subordinate in the subject matter of the drama. (2)

Greek literature in the ancient period boasts of the epic and the dramatic traditions.  The two major poets  are Homer and Hesiod.  Homer’s  Iliad and Odyssey, the two major epics that have survived from Greek antiquity are the most  influential  works  of  Western  literature.  The  tragic  sense  of  life  that became the basis for tragedy as a dramatic form is first evident in Homer’s Iliad which depicts man’s nobility and heroism in the face of certain defeat, and a world in which man’s power is limited or dominated by the gods. In a direct way, Homer was the parent of all succeeding Greek literature. Drama, historiography and even philosophy all show the mark of the issues, comic and tragic, raised in the epics, and of the techniques that Homer used to approach them. Modern scholars place Hesiod in the same period of Greek literature as Homer- the Eight Century. Hesiod occupies a unique place in Greek literature both  for  his  moral  precepts  and  his  highly  personal  tone.  His  first  poem

‘Theogony’  expanded  to include  newer divinities  unknown  in the  Homeric poems.

Plato, in the Republic  (c. 385)  attacked  Homer’s  Iliad  and  the great tragedies  of  the  past,  for  their  depiction  of  human  weakness,  which  the audience might easily identify with. Plato insists that the result is moral debilitation; consequently, he disparaged tragedy as a dangerous model for the citizens of his imagined  republic.  The three great writers of tragedy whose works are extant are Aeschylus,  Sophocles and Euripides. Aeschylus is the earliest dramatist whose plays have survived. His major innovation was the introduction of the second actor, which made face to face conflict possible. Oresteia, the only surviving Greek trilogy best shows the power of Aeschylus’ drama. The Oresteia dramatizes a development in the concept of justice demonstrated  through  a powerful  story of murder,  reprisal  and  remorse,  in which the gods participate both directly and indirectly.  Sophocles is frequently considered by many to be the greatest of the three writers of Greek tragedy. He is generally given the credit for adding the third actor and breaking the pattern traditionally  ascribed  to  Aeschylus  of making  the  three  tragic plays  of the tetralogy part of a continuous whole. Sophocles’ dramas place more emphasis on building skillful climaxes and well developed episodes. Euripides was the last of the great Greek tragedians. Euripides expanded the possibilities of characterization to reveal the complexity of human passion. He broke the link between drama and the gods. He is regarded by many as the first realist in drama because he presented human situations as they actually occur. Tragedy started changing right from the classical period.  After Euripides Greek tragedy reveals little that is significant to the history of tragedy. The Romans were not

able to imitate successfully the kind of tragedy developed in Greece, in the golden age of Athenian civilization. This is because as Gassner pointed out, Greek tragedy “grew out of a specific cultural context and they carried with them the mark of their origin in their specific formalism”. (3)

The single master of Roman tragedy was Seneca. Senecan tragedy was the product of devolution of Greek tragedy in Roman times.  The Sociology of the  Roman  era  was  gladiatorial,  so  the  contemplative  mediation  could  not survive. Consequently, Seneca plays differed so much from Greek plays. What the Greeks will report on stage, he showed on stage – butchery, murder etc. Eventually,  tragedy  found  no  popular  audience  in  the  debased  theatre  of imperial Rome. It became a literary exercise apparently not intended for stage production. However, Seneca’s plays were highly influential during the Renaissance, due to the fact that Greek tragedies were largely forgotten in the Middle Ages, and his plays came to be regarded after the thirteenth century as the only examples of Classical drama.

By the middle ages, a new order, the Christian order ruled the universe and acted upon the spirits of men. Medieval drama evolved from the liturgical services of the church. The beginnings of that evolution were usually traced back to the Quem Queritis trope, an elaboration of the Easter mass inserted in the regular service sometime in the tenth century. From this seed developed the popular drama of the middle ages-the mysteries, miracles and moralities which served  to  instruct  by  example  and  to  lead  the  faithful  from  tragedy  to redemption. While the Medieval notion of drama persisted, the rediscovery of

Aristotle’s Poetics in the fifteenth century along with the general secularization of European culture brought about a revival of classical conception of tragedy. Aristotle’s work or rather the neoclassical  interpretation  of Aristotle’s work became  law.  Louis  Clubb  observes  that  “the  various  types  of tragedy that followed whether on historical, mythical or chivalric subjects would share principles of regularity and unity, and features in which Aristotle’s analysis of structure and Seneca’s practice were visible”. (Cited in Brown 116) The Renaissance  tragedy that  engaged  more  than  scholarly  or  purely theatrical interest came chiefly from England.

During the Age of Reason or Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century, the reliance of tragic drama on the powers of fate and the supernatural began loosing ground to the belief in the power and perfectibility of man. Enlightenment  thinkers  placed  a  great  premium  on  the  discovery  of  truth through the observation of nature, rather than through the study of authoritative sources, such as Aristotle.  Oscar Brockett notes that:

Most tragedies written prior to the Eighteenth century show the interaction between cosmic and human forces: a god, providence or some moral  power  independent  of man  usually affects  the outcome of the action almost as much as do the human agents. (…) In the eighteenth century, the supernatural element began to decline as social and psychological forces were given increased

emphasis  and  as  conflicts  were  gradually  reduced  to  strictly human ones. (The Theatre: An Introduction 50 – 51)

Tragedy experienced an ‘eclipse’ during the late seventeenth, the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. It is easy to see how and why the subversion  of  tragedy  occurred.  After  the  Restoration   and  on  into  the Eighteenth Century, the emerging  middle class economy was burgeoning and creating a new prosperity; the bright flame of enlightenment cast its light on all that had been dark and mysterious. The Nineteenth Century was more or less officially the century of progress and Tragedy was given little place in either official life or art. The tragic view of life was seen as the great enemy which had to be suppressed at all costs.    It was not until the later part of nineteenth century  with  the  plays  of  a  Norwegian,  Henrik  Ibsen,  a  Russian,  Anton Chekhov, a Swede, August Strindberg and later Americans, Eugene O’Neill and  Arthur  Miller  that  interests  returned  to  tragic  theatre.  Their  works displayed the tragedy of disease, of eccentricity, of heredity, of madness etc. Their tragedies were unlike anything written before and like many after far removed from Aristotelian concepts. In the words of Robert Cohen:

The Modern Theatre has its roots in the political, social and  intellectual  revolutions.  (…)  It  has  never  been  a theatre of demigods or of absolute heroes and villains. It has  reflected,  to a certain  degree,  the confusions  of its times, but it has also struggled to clarify and to illuminate,

to document and explore human destiny in a complex and uneasy universe. (206)

