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MIMESIS,
HERO, HARMATIA and CATHARSIS In ARISTOTLE, SOPHOCLES and EURIPIDES
by: Maricarmen Martínez
Tragedy
is then, an imitation of a noble and complete action,
having the proper magnitude; it employs language
that has been
artistically
enhanced by each of the kinds of linguistic adornment,
applied
separately in the various parts of the play; it is presented
in a dramatic, not narrative form, and achieves, through
the
representation of pitiable and fearful incidents,
the catharsis of
such pitiable and fearful incidents. (Chapter VI,
lines 4-11)
Tragedy, thus, is the representation or mimesis of a
noble and complete action. According to
Aristotle, imitation or mimesis is a pleasurable form of representing the world
"as if," that is to say, the creation of possible scenarios that
allows us to understand the world, as well as to make sense of circumstances
that "would distress us when we see them in reality"
(Aristotle, 22). This pleasure is associated with learning
since artistic mimesis permits thee recognition of a universal truth embodied
in the particular deeds that constitute the tragic plot. Therefore,
Aristotelian mimesis differs from Platonic mimesis. For Plato -- at least in
the orthodox interpretation -- particulars are imperfect imitations of
universals. These universals or ideas are both logical and ontologically prior
to particulars. Knowledge for Plato is, then, the apprehension of the universal
qua universal (noesis).
However, the orthodox interpretation of Plato fails
to notice that Plato's dialectics presents particulars as empirical indicators
or manifestations of universal forms or ideas. Aristotle also believes that
universals can be recognized in particulars, or that universal truths can be
artistically represented in the particular actions within the tragic plot.
Tragedy, thus, as an imitative art allows the spectator to "see" the
universal in the particular and from the latter infers an universal truth. For
this reason art, and specifically tragedy, is a milieu for the exercise of
cognitive activity. The discovery of the universal in the particular allows the
spectator to discover some insight or truth. This discovery is therefore pleasurable.
Tragedy conveys an intellectual or philosophical
insight that allows the audience or reader to understand, at a more general or
universal level, the true nature of the particular conflict that the author
represents. The spectator achieves an intellectual clarification of the
particular tragic tension. This cognitive act or process of intellectual
clarification is called catharsis. I will return shortly to a more
detailed discussion of the term catharsis since this is essential to
understand Aristotle theory of tragedy.
Mimesis within a work of art requires that the hero or
heroine can be portrayed as a credible representative of humankind. That is to
say, each particular spectator should see him/herself represented in the
hero/heroine. For this identification to occur, the actions of the heroic
characters should be recognized as genuinely human actions. The hero/heroine is
therefore noble or spoudaios e.g. a person that can intellectually be
recognized as a plausible standard of human decency; neither too human, nor a
villain; a person above the norm. This particular hero/heroine is the
embodiment of some type of general formula for ethical conduct. His/her
misfortune is therefore undeserved and causes pity and fear in the audience.
The hero’s or heroine’s tragic flaw or hamartia is an unfortunate error
or judgment or miscalculation that causes pity and fear in each one of those
individuals in the audience that see themselves represented in him. Pity
because of his/her undeserved downfall, fear because as rational creatures they
recognize the fragility of the human intellect and are therefore vulnerable to
make the same kind of mistake. In other words the expression "noble and
complete action" should be taken to mean the behavior of a hero/heroine
who can serve as an ethical standard for the majority of human beings. His/her
mistake or tragic flaw, (hamartia), cannot be, ex-hypothesis, the result
of a serious crime or of an angelical deed, but a miscalculation, an error of
judgment.
