Tragic Hero Research Articles

On Eforgan’s <em>Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor</em>

On Eforgan's Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor (revised 2d edition). By Estel Eforgan. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2013. 296 pp., 978-0853039150 (pb). US $32.95.When actor and screenwriter Leslie Howard died in a mysterious plane crash over Bay of Biscay in June 1943, Guardian obituary described his most outstanding quality: the intensely English quality which made him popular everywhere.1 Even today, Howard is remembered primarily for his roles as English aristocrat in films such as The Scarlet Pimpernel (Harold Young, UK, 1934) and Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard, UK, 1938), or as tragic hero in productions like Of Human Bondage ( John Cromwell, USA, 1934) and Gone with Wind (Victor Fleming [George Cukor], USA, 1939). As a symbol of refinement and gentlemanliness, Howard's character spoke to social instability British audiences were experiencing due to political crisis and war. It was a time when conceptions of Englishness were being challenged-not least because of influx of Jewish migrants and refugees escaping persecution in Europe who created a space of difference in British society. Howard, as Estel Eforgan's meticulously researched biography, Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor, reveals, was nothing if not aware of social and political influences of his dramatic persona.Eforgan's biography is a compelling and thorough overview of Howard's life and career within context of social and political upheaval, migration, and war. As such it makes an important contribution to fields of media and cultural studies, as well as Jewish studies, revealing influential role that actors and filmmakers played in political arena. As Eforgan uncovers, there was more to Howard's persona as ideal Englishman than most people consider. Leslie Howard Steiner, whose father was a Jew and whose mother's origins were also Jewish (from Russia and East Prussia), was intensely committed to political activism and anti-Nazi efforts in years leading up to World War II. And while biography covers much more than that-including Howard's career on English stage in 1920s and launch of his stardom in New York and Hollywood-Eforgan makes clear that by mid-1930s Howard was making career and life choices that were influenced by politics. More specifically, he began to use his fame as a tool to resist Hitler's rise to power and persecution of Jews in Europe.Eforgan's sympathy for her subject will strike a chord with readers and personalize exhaustive amount of detail on Howard's life. The chapters that trace Howard's development as an actor, screenwriter, producer, director, and public intellectual from 1920s to 1940s are filled with lively anecdotes as well as with valuable comments on social and cultural milieu. Some of most entertaining points in biography include Eforgan's musings on Howard's stage mishaps and love affairs, and colorful characters who peppered actor's professional and personal lives. Yet it is way Eforgan frames Howard's career in connection with Jewish migration and persecution during rise of Nazism and at start of World War II that makes this biography especially noteworthy. Eforgan's view that these elements played a key role in actor's life is underscored in way biography is bookended by Leslie Howard's little-known Jewish roots. The work begins with a story of Howard's real family history in Vienna and England (3), and ends with his last speech before his death, when he laughed at someone's suggestion that he was idealised picture of perfect Englishman. He surprised press when he publicly admitted, suppose we do not have to tell them that I began as a Hungarian (229).Indeed, there is a good deal to discover about British Jewish migration, as well as assimilation, at turn of century from Eforgan's description of Leslie Howard's background. …

The Displaced Aristocrat as Tragic Hero in Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life

The Displaced Aristocrat as Tragic Hero in Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life

Death of the Statesman as Tragic Hero: Hans Morgenthau on the Vietnam War

In Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946), Hans Morgenthau celebrated the noble role of the statesman, whose tragic destiny entailed accepting the agonizing moral burden of committing lesser evils as the inescapable price for securing the greater good. In this elitist vision, the statesman is primarily accountable to personal conscience rather than to the poorly informed, undisciplined judgment of any democratic electorate. In focusing on the statesman's pivotal role, Morgenthau glossed over the ways the New Deal and the Second World War had transformed the institutional context within which American presidents made foreign policy. As he shifted his attention to American policy toward Vietnam in the late 1950s and the 1960s, however, his view of presidential leadership and the executive branch changed significantly. Morgenthau came to see the growth of the national security state and the unaccountable exercise of executive power as a twin threat to the foundations of republican government. His critique emphasized the pathologies of policymaking insulated within this state apparatus. He learned that one problem with the lesser-evil approach is that the moral distinctions on which it is predicated are relative and contingent in practice: that which was once proscribed from the policymaker's toolbox can readily become the prescribed instrument after the justifying precedent has been established.