African  drama  as  an  aspect  of  modern  drama  is  an  evolving  form,  fairly recently developed, having emerged only in the 20th century. A very interesting discussion  has  been  ongoing  among  critics  about  modern  African  tragedy. Some  critics  like  Andrew  Gurr  regard  tragedy as an  ideologically inclined genre in the context of modern Africa, while quite a few think that it is possible to speak of an African tragedy which differs from the European form. The above   later   critics   of   African   literature   argue   that   there   are   certain

demonstrable  aspects that mark out African tragedy from the European, the major ones being  its communal  and  religious  nature-  what happens  to  the individual  or  the  culture  hero  involves  the  whole  community  and  clan. Analyzing John Pepper Clark’s Song of a Goat, Wole Soyinka notes that:

(…) the death of an individual is not seen as an isolated incident in the life of one man. Nor is individual fertility separable from the regenerative promise of earth and sea. The sickness of one individual is a sign of, or may portend the sickness of the world around him. Something has occurred  to disrupt  the natural  rhythms and the cosmic balances of the total community. (…) Because of the visceral intertwining of each individual with the fate of the community, a rupture in his normal functioning not only

endangers this shared reality but threatens existence itself. (51)

The concepts and characteristics of tragedy have greatly changed since the classical period. The scale and tone of tragedy or anything resembling it has been modified; we now have the grief, the misery, the disaster of the ordinary man, not a king, a queen or prince. The foregoing discovery necessitated this study on the changing faces of tragedy, a comparative study of the concept and characteristics of tragedy in the classical, renaissance and modern periods.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Tragic drama since the Classical Greece has had some distinct changes in the course of its development. Since the time of Sophocles, tragedy has been shaped by different theatrical conventions and philosophies. It has experienced different kinds of change under various kinds of situations, pressures etc, which obviously came from the changing world about it. Each period sees the development of a special orientation  and emphasis,  a characteristic style of theatre.

Vera Robert observes that “The consideration of the three great periods of tragedy (Classical, Renaissance and Modern) is demonstration enough that no theatrical period ever repeats itself; there are wide differences among the great three as there must be, since the theatre of any given period reflects the world in which it exists”. (161) In apparent support of Vera Roberts, Kenneth Burke in his Counter – Statement accepts the argument that “any work of art reflects  to some extent its own  time”. (Cited  in Carlson  394) Mark  Harris

follows a similar argument when he states that “aside from the philosophic and esthetic concerns, one must always keep in mind the sociological concerns of the drama, the values which happened to be cherished by the spectator’s era and which are objectified for him in the dramatic spectacle”. (Cited in Carlson400)

Tragedy in the Greek world of the fifth century B.C assumed the face of an orderly art of “poetic dialogue and choral lyricism”. (Gassner, Introduction XIII) It is almost impossible to make generalizations about the matter of Greek tragedy that  are  true  without  exceptions.  Nevertheless,  it remains  true  that almost all tragedies tell stories of suffering, of mental and physical anguish, of the waste of life and prosperity.

During the Renaissance period, there was a rise of tragedy that is, “full of the bustle of human desire on the part of extraordinary men bent upon self – realization or gratification of their will – to – power”. (Gassner XIV) Classical and Renaissance tragedy focused on the life of a protagonist of a high birth who, because of a fatal moral  law or  an  error of judgment,  experienced  a disastrous reversal of fortune, and proceeded from happiness into suffering and even death. In the Modern period, we arrive at an age in which the destiny of man is no longer considered the effect of a malevolent superior star, a morally determined doom or an act of independent will but the result of biological, psychological and social factors.

A debate has raged for some time over whether modern tragedies are true tragedies because they do not have queens or kings as central figures and

they are written in prose rather than poetry. Critics like Joseph Wood Krutch argue  that small men  and  women  lack  the stature  of tragic  figures.  In  his “Tragic  Fallacy”  he said  that it is impossible  to write tragedy in twentieth century because to him:

We  consider  human  beings  too  petty to  be  capable  of tragedy. The idea of nobility is inseparable from the idea of tragedy which cannot exist without  it (…) A tragedy must have a hero, and from the universe as we see it both the Glory of God and the Glory of man have departed. Our cosmos may be farcical, or it may be pathetic but it has not the dignity of tragedy… (879)

Arthur  Miller  defended  tragedy  as  a  possible  modern  genre  and proposed a rethinking of the genre in the light of contemporary concerns. In his “Tragedy  and  the  common  Man”,  Miller  disagrees  with  Krutch,  when  he opines that, “(…) I believe that the common man is apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were”. (267)

From the foregoing discussion it is evident that tragedy has assumed different faces in different periods. This study will identify these changes and their prevailing circumstances.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Clearly tragedy has been able to change or adapt even in periods when standards seemed to be most firmly established in fifth century B.C and seventeenth  century France. This points  to the research  problem  of tragedy being  in  transition  from  classical  through  the  modern  ages  and of whether tragedy is dead in the modern era. In view of these, the following research questions arise:

1)     To what extent has Aristotle’s Poetics influenced the dramatic literature and theory of later periods? Is the Poetics to be regarded as an immutable law to be applied as a whole to all theatrical phenomena without question or specifications?

2)     What are the basic or governing concepts and characteristics of tragedy in the three major ages under study?

3)     What are the major differences and similarities if any in the tragedies of the periods under study?

4)     Based on the fact that the modern society does not view life in the same way as the Classical or the Renaissance, does our Contemporary society allow for a tragic view on its own term?

1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This research is necessitated by the discovery that tragedy has been in transition since its origin in classical Greece. The objectives of this study are:

I. To trace the distinct changes and phases that tragedy has undergone from the Classical through the Renaissance to the Modern age. A review of the theories of tragedy that have influenced the nature of tragedy through these periods will also be undertaken with a view to highlighting the importance of dramatic theory in shaping the dramatic literature of any age.

II. To identify the basic concepts and characteristics of tragedy in the three periods under study, comparatively analyzing their differences and similarities.

III. To examine and establish the concept of tragedy in the Modern age.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will be of great relevance to students and scholars of  literary theory, dramatic theory and criticism and philosophy.

The study will provide information on the concept and characteristics of tragedies in the classical, renaissance and the modern periods and especially the distinctive and developmental phases it has undergone since the fifth century B.C.

Thirdly, it will also provide answers to misconceptions and misinterpretation of Aristotle’s concept of tragedy and how it has influenced later periods.

Fourthly, the study will provide relevant suggestions towards the understanding of modern tragedy.

Finally, it will serve as a formidable material for researchers interested in the study of tragic drama.

1.6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Theory is a set of interrelated concepts which provide a systemic view of a phenomenon. Theories are formulated to explain, predict, and understand phenomena, and in many cases to challenge and extend existing knowledge within  the  limits  of  critical  bounding  assumptions.  Theories  are  purposely created and formulated, and they can be tested.