Construing hamartia as an error of judgment
is consistent with the intellectual or cognitive dimension of mimesis
.The hero/heroine deserves pity because neither his/her action, nor the
intention that moves it is evil. He or she simply misses the mark. This error
of judgment arouses feelings of fear in the audience because each individual in
it recognizes, mimetically, his/her own vulnerability and the awareness that he
or she might be prone to make the same kind of mistake. For Aristotle, a truly
tragic hero or heroine is "a person who is neither perfect in virtue and
justice, nor someone who falls into misfortune through vice and depravity; but
rather one who succumbs through some miscalculation” (Golden 29). Pity and fear
are the tragic emotions aroused in the audience by a noble hero who commits an
intellectual mistake
It has been shown that tragic mimesis has an intellectual
dimension, and therefore the effect that it has in the audience should reflect
that cognitive import. Thus, catharsis should be construed as a
process of intellectual clarification that allows for the understanding of pity
and fear as tragic emotions experienced by the audience and represented by the
tragic plot.
In Chapter XIV (line 1453) Aristotle states: "we should not
seek every pleasure through tragedy but only the one proper to it"
(Aristotele 23).
This pleasure
An ideal tragedy fosters men’s and women’s needs for
wondering, it stimulates their intellectual curiosity, and encourages the
clarification of issues related to human nature. A plot that is linked together
by the laws of necessity and probability, with a coherent and credible
structure, is the best suited to generate the learning experience associated
with catharsis. In such a plot, as it was mentioned above, a noble hero
or heroine falls from fortune to misfortune by committing a crime that is the
result of poor judgment, a blurring of the intellectual faculties or a poor
assessment of evidence. The noble hero or heroine misses the mark and the
audience experiences pity and fear as intellectual emotions that are clarified
cathartically as the plot finally unfolds. In sum:
(...)
the goal of tragic mimesis must be an intellectually pleasant
learning
experience concerned with the phenomenon of pity and
fear
in human existence which Aristotle has designated as the
appropriate
object of tragic imitation. Since catharsis is generally
recognized
as representing the goal and essential pleasure of
tragic imitation, this interpretation identifies catharsis
with the
process of intellectual clarification. (Golden, 29)
The value of Aristotle's Poetics lies in the
provision of structural elements that could create an ideal tragedy. Thus, the
definition of tragedy quoted above should be taken as a prescription
rather than a description, both for the analysis and the creation of a tragic
work. Yet, it could be argued that "the tragic" for Aristotle is
precisely the encounter of a noble hero/heroine with an undeserved fate or
misfortune, which in turn, results from the hero's or heroine’s poor use of
his/her intellectual faculties. For Aristotle, tragic tension arises when an
individual who displays arete or nobility faces a downfall caused by a
crime for which he or she is only intellectually guilty. Again, there is nothing in such a hero or
heroine that could point to a serious moral flaw. The price paid for
intellectual mistakes in Aristotle theory of tragedy are simply too high. The
spectators pity the hero or heroine and experiences fear in the face of their
own intellectual vulnerability.
Sophocles's, Oedipus Tyrannous (O.T.)
offers the clearest example of the ideal tragedy that Aristotle prescribes
since it revolves around the figure of a spoudaios hero who falls into
misfortune by virtue of various intellectual mistakes. A brief examination of
the O.T. will provide a model for the creation of an ideal tragedy that
can be used for the analysis of Euripides' s The Bacchae. It will also
allow for some insight into the unique conception of "the tragic"
proposed by Euripides when compared with Sophocles's proposal of tragic tension.
Oedipus reaches the land of Thebes. There, heroically, he solves
the riddle of the Sphinx and is accepted by the citizens as their king. He
marries Jocasta, the widow queen, and seems to have ruled with wisdom and a
sense of justice. His city becomes victim of a plague. His subjects trust his
tenacity and wisdom, recognize his skills as a ruler, and ask for help. Thus, the priest says:
because we thought of you as of a God,
but rather judging you the first of men
in all the chances of this life and when
we mortals have to do with more than man.
You
came and by your coming saved our city,
freed us from tribute which we paid of old
to the Sphinx, cruel singer. This you did
in
virtue of no knowledge we could give you,
in virtue of no teaching: it was god
that aided you, men say, and you are held
with God's assistance to have saved our lives.