Social Implications of Love Suicide in Early Modern English Drama

Love suicide was a situation lavishly employed by playwrights in early modern England. We generally regard as tragic heroes the dramatic star-crossed lovers who kill themselves onstage and we see their death as the sensationally pathetic climax of the play. On the other hand, in Elizabethan and early Stuart society, suicide, or, as it was called, ‘self-slaughter’ or ‘self-murder’, was considered both as a crime and as one of the most dreadful sins a Christian could possibly commit. I would suggest that the tension between these two conflicting views on suicide had a relevant emotional impact on the audiences to whom these plays were originally addressed. In order to prove this, I wish to analyse in particular domestic plays which stage the range of responses elicited within a community that has to cope with the suicide of one of its members.

Tragic Heroes of the Southwest: A Solo Guitar Performance Featuring the Music of Aaron Copland, Ennio Morricone, Luis Bacalov, and The Handsome Family

Tragic Heroes of the Southwest: A Solo Guitar Performance Featuring the Music of Aaron Copland, Ennio Morricone, Luis Bacalov, and The Handsome Family

<em>Don Quixote goes to Hollywood</em>: la reescritura del mito por Charles Chaplin

The character of Charlot, created by Charles Chaplin, rewrites the myth of don Quixote in silent movies. While sharing the roots of the picaresque tradition, they represent a harsh criticism of modernity in all its stages. A distinction has to be made between the plain vaudevillesque humor of Charlot in the brief comic strips from 1914 and its tragi-comical shaping in some short films from 1915 up to Modern Times (1936). Beyond their mere physical aspects and their hilarious exploits, an underlying tragic heroism and idealism lead them to uphold all good causes and to support the wronged ones while they also struggle for survival. Charlot combines the comic with the sublime and, as well as the ingenious hidalgo, his soul becomes gradually fuller, deeper and more human. For all these reasons, this character could be regarded as a “quixote” of the big screen.

Representation of Dangerous Sexuality in Interwar Non-Fiction Sex Hygiene Films: A Franco-German Comparison

In the interwar period VD prevention films accompanied the introduction of new "permanent" treatments for syphilis. While they still warned the audience about the dangers of infection, these films were primarily designed to inform about these new methods for curing syphilis. These methods could only be effective if the infected patient immediately consulted a certified doctor (as opposed to a charlatan) upon experiencing the first symptoms. The objectives of the commissioners of health education films tended to go beyond simply conveying a propaganda message. They adhere to and act on the educational potential that the film medium offers to an adult audience. In addressing subjects like sexual health, the films speak to the intimate lives of the audience members, faced with characters whose sexual behaviour is meant to echo their own or that of their friends and relatives. In order to properly raise awareness, the film must escort them, help them overcome their disarray, and persuade them that they are morally able to adopt the necessary measures to avoid contagion. This paper consists in an in-depth comparative study of three anti-venereal films produced and shown between 1928 and 1931, a short but pivotal period in the development of continental European syphilis prevention films. The three films illustrate two forms of screenplay action. In the French films, the patient is identified with a tragic hero and the medical institution embodied by a providential man. Contrary to these French films, the German film tends to display a more matter-of-fact-approach, which is not meant to downplay the risks but rather to clearly identify and address the community exposed to danger and to present how the infection is taken care of once it is diagnosed. Here I consider these films together to show how different ways of conveying the same medical discourse were adopted to adjust to national cinematographic environments.

Folie, première et seconde mort

AimsThe author sets out to show that catering for madness, conceived as psychic death, requires the framework which, in other branches of medicine, configures the caregiver's implication in favour of life to be broadened. MethodsAn in-depth analysis of the ideas of the French psychiatrist Georges Lantéri-Laura is presented, in particular those set out in his Essai sur la discordance dans la psychiatrie contemporaine (in collaboration with Martine Gros, 1992). He refers to the nineteenth century French psychiatrist Philippe Chaslin, who supported the idea that in psychiatry the boundaries between health and illness, like those between psychic life and death, need to be envisaged in a broader perspective, giving central importance to the subjective experience of the individual presenting symptoms. The present paper details the proposal by Jacques Lacan, on the subject of the stages described by Sophocles in Antigone's progress towards death, of distinguishing first death, second death, and the “zone between two deaths”. It describes this model, along with illustrations from literature. For instance, in Heinrich von Kleist's Prince of Homburg, the hero, rather than a life without honour, prefers to enter immortality by the heroic acceptation of his punishment. We underline how this radical option can be accompanied by the experience of an ultimate triumph, transcending the value that the individual attaches to life. ResultsThis leads on to an approach to madness returning to what was known as “alienation”. This concept, reappraised as an upraising (or uprising) of the subject, forms the question that is worth asking of the subject, that of his freedom (Henry Ey, Jacques Lacan). We stress the approach letting people know that the tragic hero expresses by his detachment from life, and his conviction that there is a life after existence has gone, because the being of the person said to be departed remains present in what remains of his acts. DiscussionThis critical reflection leads us to a new conception of grief and mourning. We need to think beyond the stage of mourning or grieving described by Freud, as this process could replace the investment in a departed object by investment in a substitute object. Like Philippe Ariès, we consider that the most important, most invested objects remain, and should remain, irreplaceable. The person mourning should adopt an attitude of respect that allows the figure of the departed to continue towards his destiny in the remembrance of the survivors. This analysis of mourning, integrating the destiny of the image of the departed person, is a head-on criticism of the present trend in society of reducing, masking or denying death, and its essential consequences on the identity of mourners. ConclusionsThe Hindu thought, with the principle of Nirvana, is an encouragement to fully accept the encroachment of death on life, and life on death, which Lacan studied in Œdipus at Colonus. We recall the case of the Papin sisters, and its literary echoes, showing that the uprising against death merits consideration in a wider perspective. Likewise, we can recall the regrettable tradition in psychiatric asylums of burying patients in nameless tombs.

Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatryby Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., with Ogi Ogas; New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2015

Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatryby Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., with Ogi Ogas; New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2015

Political displacement at the point of reception

This essay considers the implications for political theory when the historical mediations highlighted by classical reception studies move to the centre of the analysis. Through critical engagements with work by two political theorists — Bonnie Honig’s Antigone, Interrupted (Cambridge, 2013) and Jeanne Morefield’s Empires without Imperialism (Oxford, 2014) — I probe a politics of reception in which contestation over the meanings of Ancient Greece becomes a site for contemporary political (self-) understanding. Empires without Imperialism explores how early twentieth- and twenty-first-century liberal imperialists deployed ‘strategies of antiquity’ that displaced illiberal political practices onto Athens, and rhetorically enacted a tortured (and torturing) liberal state as tragic hero on the world stage. Antigone, Interrupted intervenes in current debates concerning sovereignty, in addition to questioning current preoccupations with human finitude, vulnerability, and suffering, by critically engaging Sophocles’ Antigone and its modern reception. In each case, the author’s attention to a dialogue between past and present proves politically and theoretically productive, not by exposing implausible readings of ancient texts but by showing how a ‘universe of political meaning’ is configured through classical (re)appropriations, and likewise, how dilemmas of contemporary politics (sovereignty, empire) are made intelligible through ongoing dialogue with the past.

On Tragic Heroes: A Comparative Study of Hamlet and The Orphan of Chao

This essay makes a comparative study between the tragic heroes in Shakespearean tragedies and classical Chinese tragedies with Hamlet and The Orphan of Chao as examples. Shakespeare usually depicts a noble person’s final calamity resulting from his own defect in personality; most of the heroes in classical Chinese tragedies are common people with a perfect moral quality, who suffer a lot to defend justice and end up with a good result.

Landscape with a Tragic Hero: F. Scott Fitzgerald'sTrimalchio

AbstractDrawing attention to both characters and landscapes, this essay proposes a reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Trimalchio that assesses its differences from and similarities to The Great Gatsby. In the first part of the essay a comparison between the two novels shows that the behavior and features of Jay Gatsby in Trimalchio are borrowed from Petronius's Trimalchio and Homer's Odysseus. As a consequence, the first Jay Gatsby turns out to be a more vulgar and astute version of his second and more successful incarnation; he is, nevertheless, a coherent persona. We have ultimately two Gatsbys and, therefore, two different novels. In spite of that, these two texts share the same literary landscape, of which Fitzgerald was evidently sure from the very beginning of his composition process. The second part of the essay focuses on the ways in which Fitzgerald consciously grafted into Gatsby's American landscape the imperialistic vision exposed in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In this respect, the opposition Fitzgerald—through his narrator Nick Carraway—established between the East and Midwest of the USA also allows for a surprising but compelling connection with David Foster Wallace, an author strongly anchored in his Midwestern point of view.