Theoretical   Framework   provides   a  particular   perspective   or   lens, through which to examine a topic. It can be thought of as a map or travel plan. Theoretical framework strengthens research in several ways. An explicit statement of theoretical assumptions permits the reader to evaluate them critically. The theoretical framework connects the researcher to existing knowledge,  guided  by a relevant theory, the researcher is given a basis for his/her analysis. Outlining the theoretical orientation of an essay can be seen as part of the general purpose of an introduction – that of showing the readers of the work, the direction(s) in which the researcher’s arguments will be leading. As Nwabueze opines, “theoretical framework involves stating the structure of the research concept and how this structure will be developed in the study”. (Basic Research 41)

In discussing the theoretical framework of this study, an attempt will be made to be explicit about what the theoretical framework is; who is credited with the original theory, people who modified or expanded on the theory and any changes we are making to the theory in our use of it.  Aristotle’s theory of tragedy in his Poetics forms the foundation of this theoretical framework. The primacy of Aristotle’s Poetics in literary theory is unchallenged. It is not only the first significant work in the tradition but its major concepts and lines of arguments have continually influenced the development of theory throughout the  centuries.  Western   literary  and  dramatic  theory  indeed  begins  with Aristotle. In the Poetics, Aristotle concerns himself with the structure of incidents, the proper constitution of the plot, the nature and status of the character,  the  diction  and  language  of tragedy,  etc.  He  defined  tragedy in Poetics, as:

An imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in the separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative, through pity and fear affecting the proper purgation of these emotions. (36)

Aristotle went further to introduce the six necessary element of tragedy: plot,  character,  thought,  language/Diction,  Music  and  spectacle.  Aristotle insists that the principal element in the structure of the tragedy is the plot for it provides structure so that the audience may see, appreciate and share in the

dramatic action which has a beginning, middle and an end. He also considers the plot to be the spine of tragedy for according to him “without action there cannot be a tragedy, there may be without character” (Poetics 36) Aristotle mentions only the unity of time and action. Pointing out the difference between epic poetry and tragedy, Aristotle states that “(…) they differ again, in their length. For tragedy endeavours, as far as possible to confine itself to single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit”. (35) Unity of action means that tragedy should deal with a single course of event, involving little or no  extraneous  material,  no  mixture  of comic  and  serious  matter.  The  plot should  be  simple  enough  so  that  it  might  held  easily in  the  mind  of  the spectators. He believes that:

The plot, being an imitation of action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being  such  that,  if    any  one  of  them  is  displaced  or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed. For a thing, whose presence or absence makes no visible difference is not an organic part of the whole. (39)

The most important ingredient in the concept of unity is that all parts of the play be organically related.

In discussing construction, Aristotle asserts that Reversal of intention or situation  (Peripeteia)  and  Recognition  (Anagnorisis)  are  both  essential  to tragedy, and each is effective when it is coincident with the other. He describes Peripeteia as the shift of the tragic protagonist’s fortune from good to bad, and

Anagnorisis as a “change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between persons destined to by the poet for good or bad fortune”. (40) A third part of the plot, apart from Peripeteia and Anagnorisis is the scene of passion which is that of suffering, a fatal or painful action, such as death on stage, bodily agony, wounds and the like.

The effect of tragedy Aristotle maintains was to elicit both pity and fear in the audience, which are resolved in a catharsis or purging of those aroused emotions.  This pity and fear may be aroused by spectacular means or it may also result from the inner structure of the play. He, however, enumerated circumstances which strike us as terrible as actions between friends, between those who are near or dear to one another. These actions may be done consciously and with the knowledge of the persons or in ignorance and the ties of kinship or friendship will be discovered after the deed.

In chapters XIII and XV, Aristotle describes the qualities of a preferred hero of tragedy. The hero of tragedy must not be a virtuous man nor a bad man, but according to him:

a character between these two extremes; that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought not by vice or depravity but some error or frailty. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous- a personage like Oedipus, Thyestes, or other illustrious men of such families. (42)

It is important to summarize that at the heart of Aristotle’s Poetics lays the concept of unity of action; Peripeteia and Anagnorisis; catharsis elicited through pity and fear and quality and status of the preferred tragic hero.

In the Centuries following the Poetics, Aristotle’s account of tragedy was amplified, diversely interpreted and even changed into a rigid convention binding upon all playwrights. The Poetics was translated into Latin by Giorgio Valla in 1498 and by the Sixteenth Century, especially in Italy an extraordinary examination of the Poetics had begun. The story of dramatic criticism during the Italian Renaissance is essentially that of the establishment of Poetics as a central reference point in dramatic theory and of attempts to relate this work to the already established critical tradition. some Italian critics of the Sixteenth Century especially Giraldi Cinthio, Julius Ceasar Scaliger and Lodovico Castelvetro  outlined  in  their  individual  treatises  the  standard  Renaissance concept  of  dramatic  theory.  There  was  an  abundant  use  of  Aristotle  and Horace,  and  a general  agreement on  sharp distinction  between  tragedy and comedy based in part on the social rank; the didactic functions of drama and the necessity of unity. It is to be noted that Aristotle mentioned only the unity of  action  in  tragedy,  but  Cinthio  made  unity  of  time  a  strict  rule,  and Castelvetro formulated the new principle of unity of place thus forming the three weird sisters- unity of action, time and place that were to haunt dramatic theory for centuries. The Poetics provided the basis for a neoclassical theory of tragedy that would deeply influence practical criticism through the 18th century. Nevertheless,  unlike  France  and  Italy,  England  and  Spain  enjoyed  in  the Renaissance, a popular drama of great worth that flouted the Neo-Aristotelian rules.

The question of whether the writing of tragedy is possible in the modern world has been under constant debate since Joseph Wood Krutch’s essay “The Tragic  Fallacy”  in  The  Modern  Temper.  Commentary  on  tragedy  tends  to revolve around two major arguments.  First, is the question of whether there is modern tragedy and second, if yes, on what ground is the term justified. The argument is caused by the differing opinions as to the necessary ingredients of tragedy as identified by Aristotle- Anagnorisis and Peripeteia; the status of the tragic  hero  and  the  greatness  of language.  Critics  like  Krutch  suggest  that perhaps it is impossible to write true tragedy in democratic times when our heroes are also our equals, when kings are scarce and kingliness is not often sought after.