Now Oedipus, Greatest in all men's eyes,
here falling at your feet we will entreat you,
find us some strength for rescue. (line 31)
As the evidence accumulates, Oedipus suspicion that
he could in fact, be the very same murderer that he is seeking, increases. He
is provided with counter-evidence that calms his suspicion. Jocasta tells him
that robbers killed her husband at a crossroads. Now, Oedipus has in fact
killed a man in self-defense on his way from Corinth to Thebes. This piece of
information feeds the suspicion that the man he killed could have indeed been
his father, and that the oracle was infallible. If the Oracle was true, his
attempt to remain morally blameless are turning out to be futile. Yet, Jocasta
said "robbers;" "robbers" is plural but he is an
individual. There was no one with him at the crossroads. Therefore, he is not
the murderer that he is seeking. Briefly the doubt of having killed his father
and being his mother's husband fades. In addition, Jocasta tells Oedipus that
the son she bore with Laius was abandoned to death in the mountains of Cithaeronn. Obviously, if Jocasta's son is dead and he
is alive he cannot possibly be his mother's husband.
Oedipus intellectual hamartia stems from the
fact that as any other human being he operates within the realm of beliefs.
Thus, believing that "p is q" does not imply that it is true that
"p is q". Moreover, human beliefs are not divine truths and it will
take Oedipus some further evidence to unveil a more profound truth: the
mysterious character of Apollo. The evidence needed comes from both the
messenger and herdsman who serve as eye witnesses to Oedipus identity: The
herdsman gave infant Oedipus, son of Laius and Jocasta, to the messenger who in
turn gave the child to Polybous and Merope, the couple Oedipus took to be his
real parents. Yet, Oedipus needs the first hand testimony of the herdsman in
order to discover the falsity of his belief and to understand the divine wisdom
of Apollo.
Oedipus reached the edge of the ethical realm. His
emotional responses go through a crescendo from anger, to outrage, and
from there, to thinking about committing murder. However, Oedipus does not
deceive others or himself and decides to follows the inquiry where it leads.
Thus, when the herdsman is about to reveal the truth and says: O God, I am on
the brink of frightful speech," Oedipus answers: “And I of frightful
hearing. But I must hear” (162). Oedipus’s spoudaios character
remains intact. He has successfully passed the test Apollo has devised for him.
Oedipus does not choose to stop the inquiry. His commitment to truth is in
harmony with his obedience both to moral and civil laws. In several moments of
the play he has the alternative of violating the law to preserve his well-being
and his position within the social hierarchy. But he does not. Sophocles's play
presents a hero capable of performing a "noble and complete" action.
But Oedipus, like any other human being, can make various intellectual errors
that can lead to a tragic downfall.
In effect, in Sophoclean Weltanschauung human
beings can appease the virulent power of the deity through the execution of
acts that elevate their humanity to its highest potential. The realm of this
action is ethical. Oedipus navigates in this milieu in order to unveil the
truth about himself and about his god's intentions and plans. The moment of
truth is reached as "frightful hearing", but Oedipus "must
hear." Knowing the truth leads him to blind himself, perhaps after the
recognition that he really could not "see" before. Now he understands
that "it was Apollo that brought this bitterness.”
whichever name you choose to call her by.
It was she who gave to man his nourishment of grain.
But after her there came the son of Semele,
who matched her present by inventing liquid wine
as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift,
suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it
comes sleep; with it the oblivion of the troubles
of the day. (lines 275-284)
of cool water came bubbling up. Another drove
her fennel in the ground, and where it struck the
earth,
at the touch of god, a spring of wine poured out.
Those who wanted milk scratched at the soil
with bare fingers and the white milk came welling
up.
Pure honey spurted, streaming, from their wands.
(lines, 704-714)
The Pre-reflexive Dionysian forces produce awe:
(...) And then you could have seen
a single
woman with bare hands
tear a fat calf, still bellowing with fright,
in two, while others clawed the heifers to pieces.
There were ribs and cloven hooves scattered
everywhere,
and scraps smeared with blood hung from fir trees.
