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Another aspect of Aristotle's version of tragedy that has been overlooked here is the types of people portrayed. They are all nobles, a convention in tragedy which continued even through Shakespeare's work.
Hoom...I think this may rest in a slight mistranslation - I don't have my Poetics to hand, but is it of esthloi? Because characters in tragedy, Greek or otherwise, don'thave to be noble necessarily in the sense of belonging to aristocratic families, although that's certainly the norm - but Medea, although a princess in her native land, has no role or lands in Greece - that's half the point. What she is, however, is esthlos; she is an exceptional person who finds herself in exceptional circumstances, and behaves in an exceptional way. It's the opposition of great character with extraordinary subject that tends to make Greek tragedy, and I think that a class-based reading is at best incomplete. After all, Pentheus, for example, ends up as a dismembered body in drag - not terribly dignified. Tragedy is lumped with epic, both of which describe *magnanimous* characters, whose familial nobility is both a narrative device and an objective correlative.
I think Boal's contention is also highly selective. Take Oedipus. In what sense is Oedipus a good example of a man who "steps out of line and is punished"? We see him as a man who understands entirely and works conscientiously to fulfil his duty to his state; having established that Thebes is languishing as a result of the unpunished murder of Laius, he exerts every sinew to fulfil his duty to the state and the gods. The cause of his downfall, his hamartia, is something over which he has no control and which only a very harsh judge indeed would say is his fault. He killed his father, not knowing that he was his father, and married his mother, not knowing that she was his mother. He can't be accused even of seditionm, since he didn't know Laius was the king of Thebes at the time. Jocasta tries to persuade him to neglect his duty as a good citizen, and fails. Is the message here that you should not seek to support justice in case you fall victim to it? I don't think so; it's a lot more complex than any single interpretation, especially one based on a very specific political viewpoint - ater 461, many Athenians would have described the place as to varying degrees ochlocratic anyway. Or, to look at Antigone, what we have there is an anti-establishment rebel, who has no place criticising or acting against the wishes of Creon, to whom she owes obedience as a man, an older relative and a head of state. He gives an edict, she defies it, and along the way rejects not only the paternal state but also the institution of marriage that underpins her entire future worth to that society, and is ultimately rousingly endorsed by the divine. Creon isn't evil (he isnt even, as far as we can tell, in any way disrespectful of the gods, unlike, say, Pentheus), but he is *wrong* - to obey the head of state (and not a usurper as in Heracles Mainomenos) is shown as being the wrong decision here, and those brave enough to stand up for the obligations to the Chthonic, primal, earthy (and thus in a way female) deities over the Olympian gods who represent the organisation of royal houses and cities, and the rectitude of kings and of men - Teiresias and Antigone herself - are vindicated, if at great cost. Creon is broken, and so, importantly, is his *line* - the death of Haemon represents the end of his dynasty.
On catharsis and the horror movie - it occurs to me that a statistically far greater proportion of the viewers at a 5th Century Dionysia would have personal experience of killing another human being face-to-face than the audience of a modern action movie. I wonder if that's significant.... |
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