In the “The Tragic Fallacy”, Krutch argues that “The idea of nobility is inseparable from the idea of tragedy, which cannot exist without it. (…) A tragedy must have a hero, and from the universe as we see it both the glory of God and the glory of man have departed.   Our cosmos may be farcical or it may be pathetic but it has not the dignity of tragedy”.(879)   Krutch believes that the modern skeptical and scientific outlook has pitifully reduced man’s stature, consequently we do not write about kings because we do not believe that    any  man  is  fit  to  be  one.      Francis  George  Steiner,      a  critic  of Comparative Literature like Krutch argues that, the triumph of rationalism and a secular worldview, has removed the metaphysical grounds for tragedy in the

modern world. Steiner examines the concept of tragedy in his book, The Death of Tragedy and finds the modern world unsuitable for tragedy. In his view, the idea and the vision of tragedy are Greek and the tragic forms Hellenic. To him, tragedy is concerned with fate and humanity’s inability to defeat the forces beyond its control. Fate consumes the will and these are the grounds on which tragedy  exists  and  in  the  modern  age  fate’s  significance  has  diminished rendering tragedy ineffectual. Steiner opines that:

Tragic drama tells us that the sphere of reason,  order, justice  are  terribly  limited  and  that  no  progress  in  our science or technical resources will enlarge their relevance. Outside  and  within  man  is l’autre or ‘otherness’  of the world. Call it what you will: a hidden or malevolent God, blind fate, the solicitations of hell, or the brute fury of our animal blood. It waits for us in ambush at the crossroads. It mocks us and destroys us. In certain rare instances, it leads  us   after   destruction   to   some   incomprehensible repose. (335)

Raymond Williams in 1962 published Modern Tragedy, a theoretical work that absolutely responds to Steiner’s theory. In defending modern tragedy in the light of critics like Steiner who dismiss it as a relic of the past, Williams opines that:

Contemporary life may not hold fate in the same regard, but our fears warrant tragic consequences. Ancient tragedy

depended on order and the disarray occurring within the purview of the tragic hero. In        modern    tragedy,    the issue of stability remains since      violence                    and catastrophe are still the main current of tragedy. (373)

Williams   provides   persuasive   arguments   for   the   possibility   and existence of tragedies in which the structures of capitalism, democracy, and   secularism   provide   the   surrogates   for   the   inexorable   and unanswerable forces of divinity and fate that constitute Steiner’s sine qua  non  of tragic  drama.  Steiner  perhaps  forgot  that  in  the  modern dispensations, characters still face forces beyond their control, though not fate. In the modern period, life and the society are such that man is faced  with  the  fear  of  the  revolving  problem  of  industrialization, constant wars, crisis, and capitalism etc. Man seems to be a helpless victim of this society filled with chaos. In his lectures on History of Philosophy, Hegel records that:

Napoleon  in  a  conversation  which  he  once  had with Goethe on the nature of tragedy, expressed the option that     its  modern  phase  differed  from  the ancient   through   our   no   longer   recognizing   a Destiny to which men  are absolutely subject and that policy occupies the place of ancient fate. This therefore he thought must be used as the modern form of Destiny in tragedy- the irresistible power of circumstances  to  which  individuality  must  bend. (289)

Steiner fails  to understand  that modern  art is preeminently the reflex,  the mirror of life and that the artist being a part of life cannot detach himself from the  events  and  occurrences  that  pass  like  a  landscape  before  his  eyes, impressing themselves upon his emotional and intellectual vision. Modern tragedy mirrors the complex struggle of life –the struggle which has its root in the depth of human nature and social environment. Obviously, the pressures operating for change in tragedy in the modern period came from the changing world around it, for theatre is a reflection of society which produces it. In the

20th  century unlike the Classical and the Shakespearean age, the world of the

mundane material life is central. As long as the real, the tangible, the ordinary is represented  on stage; the audience can have an empathic response to the material.

As  mentioned  earlier,  Krutch  and  Steiner  argue  that  the  pessimism  of  the modern age has prevented the creation of great tragedies. They suggest that perhaps it is impossible to write true tragedy in democratic times. As Steiner explains, “there is nothing democratic in the vision of tragedy. The royal and heroic characters whom the gods honor with their vengeance are set higher than we are in the chain  of being,  and  their style of utterance must reflect this elevation. (241)

The contentions of Krutch and Steiner against Modern tragedy are primarily  based on  the  status of  the protagonist and  the  language  of

modern tragedy. The German critic Herman Hettner, American dramatist Arthur Miller, French dramatist Beaumarchais and American critic John Gassner challenged the views of Aristotle, Krutch and Steiner and argue in favour of the common man as subject. Hettner’s work can be seen as an antecedent to Miller’s “Tragedy and The Common Man”. In his book, The Modern Drama, Hettner writes that,

Tragedy searches for its protagonist not on the throne of kings or from the heights of history, rather, in the lower circles of life amidst plain and simple relationships. Hence if the modern era is distinguished form the Ancients and middle Ages chiefly through emancipation which has granted the individual as individual, through the impartial recognition of the purely human in everyone, without consideration of person and rank, then it is altogether in accordance with the nature and necessity of progressive historical development  that  the  so  called  middle-class  drama must arise together with the beginning of modern history. Hence, in every respect, its origin corresponds in time with the origins of modern thinking: each person has his fate; the neediest Burger as well as the mightiest monarch. (266)

Like Hettner, Miller challenges the notion of tragedy reserved merely for the  lofty.  The  central  theme  of  Miller’s  theory,  “Tragedy  and  The Common Man”, is not the definition of tragedy but the defence of the common man as a tragic hero. He defended tragedy as a possible modern genre and proposed a rethinking of the genre in the light of contemporary concerns. In his theory, Miller maintains that tragedy is “(…) the consequence of a man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly”. (267) He believes that “the common man is apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense”. (267) To him, the fall of a common man can be just as tragic, even if the fall does not occur from the ruling class. In fact, the French dramatist Beaumarchais insists that, “the nearer the suffering man to my station in life, the greater is his claim upon my sympathy” (852). And on the contrary, the use of exalted characters like kings in tragedy rather than increasing his interest diminishes it. Miller, on the other hand` maintains that:

Insistence upon the rank of the tragic hero, or the so- called nobility of his character, is really        clinging

to the outward forms of tragedy. If      rank or nobility of character was indispensable, then it would follow that the problems of those          with   rank   were   the particular problems of     tragedy.  (…) the  quality in such plays that does shake us, however, derives from

the  underlying fear of  being displaced,  the disaster inherent in   being torn away from our chosen image of what        and who we are in this world. (…) in fact, it is the common man who knows this fear best. (268)

Indeed,  one  would  say  that  during  the  last  three  hundred  years, humanity’s  self  esteem  has  been  dealt  several  blows:  Copernicus removed man’s earth from the centre of God’s universe, Darwin stripped man of his divine origin and Freud left him the victim of his subconscious desires. It is on these premises that Krutch believes that Man’s stature has so pitifully shrunk. But Gassner wondered what stature has to do with it when he says, “I fail to understand why a character’s failure to measure up to the stature of Hamlet or Othello must be a deterrent to pity and fear”. (285) He goes on to say that it is precisely because Willy Loman of Miller’s  Death  of  a  Salesman  was  a  common  man  that  American audiences felt pity for him and feared for themselves. Gassner describes Loman as a “sort of suburban everyman with whom audiences readily established a connection, if not indeed an actual identification”. (285) Gassner also noted in a review titled, “The Possibilities and Perils

of Modern Tragedy”, that critics like Steiner seem to believe that because tragedy developed out of religious ritual in Greece, the modern theatre that does not have any religious origin is unable to engender tragic art. This, Gassner considers a genetic fallacy. A reason which assumes, “that

a thing must remain what it was at its inception”. (5) Steiner is perhaps too rigid; he regards tragedy as something which remains the same for all time. He obviously does not make any allowance for the effects of change – social, political, scientific etc.