中國神話 비극영웅의 類型과 形象的 특징

中國神話 비극영웅의 類型과 形象的 특징

The lost territories: Thailand's history of national humiliation

It is a cherished belief among Thai people that their country was never colonized. Yet politicians, scholars, and other media fi gures chronically inveigh against Western colonialism and the imperialist theft of Thai territory. Thai historians insist that the country adapted to the Western-dominated world order more successfully than other Southeast Asian kingdoms and celebrate their proud history of independence. But many Thai leaders view the West as a threat and portray Thailand as a victim. Clearly ThailandAEs relationship with the West is ambivalent. The Lost Territories explores this conundrum by examining two important and contrasting strands of Thai historiography: the well-known Royal-Nationalist ideology, which celebrates ThailandAEs long history of uninterrupted independence; and what the author terms oNational Humiliation discourse,o its mirror image. Shane Strate examines the origins and consequences of National Humiliation discourse, showing how the modern Thai state has used the idea of national humiliation to sponsor a form of anti-Western nationalism. Unlike triumphalist Royal-Nationalist narratives, National Humiliation history depicts Thailand as a victim of Western imperialist bullying. Focusing on key themes such as extraterritoriality, trade imbalances, and territorial loss, National Humiliation history maintains that the West impeded ThailandAEs development even while professing its support and cooperation. Although the state remains the hero in this narrative,it is a tragic heroism defined by suffering and foreign oppression. Through his insightful analysis of state and media sources, Strate demonstrates how Thai politicians have deployed National Humiliation imagery in support of ethnic chauvinism and military expansion. He shows how the discourse became the ideological foundation of ThailandAEs irredentist strategy, the stateAEs anti-Catholic campaign, and its acceptance of pan-Asianism during World War II; and how the ostate as victimo narrative has been used by politicians to redefine Thai identity and elevate the military into the role of national savior. The Lost Territories will be of particular interest to historians and political scientists for the light it sheds on many episodes of Thai foreign policy, including the contemporary dispute over Preah Vihear. The bookAEs analysis of the manipulation of historical memory will interest academics exploring similar phenomena worldwide.

Insight Agonistes: a READING OF SOPHOCLES’s OEDIPUS THE KING

In this reading of Sophocles’s Oedipus the King, the author suggests that insight can be thought of as the main protagonist of the tragedy. He personifies this depiction of insight, calling it Insight Agonistes, as if it were the sole conflicted character on the stage, albeit masquerading at times as several other characters, including gods, sphinxes, and oracles. This psychoanalytic reading of the text lends itself to an analogy between psychoanalytic process and Sophocles’s tragic hero. The author views insight as always transgressing against, always at war with a conservative, societal, or intrapsychic chorus of structured elements. A clinical vignette is presented to illustrate this view of insight.

"It Was Bryan and Sullivan Who did the Trick" How William Jennings Bryan and Illinois’ Roger C. Sullivan Brought About the Nomination of Woodrow Wilson in 1912

THE NOMINATION OF WOODROW WILSON for the presidency in the summer of 1912 remains significant. As the nations chief executive, Wilson brought the progressive movement to a climax with his New Free- dom that saw the creation of the Federal Reserve and the expansion of federal anti-trust powers and regulatory authority. Indeed, it is his administration to which most historians trace the beginnings of centralized control characterizing American society in the twentieth century. As a world leader, he took the responsibility for cobbling together a peace following World War I designed to create an international order of cooperation and disarmament, introducing in the process notions of self-determination. That he failed so miserably in this has only added a patina of tragic heroism to an image that has remained intact despite recent trends towards a more critical analysis. Whether as an object of adoration or antipathy, however, his importance as president remains unquestioned.1Remarkably, for all his historical prominence and the breathless accounts of his many biographers, Wilson's elevation to the presidential nomination was neither preordained, nor in the end especially the result of his own qualities and endeavors. Though assembling an impressive campaign team that labored mightily on his behalf, his selection was to come about largely through dynamics within his party over which he exercised relatively little influence. Rather than Wilson's noble ideals or the devotion he inspired, his nomination resulted from William Jennings Bryan's efforts to manage the 1912 convention and the fears this caused about his intentions among the conservative Democrats led by Roger C. Sullivan of Illinois.By 1912, Bryan was one of the giants of his age (Figure 1). To many, he was the embodiment of the Jeffersonian spirit, sent as a champion of the people and of American rural values to confront the encroachments of industrialization, urbanization, and modernity. To others, he was but a small-minded and ignorant bigot, who was perfectly willing to stoke and take advantage of the fears of farmers and others to promote his own ambitions. However, for nearly two decades none questioned his impor- tance as the dominant figure of the Democratic Party.He was born in 1861 in Salem, Illinois, and was raised and educated in the Sucker State (towards which he always maintained a proprietary interest). As a young man, he took his law degree to Nebraska's green acres. From there he was elected to two terms as a United States representative. He then became editor of the Omaha World-Herald. Gifted with great energy, a rich baritone voice, an impressive appearance, a flare for both composing and delivering speeches, and a burning conviction of the righteousness of his causes, he dedicated himself to becoming one of thecountry's leading advocates of free silver. By the 1896 Democratic convention, he was widely known but not considered a serious presidential possibility (Illinois' reform governor, lohn Altgeld, among others, thought him a damn fool). Everything changed when he delivered his famous Cross of Gold speech that brought him the nomination. Though campaigning indefatigably, he lost to William McKinley. Four years later, he was again nominated and defeated. By 1904, he and the populist wing of the party he led were widely judged (wrongly, as it proved) to be spent forces.2Where William Jennings Bryan made himself a living symbol of the rural experience and values so central to the early growth of the nation, Roger Charles Sullivan exemplified the possibilities and outlooks of a younger urban and industrial America (Figure 2). Bryan could trace his ancestry to pre-revolutionary Virginia Protestant farmers (it is claimed he was related to Daniel Boone). Sullivans parents were relatively recent immigrants arriving in the 1850s and settling in the small town of Belvidere, Illinois. Roger was born there in 1861, supposedly over his fathers saloon. …