And bulls, their ranging fury gathered in their
horns,
lower their heads to charge, then fell, stumbling
to the earth, pulled down by hordes of women
and stripped of flesh and skin more quickly, sire,
than you could blink your royal eyes. (lines
745-746)
Thus, Agave has to come to her senses in order to understand the
obscure nature of the cult that lead to the sparagmos of her own son.
"What were we doing in the mountain? "she asks. "You were
mad," Cadmus answers "The whole city was possessed" (lines, 1294-1295).
but do not wipe your madness off on me.
By god, I'll make him pay, [Dionysus] the man who
taught you
this folly of yours. (lines 343-346)
In effect Dionysus inhabits quietly in the very center
of civilized community, lurking, waiting to attack. Eventually his restless
force will burst and destroy the penthean palace or any other structure created
by humankind's Apollinean skills. This presence of Dionysus in the human sphere
is unknown to Pentheus. Dionysus comes to Thebes disguised as a man since
humanity is precisely that, a costume he wears, a facade that has to be
unmasked. Behind the human mask lies another form of existence that is totally
alien to civilization. Dionysus's gift to mankind allows forgetting the grief
of what is hidden behind the human mask: an elementary or primary form of
existence which is brutal, absurd or senseless. Thus Pentheus’s hamartia takes
a more profound significance: He honestly believes that he can liberate the
state from the ecstatic power of Dionysus, without recognizing that such power
is also inscribed in him.
Apollo and Prometheus encourage or foster humans to
increase their awareness of reality. Dionysus is treacherous. His gift to
mankind is meant to intoxicate it in order to completely block out a reality
that is hostile. Dionysus reminds men to forget the insignificance of their
existence. This might seem like a kind present, since discovering that
existence is both brutal and absurd is not a pleasurable insight. Yet,
Euripides seems interested in presenting this darker side of Dionysus, to
experience the grief (penthos) or anguish of discovering that the
operative force of the universe is hostile to human intellectual and ethical
projects.
Nevertheless, Dionysus has a reason for coming to
Greece. The people of Cadmus and especially, Pentheus have denied his
divinity. Humankind's impiety has a result the rejection of Dionysus
supernatural nature making an illegitimate deity out of him, and are propagating
the lie or blasphemy that he is the son of Semele with a mortal. But a god
whose divinity has been denied explodes into wrath and seeks vengeance. Nothing
is more terrible than the wrath of an angry god.
Dionysus' wrath and thirst of vengeance, although
horrible is understandable. He is indeed a deity, the powerful god of nature
whose existence cannot be denied or forgotten. His force and power cannot be
annulled by "quibbling logic," yet he has allowed us to forget
adversity by giving us wine and at the same time demands from us to accept him.
In sum, Dionysus is angry because we, pentheian humans, have "revolted
against his divinity and thrusted him off our offerings and forgotten his name
in their prayers" (line 45)
It is necessary then for a god to defend his
divinity just as it is necessary for a man to defend his humanity. Dionysus has
to prove that his god and his demonstration would have devastating consequences
for pentheian reason. Indeed, in a confrontation between Dionysian nature and
pentheian reason Dionysus is bound to win. Pentheian rationality will prove to
be pentheian grief.
As it has been shown, Dionysus has the power to
liberate humans from their moral scruples. He makes the old dance like the
young; mothers abandon their children and destroy the palace of penthean
rationality. Moral anarchy, and the disruption of civility follow from
Dionysus. Eventually human intellectual faculties are faced with the law of
excluded middle: either to surrender to Dionysus or to abide to the laws and
institutions of civilization. The two forces cannot exist together. They cancel
each other out. They are mutually exclusive. The dichotomy is inescapable:
civilized society versus nature; Prometheus, Apollo and Athena versus Dionysus.
But, since human beings are part of nature (whether they admit it or not) it is
always possible to let the instinctual part free, destroying thereby the
ethical realm.
There is no philosophical, scientific or political
organization that can overthrow Dionysus, since the deity does not belong to
the realm of ideology. He cannot be known through Aristotelian logic or through
intellectual deconstruction of discourse, but by surrendering to his rites.