In the modern period, nobility is measured not by ancestry but by the inner quality of soul. Most modern critics like Gassner and Miller believe the above mentioned. Gassner seems to agree that there is reason for stressing the value of tragic stature, but contrary to the ancestry view, he insists that stature is a matter of mind and spirit. Thus supporting what Miller had earlier said “(…) The commonest of men may take on that stature to the extent of his willingness to throw all he has into the contest, the battle to secure his rightful place in his world”. (269)

John Gassner, Antonin Artaud and Vera Roberts address the issue of language and the necessity to bring it into a modern context. In defending the language of modern tragedy, Gassner asked and answered a very pertinent question: “shall we say that we had no tragedies because Playwrights stopped writing poetry? No! Since there is no evidence that Catharsis is directly dependent on poetry”. (285) Even Aristotle treated the language of tragedy separately, almost as an embellishment, so language in the drama is not an end itself. In the ranking of the elements of tragedy, Aristotle places Diction in the fourth position. According to him, “Fourth among the elements enumerated comes diction by which

means, as has been already said, the expression of the meaning in words; and  its essence is the  same both in  verse  and  prose”.  (37) And  like Antonin Artaud rightly points out, “(….) we have a right to say what has been said and even what has not been said in a way which pertains to us, which is immediate and direct, which corresponds to present modes of feeling and which everyone will understand”. (197)  He reiterates that the authors should speak to the spectators in their own language and not “over defined language which belong to dead ages, ages that will never be brought to life again”. (198)

Vera Roberts insists that “The language of tragedy may be poetry, or prose. The choice depends upon the accepted convention of the time in which it is written”. (137)  Indeed, Tragedy has become realistic in the modern age and this has to be reflected in the language. The 20th Century upwards is rightfully called, the age of prose, unlike in the Classical western tradition regarded  as the age of poetry and playwrights were called dramatic poets.

Aristotle in discussing construction made a point of the recognition scene as essential to tragedy and noted the powerful dramatic effect of a recognition scene. As earlier pointed out, he described recognition simply as  a  change  from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  producing  love  or  hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune.

In the “Essence of Tragedy”, Anderson Maxwell weighs in on Aristotle’s Poetics and the possibility of tragedy in the modern age. He avers that recognition in modern tragedy is a discovery by the hero of some element in the environment or in his own personality of which he has not been aware or which he has not taken sufficiently into account. He then proposed the following formulation:

A play should lead up to and away from a central crisis and this crisis should consist in a discovery by the leading character which has an indelible effect on his thought and emotion and completely alters his course of action. (…) the leading character must make the discovery, it must affect him emotionally and it must alter his direction in the play. (230)

Gassner, on his own side expanded the idea of anagnorsis or recognition to be “legitimately extended to the discovery of hidden facts as well as disguised or hitherto unidentified persons”. (Modern Theories, 279) Aristotle had noted the powerful dramatic effect of a recognition scene. For instance, one can cite the discovery that Oedipus, Othello, Ezeulu and Ikem made about themselves which gave us the greatest tragic scene in literature  as  cases  in  point.  Nevertheless,  though  Aristotle  discusses recognition as an essential part of the plot of tragedy, it is not unique to tragedy alone. It occurs in comedy, epic and at a later date in the novel as

well, and therefore cannot be used to determine tragedy. Even Aristotle conceded that plots can be either simple or complex. Simple plots are the ones without peripeteia and without recognition. Though Aristotle concludes that a perfect tragedy should not be arranged on the simple but on the complex plan, it does not follow that every tragic plot must have Peripeteia and Recognition in order to qualify as tragedy.

Of the ingredients and the construction of the plot, according to Aristotle, what are left to be discussed are the three unities. There is no doubt  that  the  unities of  action,  place  and  time by  Aristotle  and  the Renaissance critics have been postulated as an ideal of stage action. The position of this study is that the above statement can only be unchallengeable from the logical and hence the aesthetic point of view. In other words, the three unities of action, time and place are good, but not compulsory as they do not determine the tragic tone, vision or mood of a play. For instance, Emeka Nwabueze’s tragic play, Spokesman for the Oracle observes the unities while When the Arrow Rebounds does not. But their absence do not reduce the tragic nature of the latter. Speaking of the neoclassical unities, Samuel Johnson contended  that insistence on unities of time and place involved confusion between art and life. Representation, he says, “is mistaken for reality, (…) the truth is that, the spectators are always in their senses and know from the first Act to the last, that the stage is only a stage and that the players are only players”. (857)

The breath and vision based on commonly accepted philosophical principles that characterized the ancient Greek and the Great Elizabethan theatre have given way in modern drama to a diversity of concepts that depends upon the individual writer, the country and the environment. African tragedy for example is very wide and varied. Such diversities are caused by linguistic and cultural heterogeneity as well as historical consequences of foreign domination and  control under colonial rules. African tragedy is determined by cultural dictates. Raymond Williams in The Modern Tragedy rejects the Universalist character of most tragic theory and emphasized the influence of culture on tragedy and tragic theory. He observes that:

Tragedy, because of its central importance, commonly attracts the fundamental beliefs and    tensions    of    a period and tragic theory is interesting mainly in this sense that through it the shape of a particular culture is often deeply realized (…). Tragedy is then not a single and permanent kind of fact, but a series of experiences and conventions and institutions. (45 – 46)

In  placing  African  tragedy within  the  larger  genre  of tragedy,  some fundamental differences in tragic theory emerge. Two schools of African tragic

thought have emerged: Idealism and Materialism theory.   The idealists critics like Wole Soyinka and Zulu Sofola believe in the concept of tragedy which fits in with the African world view and they emphasize the role of the hero while the Materialists like Biodun Jefiyo and Femi Osofisan argue in favour of a kind of tragedy in which the conflict is not waged between individuals, but among social classes or forces. However, both agree that African tragedy contains an essential ‘Africanness’ and has the community as its focus.

In the West, many critics like Steiner believe that tragedy has no future, according to Steiner, “Tragedy as a form of drama is not universal. The representation of personal suffering and heroism which are called tragic drama is distinctive of the Western tradition”. (295)   Ironically, Steiner’s and Krutch’s argument about the world view of tragedy is important for African tragedy. Steiner argues that, “(…) the decline of tragedy is inseparably linked to the decline of the organic world view and its attendant context of mythological, symbolic and ritual reference”. (296) while Krutch opines that, “An Oswald is not a Hamlet chiefly because he has lost that tie with the natural and supernatural world which the later had”. (877)

The debate about tragedy seeks to determine whether there is a Tragedy in this modern period. From the Nineteenth century onward, Philosophers, Poets and Dramatists have asked the questions: is modern Tragedy  possible?  And  if  so,  what  form  might  it  take?  Our  modern

temper with its doubt and skepticism about man and supernatural forces is considered by some to be an inhospitable ground for the nurture of the tragic spirit. The contentions are primarily based on the status of the hero, the language of tragedy and the ingredients of the plot as identified by Aristotle. A combination of Patho-Cathartic concept is used in this work to arrive at a suitable interpretation or determination of tragedy. In his well known theory of tragedy, Aristotle opines that Tragedy is a representation of action, serious,  through the arousal of pity and fear affecting the catharsis of such emotions. The most important of the components of tragedy to him is the structure of events, because tragedy is the representation not of people but of actions and life and both happiness and unhappiness rest on action.