Late Sophocles: the hero's evolution in Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus

Only a few plays by Sophocles one of the great tragic playwrights from Classical Athens have survived, and each of them dramatizes events from the rich store of myths that framed literature and art. Sophocles treatment evokes issues that were vividly contemporary for Athenian audiences of the Periclean age: How could the Athenians incorporate older, aristocratic ideas about human excellence into their new democratic society? Could citizens learn to be morally excellent, or were these qualities only inherited? What did it mean to be a creature who knows that he or she must die?Late Sophoclestraces the evolution of the Sophoclean hero through the final three plays, Electra, Philoctetes, andOedipus at Colonus. The book s main thesis, that Sophocles reimagined the nature of the tragic hero in his last three works, is developed inductively through readings of the plays. This balanced approach, in which a detailed argument about the plays is offered in a format accessible to nonspecialists, is unusual perhaps unique in contemporary Classical scholarship on Sophocles.This book will appeal to nonspecialist readers of serious literature as well as scholars of classical and other literatures. While including ample guidance for those not familiar with the plays, Late Sophoclesgoes beyond a generalized description of what happens in the plays to offer a clear, jargon-free argument for the enduring importance of Sophocles plays. The argument s implications for longstanding interpretational issues will be of interest to specialists. All Greek is translated.

Hans Mayer, Last Knight of the Austrian School, Vienna Branch

Hans Mayer (1879-1955) has been portrayed either as a tragic hero or, more often, as an evil traitor who presided, as the school’s only representative at the University of Vienna, over the decline of the Austrian school in its home country for almost three decades. While from the outset his goal had been to secure the survival of the school in Vienna’s increasingly hostile academic environment, in the course of time he invested most of his energies not in his scientific work but in unending conflicts in the realm of academic politics. Thus for Mayer the school’s defense became more and more an end in itself, justifying any sacrifice on its behalf, even that of his own reputation, for example during the Nazi rule in Austria, 1938-45. This paper tells the story of this strange academic life and its repercussions for the evolution of Austrian economics.

The Arab translator as hero

The article examines fiction where the protagonist is an Arab translator to explore the significance of centralizing the role of the translator and what theoretical implications about translation can be extracted from such works. The image of the translator varies in these works from that of a tragic hero, a romantic hero, an ironic hero, a collaborating hero, a comic hero, and an impotent hero. Whereas all these works discuss translation and what it implies for cultural exchange and encounters, the emphasis is on fidelity versus creative license in the process of translation. These concepts invariably relate to power since fidelity is governed by a prior text where the translator is captive to wording while in creative rendering the translator is on equal footing with the author and may accomplish a text parallel to the source. The underlying power dimension and the failure of translators in these works point obliquely to the anxiety of intellectuals in the face of authority.

Benjamin Duterrau: The Art of Conciliation

The Black War in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) sought the complete ‘extirpation’ of the island's Indigenous nations. It ended with an historic agreement authorized by Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur in 1831. Benjamin Duterrau's The Conciliation (1840), considered to be Australia's first epic history painting, commemorates this moment, providing what the Australian Museum of Democracy considers as one of Australia's Founding Images.By examining details of the artist's life, and concurrent developments in the British Academy, this paper suggests new thematic influences on the painting, and significantly extends its implications for our understanding of a significant, but under-acknowledged period in Australian military history. I argue that Duterrau's painting must be considered as far more than an example of parallels between colonial sentiments in North America and Australia. The Conciliation is described as an allegorical tale of conciliation, deception, and tragic heroism; its roots in the art of the French Revolution and Milton's epic drama of Paradise Lost. The implications of this research demonstrate the ongoing need for critical reading of Australia's early visual history, to enable more complete understandings of the role that long-established European narratives have played in the foundation of relationships with colonized peoples.