Achilles' Choice: Examples of Modern Tragedy (Princeton Essays in Literature)

193 Pages·1975·4.834 MB·English

by  David Lenson

ACHILLES' CHOICE
Princeton Essays in Literature
Advisory Committee: Joseph Bauke, Robert Fagles,
Claudio Guillen, Robert Maguire
(For a list of the other titles in this series,
see page following index.)
Achilles' Choice
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Examples of Modern Tragedy
David Lenson
Princeton University Press 1975
Copyright © 1975 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
Princeton and London
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will
be found on the last printed page of this book
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant
from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
This book has been composed in Linotype Janson
Printed in the United States of America
by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
for June Lenson

Prefatory Note
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This study is undertaken as an act of speculative criticism,
not as an act of scholarship, not as an act of literary his­
tory. I mean this to be a flat statement of fact, neither a
boast nor an apology. Criticism of tragedy is an over-
populated field. It has advanced beyond the stage of
groundwork, perhaps even beyond maturation. It re­
quires, just as all developed areas of criticism require, a
sense of exploration that neither ignores the precedent
traditions, nor allows them to tyrannize. Works of specu­
lation at their best have given scholars new stimuli; at
their worst they have been forgotten with no harm done.
It is only because the public for such works is limited
to specialists that it is necessary to issue the following
disclaimers.
I have tried to avoid deriving a definition of tragedy.
In the period during which this book was written, the
marriage of philosophy and linguistics has encouraged
in criticism, as in, for example, the social sciences, a
hunger for terminology. The prospect of devoting fur­
ther effort to these matters seems barren. The precise,
useful, but ultimately reductive work of Oscar Mandel
ought to remain the crowning effort of this kind in the
field of tragedy. Definition, by definition, as it were,
signals an erection of boundaries. Where such boundaries
exist, a given point must lie on one side or the other. I
have never found it illuminating to answer a flat "yes"
or "no" to the question of whether or not such-and-such
viii Achilles' Choice
a work is a tragedy. It is more helpful in the final analy­
sis to think of tragic elements or "norms"—to borrow
Wellek's term—which a given work may contain in
greater or lesser density. The result of this attitude is a
flexible, fairly liberal idea of a tradition. This proves a
telling advantage in the interpretation of more recent
events.
On the other hand, an historical survey or "history of
tragedy" during the modern epoch, done well, would be
a collection of potential topics for research, or, done
poorly, a blur of name-dropping. Such works exist, and
there is no need for another. My more or less chrono­
logical arrangements of topics may seem to promise
some species of diced-up history, a kind of linear gestalt.
All that is meant is a choice of certain essential moments
in the formation of the modern tragic tradition. Of neces­
sity, these selections must be viewed as examples. Ex­
amples point past themselves to a larger set, yet it is
wrong, in my opinion, thereby to preclude interest in an
example for its own sake. Admittedly, the points which
make a particular work interesting to a student of tragedy
may not be the same as those which award the work its
place in general literary history. It is to be stressed that
if I have given Kleist more space than Goethe this does
not mean that I am making a heretical judgment about
the comparative overall significance of the two.
The books, friends, and teachers who have contributed
to my thinking on this subject are too numerous to men­
tion. I have had the opportunity to listen to classes and
lectures by some of the leading critics in this field, notably
Francis Fergusson, Walter Kaufmann and George Stein-
er, and I gleaned great benefit from them all. But my
Prefatory Note ix
primary debt is to the Program in Comparative Litera­
ture of Princeton University, in particular its chairman,
Professor Robert Fagles, whose guidance and expendi­
ture of time extended long past the dissertational days
of this project. It is customary at times such as these to
grant a teacher the credit for what follows, while the
author accepts the blame. So extensively have I looted
this most impressive thinker, however, that I am tempted
to assign him some of the blame as well.