The Patho-Cathartic concept argues that a perfect Tragedy should imitate events, terrible and serious that excites pity and fear. Through witnessing the suffering of the characters, human emotions and consequently empathy arises. This ability to elicit empathy in the viewers is the key element of the tragic vehicle. It supersedes the god-hood or status of the character and grand or elevated language to that of a human scale. Philosophers and Theologians through the ages have debated the question of the origin of suffering but tragedy offers no single solution. Some people suffer because of their own actions, miscalculation which turn out to be fatal, example Ezeulu in Nwabueze’s When the Arrow

Rebounds; Mistake based on ignorance and deceit – Ikem in Nwabueze’s Spokesman for the Oracle, Othello in Othello, or evil deeds which return to haunt them – Macbeth in Macbeth. At times, people suffer simply because they live in a cruel and unjust universe where gods or the society are unkind or nonexistent – Willy Loman, Duncan, Desdemona, Macduff, etc.

The  Patho-Cathartic  point  of  view  aligns  with  Vera  Roberts opinion that, “The thought or governing concept of tragedy is always one of some magnitude or seriousness according to the value judgement of the period in which it is written”. (134) As well as Cassel’s Encyclopedia of World Literature’s definition that, “Tragedy is the dramatic representation of some serious action, arousing pity and fear”. It is the view of this study that tragedies of all ages from Greek to the present time share the above elements in common: seriousness, suffering, pity and fear and  these  elements  are  unique  to  only  tragedy,  unlike  the  other ingredients of plot like Anagnorisis, Peripeteia, and the Unities that are also present in the other literary forms like the Novel, Comedy and Epic. Even Aristotle opined that, “Perfect tragedy should imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation”. (42) It is not enough for an audience to see what happens on the stage, the action of the play must affect them in such a way that they feel with the characters and events: We feel for Oedipus and Jocasta as they woefully

discover the  gravity of  their actions.  We feel pity for Willy  Loman: broken, disillusioned and tossed about on the waves of disappointment; we feel pity for Ezeulu as he struggles to stop his society and culture from disintegration.

The experience of pity and fear with is aroused, first, not due to language but it is an experience of action. It is the result of our observing the doing and suffering of a thing. Aristotle rightly pointed out, “It clearly follows that the poet should be the maker of plots rather than of verses, since he is a poet because he imitates and what he imitates are actions”. (39)

Secondly, Pity and Fear are aroused by the action of the play, not merely by the downfall of the protagonist. If otherwise, for instance, how can the audience feel pity and fear at the downfall of Macbeth whose doom was caused by his own doings? For Macbeth is not a great noble figure who does good, moral deeds in the course of the play or is he a good person who does deeds of horror in ignorance of the facts. He is not only a tyrant, but also too evil for us to sympathize with him. We feel pity not for him  but for his victims.    It  is  on this premise  that  some  of Shakespeare’s plays succeed as tragedy for when a man suffers because of his own actions, there may not be much pity and fear in the mind of the audience. As Aristotle pointed out,  the audience will believe that the person deserves his punishment and this destroys the tragic feelings. We

feel pity and fear as a result of things that happen to innocent people like Jocasta, Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, Haemon and Desdemona who, for instance, loved deeply and honestly, gave up even her family, yet was accused wrongly by the same person she made the sacrifice for, and paid dearly with her life. Thirdly, it does not matter whether a modern tragedy concerns itself with a common man or a president. Neither does it matter whether the hero falls from a great height or a small one for tragedy imitates what people do and not who they are. This is because height is not necessarily and architectural place, but a moral height, for someone can  have  that  height  yet  lack  moral  authority  from  which  to  fall. According to Aristotle:

Dramatic action therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character; character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence, the incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy and the end is the chief of all. Again, without action there cannot be a tragedy, there may be without character. (36)

From the Patho-Cathartic point of view therefore, it is the argument of this thesis that first, true tragedy can exist on the Modern stage. Secondly, its existence is rooted in forms, and not because they fulfill any particular theory – Aristotelian or otherwise. Thirdly, as long as they channel tragic content out to the audience eliciting pity

and fear whether in the Greek theatre, modern day stage or living room. Finally, like every other form of drama, tragedy has undergone a series of changes in conventions which obviously is an attribute of various dramatists’ understanding of the form and the society at the period of their writing. Consequently, in the contemporary society, as there are multiplicity of styles, as style today is a personal but not a general matter, so also we have dramatic theories and we opine that Aristotle’s theory should be seen as one of them.

The philosophical framework of this research is hinged on Alfred Whitehead’s Process Philosophy. Change and permanence have always been a philosophical issue right from the beginning of philosophy. The Ionian  philosophers in  their  search  for the  ‘stuff’  in nature  proposed different elements; water, air and boundlessness. Their propositions suggested a kind of permanence in the faces of change that is witnessed in our world  order. Parmenides of Elea tried to  perfect the proposed permanence of the Ionian philosophers by maintaining that Being is, and non-being is not, and that only the unchanging belongs to the world of Being. So there is permanence in every change we experience. It was Heraclitus who first challenged the philosophy of permanence of the first philosophers. For him, all things are in flux (omnia flux) and the only constant or permanent thing in the universe is change itself, thus, ‘you

cannot step into the same river twice as fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you’.

Whatever shapes and sizes it assumes, the perennial philosophical problem of change and permanence still rears its head in our current discourse. Modern philosophers like Rene Descartes, Benedictus de Spinoza, and Wilhelm Leibniz hungered for certainty of knowledge (which they sought for in Mathematics) as their own version of permanence. But the Process Philosophy of Alfred Whitehead turns out as a veritable option to explain the permanence of change. Describing the part he wished to trail, Whitehead opines that, “The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation”. (5)

Like the flight of an aeroplane,  reality  is ever in motion;  moving to greater revelations. If this is so, there is no point where permanence or certainty is guaranteed. In Process Philosophy propounded by Whitehead, reality is ever in process of change. Everything changes and there is no account of permanence except change, the manifestation of tragic form inclusive.