When the maenads surrender to Dionysus they destroy the foundations of
civilization. Dionysus demands that we recognize that his power is bigger than
civilization or as Tiresias puts it:
whatever subtleties this clever age invents.
People may say: "Aren't you ashamed ! At you age,
going dancing, wreathing your head with ivy?"
Well, I am not ashamed. Did the god declare
that just the young or just the old should dance?
No, he desires honor from all mankind.
He wants no one excluded from his worship. (lines
202-209)
The fundamental question is how to operate in a universe in
which Dionysus is a bona fide force. Faced with this task Pentheus does what
any statesperson would do: stop the cult that threatens to destroy civilized
society. Thus, Pentheus promises "to make pay the man who taught you
(Thebes) this follies" (line 450). But the power of the state seems
ineffective, the Bacchae escape and Dionysus shows no sign of being intimidated
by it. It is necessary to confront Dionysus both for the sake of civilized
procedures and out of a profound psychological response to the sub-rational
part of Pentheus humanity. The presence of Dionysus touches the beast in
Pentheus. He acknowledges the presence of the terrible god: “So you are
attractive, stranger, at least to women" (lines 452-453). Pentheus immediately feels the magnetism of
the Dionysian force. He, of course, denies it since his civilized mind is fully
aware that he cannot surrender to this chaotic force. The struggle between who
Pentheus really is and whom he takes himself to be begins. His infatuation with
Dionysus has to be suppressed. Dionysus should be questioned like any other man
who threatens the safety of the state. But Dionysus is not a man, but a
terrible deity that inhabits the heart of men waiting to be recognized as
legitimate, plotting a coup against human rational essence.
Pentheus continues his rational inquiry. He questions Dionysus
about the traits of the cult only to get obscure answers: "It is forbidden
to tell to the uninitiated." Pentheus pushes for an explanation:
"Tell me the benefits that those who know your mysteries enjoy."
Dionysus responds: "I am forbidden to say, but they are worth
knowing" (lines 471- 473). Defiantly, Dionysus asks: "What punishment
do you propose?” (line 491). Pentheus
says he will cut the strangers' curls, Dionysus should surrender his wands.
Finally, Dionysus should be imprisoned. But the stranger's hair is holly, and
so is his wand.
Dionysus cannot be confined. There is no human being
that can put into a cell the divine power of nature. Pentheus wrongly believes that he can use the civilized power of
the state to make nature surrender. Dionysus says: "put no chains in
me" and Pentheus answers "but I say chain him and I am stronger
(lines, 500-505). As mentioned before, Pentheus’s hamartia is to treat this
all-powerful pre-reflective amoral force as if it was a logical entity. He
fights Dionysus with human tools: language, argument, jurisprudence, but all
too rational Penthean forces will surrender to the power of Dionysus.
The decision to incarcerate Dionysus is preceded by
investigation that serves two purposes: to satisfy Pentheus’s intellectual
curiosity about the nature of the Dionysian cult and to give the offender a sort
of fair trial before the final sentence. However, Pentheus’s rationalism is a
“grieving” illusion. His faith in the state as a creation of human reason and
his own desire for knowledge puts him in the absurd position of questioning,
the lord of nature in order to unravel the divine mysteries. Pentheus does not realize that logos cannot
encompass or confine nature. Pentheus’s intellectual hamartia is not
understand that rationality and civilization cannot penetrate the mysteries of
this pre-reflective force.
Dionysus "answers are designed to make Pentheus
“curious" (line 474).
But this curiosity is nothing but Dionysus psychological warfare
with Pentheus. The deity will allow Pentheus to continue his inquiry and will
use that very same intellectual curiosity to humiliate the “blind faith” that
he puts in it. Thus, Pentheus will be "intellectually seduced" to go
see the Bacchae and he will pay the price. There in the hills near Thebes,
Penthean reason will prove to be Penthean grief.
