Persistence of Baroque Trauerspiel in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as a Postmodern Literature: Rejection of Metanarrative

Abstract

Metanarrative is a conventional style of narration in literature which features tragedy in Greek model’s sense. In this type, metanarrative follows the conventions set by Aristotle; these conventions range different ones; time, one of the most important elements of narration, is linear. Therefore, in this regard, tragedy follows succession of events based on chronological orders. Moreover, metanarrative signifies stability of human deeds and meanings; therefore, what human beings do or say is stable and truthful. Moreover, in metanarrative, death is considered to be the ceasing moment of life in which continuation of life takes place in afterlife. This means that there is no ending or beginning since life is just a confusing cycle. Melancholy is used in Freudian sense that signifies suffering from hallucination and paranoia. These key concepts have composed metanarrative in conventional sense, and consequently metanarrative has been the base of tragedies in Greek sense. However, by emergence of Benjamin’s ideas regarding Trauerspiel, the fundamentals of metanarrative were challenged. Therefore, postmodern narrative started to take the place of conventional metanarrative, so that the ideas of time, language, melancholy, and death approached postmodern features. The failure of metanarrative and approach to postmodern literature can be traced in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in which there is no chronological order within the play. Moreover, conveying meaning through language fails, and life as an endless cycle, dominates the whole play. Consequently, the metanarrative and tragedy genre of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead can be replaced by postmodern narrative and Baroque Trauerspiel.