1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Since the birth of tragedy in Greece in 534 B.C., it has been in existence as a dramatic form albeit in different costumes or faces. Based on the above, this research will focus only on the three major periods which are: Classical, Renaissance and the Modern Period. Due to the vast geographical coverage of the aforementioned periods, there is also a need to delimit the scope of the ages; thus for the classical period, we will be restricted  to  classical  Greece,  in  the  Renaissance,  to  the  Elizabethan Period  and  the  Modern  Period  which  starts  from  the  late  nineteenth century when Ibsen started writing in the realistic mode.

This  restriction  has  been  dictated  by  the  need  to  attempt  a reasonable in-depth treatment of the problem. Special illustrations will be made from Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Antigone; Shakespeare’s Othello and Macbeth, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Emeka Nwabueze’s When the Arrow Rebounds.  The restriction notwithstanding, references  will  be  made  to  other  periods  or  works  when  it  helps  to illustrate or clarify our view.

1.8 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The  selection of  a  primary method  of  investigation  of  a given problem is a key consideration for the investigator. For the purposes of this study, the researcher will employ extensively, the Historical or Qualitative Research Methodology. According to Whitney, “historical research interprets past trends of attitude, event and fact”. (Cited in Osuagwu 162) This method will enable the researcher to explore already available data to arrive at an accurate account of the past in order to gain a clearer perspective of the present. This is inline with what Nwabueze says that “historical research involves description of past events or facts written in the spirit of critical inquiry”. (Research Methods 55) Documented   sources   including   books,   scholarly   journals   will   be consulted to understand the origins of tragedy and the various developmental changes it has undergone in different period under study.

Apart from the Historical method, Content Analysis methodology or what Sam Ukala terms Literary or Analytical method will also be applied. In applying this method, a focus will be on the actual content and internal features of the texts under study. This will be achieved through

‘coding’ or breaking the texts into appropriate levels before examining them using ‘conceptual or relational’ analysis. In the words of Nwabueze, “conceptual analysis is the establishment of the existence and frequency of significant concepts in a text”. (Research Methods 75) Thus analysis of the occurrence of the concept evident within the plays will be carried out. On the other hand, relational analysis will be used to examine the relationship among concepts present in the texts.

The two main sources of data collection are the primary and the secondary   sources.   Sophocles’   Oedipus   the   King   and   Antigone; Aristotle’s Poetics; William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Othello; Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Emeka Nwabueze’s When the Arrow Rebounds form the primary source of material. Secondary materials include encyclopedias, journals, textbooks; lecture notes etc. Collection of data will not only be from earlier scholarly opinions on tragedy but will concentrate on the texts for this study, which serves as the primary source.  The  documentation  of  cited  sources  will  follow  the  MLA (Modern Language association) parenthetical method.

This   study   is   divided   into   five   chapters.   Chapter   one   is introductory; it gives us a clear background of the study, statement of problem, objective, significance and scope of the study, research methodology and also establishes the theoretical and philosophical framework on which this study rests.

Chapter two reviews all relevant and related literature. It examines the definitions and various interpretations of tragedy, explores the origins and evolutions and transitions of tragedy and also discusses the authors under study and the modal manifestations of tragedy.

Chapter three is expository. It attempts a comprehensive discussion of the broad principles that affected drama and theatre in the Classical, Renaissance and Modern Ages. An exploration of the characteristics of tragedy in the ages is undertaken using selected plays of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Miller and Nwabueze for illustration.

Chapter four charts the fundamental similarities and differences between the tragedies of the ages under study. The analysis is done under three headings, namely, the substance of tragedy, the effect of tragedy and the conceptualization of tragedy.

Chapter five summarizes and concludes the study. The summary shows in a nutshell the series of changes in convention which tragedy like every other drama has undergone from the ancient period. The overall significance  of  change  in  answering  the  crucial  question:  Is  Tragedy really dead? in the modern period was discussed, while the qualities that make up a tragic vision from the Patho-Cathartic point of view was also enunciated.

1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS

There is need to explain some terms which, though clear as dramatic terms, but which have peculiar significance in the comprehension of the main parts of the study. The terms that will be defined include:

1)  Classical Period

2)  Anagnorisis

3)  Catharsis

4)  Harmatia

5)  Elizabethan Period

6)  Modern Period

1.9.1 CLASSICAL PERIOD: is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome collectively known as the Greco-Roman world.  It  is  the  period  in  which  Greek  and  Roman  society flourished  and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and the Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest recorded Epic poetry of Homer and continues through the emergence of Christianity and the declineof the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD.

The  Classical  Age  in  Greece  followed  the  Archaic  Age  and  lasted through the creation of a Greek empire by Alexander the Great. It begins with the Persian wars and ends with the death of Alexander the Great. The Classical Age was characterized by most of the cultural wonders associated with ancient Greece.  It corresponds with: the height of the political reforms that are ancient Greece’s most enduring contribution to the modern world- Demokratia (democracy) or ‘rule by the people’; the flowering of Greek tragedy and the architectural marvels at Athens. It also brought us the physician Hippocrates, the   historian   Herodotus   and   the   philosopher   Socrates.   Plato,   Aristotle, Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  Aristophanes,  Euclid  and  innumerable  other  famous

figures of antiquity lived during this period. The 5th Century (499-400 BCE) in

particular is renowned as the Golden Age of Greece. The culture of the ancient Greece was the basis of art, philosophy, society and educational ideals until the Roman Imperial Period.

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of the city state of Rome founded in the Italian Peninsula circus   in the 9th   Century BCE. It came to dominate Western Europe and the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea through conquest and assimilation. The Greco-Roman cultural foundation has  been  immensely influential  on  the    language,  politics,  philosophy,  art, science and architecture of the modern period. The foundations of the modern world  derive  from  the  classical  age  as  it  was  reformulated  during  the Renaissance and again resurgent in various neo-classical revivals in 18th  and

19th  century Europe and the Americas. The relevance of the classical to the

contemporary suggests that there is a great deal of continuity in human experience and that values that served humanity well in the past retain meaning in the present.

1.9.2.ANAGNORISIS: Is discussed in the Poetics as an essential part of the plot  of  a  tragedy.  Aristotle  defined  it  as  “a  change  from  ignorance  to knowledge, producing love and hate between the persons destined by the poet for  good   or  bad   fortune”.   (Poetics   38)     Anagnorisis   originally  meant recognition in its Greek context not only of a person but also what that person stood for. It was the hero’s sudden awareness of a real situation, the realization of things as they stood. It usually involves revelation of the true identity of persons previously unknown, as when a father recognizes a stranger as his son or vice versa. Aristotle considered plots with anagnorisis and Peripeteia  as complex and also superior to simple plots.

