Tragedy and Timon of Athens

Abstract

One of the most vexed terms in literary criticism is tragedy. As critics we often denounce the popular use of the term when the death of the family pet is called a terrible yet we would be hard put to give a precise explanation of a more exact sense that would cover all the uses in our critical writing. The model of Greek tragedy, the ideas in Aristotle's treatise, the examples of Early Modern English and seventeenth-century French plays, the theories of Hegel and Nietzsche, and countless modern texts and critical analyses: all these come together to offer a wide span of mutually contradictory senses. Is tragedy a subgenre of drama, defined by a set of formal elements? Is it a vision of the world that is represented in different genres? Does it entail a philosophical or theological stance? Is it dependent on a specific set of social conditions? Has it died, or is it always with us? Is the term neutrally descriptive or honorific, so that to be a tragedy is to be great literature? One might well argue that there is no essential definition of the term, that a critic's only task is to make clear what he or she means when using it and then to adhere to that definition. There is much to be said for that view, but there are perils in a laissez-faire approach to terminology. First, it is easy for both reader and writer to slide between different senses, generating confusion and false arguments. Thus, because a play incorporates a set of formal criteria that constitute tragedy, it may be assumed to embody a distinctive tragic vision. Second, some definitions of tragedy incorporate dubious assumptions: since Christian tragedy is defined (by some) as impossible, no play written by a presumed Christian can be a tragedy. Third, finding one's way among writings with a wide spread of contradictory meanings of tragedy is confusing; broad agreement on the general sense of key terms is important for a critical conversation to ensue. I should like to offer some principles for regulating the free market in definitions of tragedy, not quite a definition proposal for one preferred sense, since I believe in the value of critics' experimenting with the term, but some guides that should help to clarify the conversation. I shall use Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, that most problematic of plays, as a test of the principles offered. It is a play that pushes the limits of tragedy, that may even have got into the section of the First Folio as an afterthought, (1) and that has inspired much controversy about its generic location. (2) In what ways is it sensible and useful to talk about Timon as a tragedy? My governing assumption is that the most valuable function of the generic term tragedy is clarification of the individual play, not the other way around. Timon offers a good test of how the principles I offer can make the idea of tragedy helpful in understanding a difficult play. Perhaps the main peril in critical ideas of tragedy is what might be called generic enthusiasm. Because many great works of literature from Aeschylus to Racine and beyond are tragedies, the genre itself is often sanctified: to be a tragedy is to earn a place in the pantheon, and not to be a tragedy is to fail of deification. Tragedy and epic are especially subject to this attitude, unlike the sonnet, for example. No one thinks that writing a sonnet is equivalent to writing a great poem. At most doing so demonstrates a certain technical competence. But in the same way, if one's definition of tragedy is formal, there seems to be no justification for making it also honorific: there can be and are many bad, boring, and insipid tragedies. Judgments of quality do not follow necessarily from the fact that a text matches a set of formal criteria. Rather it is tragedy defined as a distinctive vision that is the usual source of the honorific weight: tragedy is great because it asserts the truth of a profound view of the world or portrays the world as embodying that truth. …