Making Sense of the Unutterable: The Wonder of Tragic Pleasure in Early Modern Dramaturgy

Abstract

Early modern tragedians present us with a theory of dramaturgy wherein the view of the body as the mind's instrument is reversed, articulating an ontology in which the mind becomes the body's instrument. During these moments, it is not the audience that create the meanings of the body's language. Rather, the cognitive and emotional states conveyed by the body are generated through a pre-linguistic mode of communication (i.e. gestures, sweat, trembling, etc.) shared by audience members and actors alike. In turning to somatic communication and perception, tragedians aim at conveying to audiences what cannot enter the symbolic order of signification and understanding: unutterable, tragic sorrow and pain. This approach to tragic dramaturgy is often employed by early modern playwrights in order to cause a sense of wonder in the audience members, which, in turn, arouses pleasure and opens new vistas of thought against which to reconsider Aristotle's theory of catharsis.