Paul Goring, Jeremy Hawthorn and Downhall Mitchell, define Anagnorisis as “literary recognition or a moment of intense revelation at which a character suddenly becomes aware of something, seeing into the heart of a situation at what is usually a moment of special intensity”. (203) Modern critics like Clifford Leech have taken the term to also mean the terrible enlightenment that  accompanies  such  recognition.  Leech observed  that  “it  is  the  ultimate experience we shall have if we have leisure at the point of death. (…) it is what tragedy  ultimately  is  about:  the  realization  of  the  unthinkable”.  (Cited  in Kennedy 871)

1.9.3.  CATHARSIS:  Is  the  metaphor  used  by  Aristotle  in  the  Poetics  to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator. The use is derived from the medical  term  katharsis-Greek  word  for  purgation  or  purification.  Aristotle states that the purpose of tragedy is to “arouse pity and fear and thereby effect the catharsis of these emotions”. (Poetics 36) Aristotle, unfortunately did not define catharsis, therefore, his exact meaning has been the subject of critical debate over the centuries.

Critics like Gotthold  Lessing,  interpreted  Catharsis as the purging or cleansing of pity and fear from the spectators as they observe the action on stage. In this way, tragedy relieves them of harmful emotions leaving them better people for their experience. Lessing held that catharsis “converts excess emotions   into   virtuous   dispositions”.   (Cited   in   the   New   Encyclopedia

Britannica Vol. 28) This interpretation suggests that Aristotle may have been offering an alternative to Plato’s view that dramatic poets incited the passions and therefore dangerous to the society. The most popular alternative view has seen catharsis as a moral rather than a medical term. This interpretation sees tragedy as a moral lesson in which the pity and fear excited by the tragic hero’s fate serve to warn the spectator not to similarly tempt providence.

In Modern times, catharsis is interpreted as a purely artistic or structural term. Exponents of this view include Gerald Else, Leon Golden and O.B. Harbison. They prefer to think of catharsis not as the effect of tragedy on the spectator but as a resolution of dramatic tension within the plot. Gerald Else suggested  that catharsis “occurs not in the spectators  but in the plot,  as it harmonizes disruptive element within itself. The spectator’s ultimate response is to this harmony rather than to the experience of arousal and purgation of emotion”. (Cited in Carlson 19)  This interpretation shows that the dramatists depict incidents which arouse pity and fear for the protagonist and the audience respectively,  then  during  the  course  of  the  action,  he  resolves  the  major conflicts, bringing the plot to a logical and foreseeable conclusion.

Whatever the exact meaning of catharsis and its different interpretation, all agree upon catharsis as a beneficial uplifting experience, whether psychological, moral, intellectual or some combination of these.

1.9.4. HARMATIA: Is another term emanating from Aristotle’s definition of tragedy. According to the New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 5, the word harmatia is from the Greek harmatanein, to err, and also called the tragic flaw,

inherent defect or the shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favoured by fortune”. The various interpretation of harmatia may be generally divided into two groups: those that emphasize the moral aspect of the flaw and those like Golden that emphasize the intellectual aspect making harmatia an error of judgement or mistaken assumption. According to the moral aspect, every tragic hero has some fatal weakness, a failure of morals or character that brings him to a bad end. While the concept of a  moral   character   flaw  may  apply  to   certain   tragic   figures,   it  seems inappropriate  for  many  others.  The  intellectual  aspect  group  argues  that Aristotle discusses harmatia in the Poetics not as an aspect of character but rather as an incident of plot and thus his meaning of harmatia might better be translated as a tragic error or what Golden calls “Miscalculation”.

In  spite  of all  the  arguments,  Aristotle  himself  pointed  out  that  the change of fortune of the tragic hero should not come about as a result of vice but “some great error or frailty”. (42)

1.9.5 ELIZABETHAN PERIOD: is named after Queen Elizabeth I, the sixth and last ruler of Tudor. She was considered by many to be England’s best monarch. She came to the throne after the violent reign of her catholic half sister, Mary I, known infamously as Bloody Mary. Elizabeth worked to heal the land of the violent clashes between the Catholics and the Protestants. Due to her desire to unite her subjects under one throne, her reign is marked as a time of peace. The Elizabethan era is thus the period in  English history marked by her reign- 1558 to 1603. This period is commonly referred to as the golden

age in English history which represented the English Renaissance. It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad; an age of new ideas and thinking. The   new   ideas,   information   and   increased   knowledge   about   science, technology and astrology led to a renewed interest in the supernatural including witches,  witchcraft  and  ghosts  which  led  to belief in  superstitions  and  the supernatural. It also marked the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland .

The   Elizabethan   Period   is   considered   to   be   a   time   of   English Renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion and naval triumph. England’s reputation as a strong naval power was enshrined in history by its defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1558. By the turn of the century, England was at the forefront of international trade and the race for colonization. The rise in the concept of nationalism in England was manifested in increased interest in writing of literary and dramatic works in English language. The period saw the flowering of poetry; was a golden age of drama and inspired a wide variety of splendid prose.

The  arts  burgeoned  during  the  Elizabethan  Period.  The     Queen’s personal love of poetry, music and drama helped to institute a climate in which it was fashionable for rich members of the court to support the arts. Many of the great works of English were produced during these years: arts. Learning in general blossomed as the confidence and nationalism Queen Elizabeth inspired flowed  from  the economic  sector to cultural achievements.  The period  saw playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson;

poets like Edmund Spenser; men of science and letters like Francis Bacon; and great explorers like Sir Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. England made significant advances in the realm of navigation and exploration. Its most important  accomplishment  was  the  circumnavigation  of  the  world  by  Sir Francis Drake between 1577 and 1580.

1.9.6 MODERN PERIOD: was coined to indicate present or recent times. It has been a period of significant development in the field of science, politics, warfare and technology. Modern Period includes the early period called the early modern period which lasted from 1500 to the 1800 and the late modern period. The most important characteristic of the early modern period was its globalizing character. The early modern dispositions in different regions of the world   represented   a   departure   from   medieval   manner   of   organization, politically and economically. In Europe, there was decline of feudalism, the commercial revolution and the colonization of the Americas by Europe. The end  of the  early modern  period  is usually dated  from  the 1790s  when  the French revolution started the Modern Period. Some of the characteristics of late Modern Period is increasing role of science and technology, the revolution of 1848, the Russian revolution and the first and the second world war to mention a few.

The Modern Era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization and a belief in the prospects of technological and political progress. The concept of the modern world hinges on the sense that it is not just another period in history, rather it is a result of a

new type of change. It is motivated by deliberate human efforts to progress and improve  their  situation.  The  history of  literature  in  the  Modern  Period  in Europe begins  with the Age of Enlightenment  and  the end of the Baroque period in the 18th Century. Literary modernism has its origin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries mainly in Europe and North America. It is characterized by

a break with traditional styles of drama, poetry etc. The movement was driven by  a  conscious  desire  to  overrun  traditional  modes  of  representation  and express  the  sensibilities  of their  time.  The modernism  covers  a number of related and overlapping artistic and literary movements namely Realism, Naturalism, surrealism, Absurdism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Dadaism etc and is both international and interdisciplinary.

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