Pentheus, the rationalist will face, Dionysus, a
voluptuous, ecstatic power that produces gentle pleasure and eventually
full-blown frenzy and violence. The audience that attends the sparagmos of
Pentheus, performed by the Bacchae, disciples of Dionysus, will witness the
humiliation and destruction of human rationality. There are "shouts
everywhere" as Penthean reason "screams with what little breath is
left." Once their hunger is
satiated, the entourage of Dionysus will be "shrieking in triumph"
(line 1130).
The sparagmos of Pentheus’s rationality is, therefore,
the humiliation and annulment of all human intellectual projects. No one should
inquire about the nature of the Dionysian cult or to attempt to take a
"close look" at it. From the point of view of the deity Pentheus’s
intellectual boldness is arrogance or hybris. Thus, Dionysus warns him: “You
do not know the limits of your strength. You do not know what you do. You do
not know who you are.” (lines 505-507)
In effect, Pentheus thinks of himself as an honest reasonable
man. He does not subscribe to the hypocrisy of Cadmus who will just pretend
that he is being initiated in this cult. His commitment to order and structure
is unquestionable, yet he has not seen inside himself the "Dionysian
cord" that every human being carries and which make the gifts of
Prometheus useless.
Thus, when he is invited by Dionysus to go and see
the Bacchae he accepts. It is possible to construe Pentheus’s willingness to
watch the Bacchae at two levels: 1) as a rational man seeking evidence for his
judgment, 2) as rational man seduced by a deity who has successfully made
contact with his instinctual side. Under any interpretation Pentheus is ready
to suppress and restrain Dionysus. Thus he exclaims: "Bring me my armor,
someone. And you stop talking” (line 810). The power of the state will defend
itself against nature. It seems as if Pentheus is ready to eliminate Dionysus.
Yet Pentheus "shall see the Bacchae and pay the price with death” (line
847). Dionysus is outraged that this mere mortal should defy the power of a
god. Pentheus will be humiliated until he discovers the limits of his human
strength, and his other identity: his bestial shape.
========
Dionysus wants to make Pentheus the laughing stock
of Thebes. He will be paraded in the
streets dressed as a woman. Pentheus will wear to Hades the very same clothes
that he has been seduced into wearing. The stranger god has finally seduced
Pentheus "with long yellow curls smelling of perfumes, with flushed cheeks
and the spells of Aphrodite in his eyes" (lines 233-35). This is the very
same god who "hunts the wild goat and kills" (line 136), the deity
that "delights in raw flesh." This god demands unconditional
commitment. Pentheus, who originally refused to surrender to this irresistible
deity has finally fallen prey of his devastating charm. Pentheus seems to
rationalize the attraction since he is just going to take a close look at the
Bacchae. Yet he pays the highest penalty for his curiosity and he becomes the
wild lion that the Bacchae kill. His horrifying sparagmos causes awe and
perplexity in the audience.
Pentheus's failure at understanding the absurd can
hardly be called a "hamartia" that is to say, an intellectual or a
moral flaw. The absurd is by definition incomprehensible both from an
epistemological and ethical approach. I want to propose that Pentheus's
error or hamartia, if it can be called as such, is a failure of apprehension, a
disturbance of his insight, a lack of grasp of the metaphysical realm. This
"metaphysical truth" that Pentheus has to unveil is precisely the
lack of an universal and unifying principle that gives the universe foundation
as well as meaning. Pentheus does not know that the gods associated to human
virtues are dead. The metaphysical truth that Pentheus’s fails to apprehend is
not contained in the Aristotelian philosophical system in which Metaphysics is
the "first science". The metaphysical revelation that Pentheus
needs to grasp is ironically the denial of Aristotelian metaphysics as a
"first science" but the humble and horrifying acceptance of a
senseless and absurd universe. Therefore, Pentheus’s tragic flaw is not a
hamartia in "the sense of intellectual mistake, as opposed to moral
offense” (Golden 26); but rather a lack of insight, which is more akin to a
religious feeling than to an operation of the intellect.
In effect, there is certain ineffability associated
with this religious or metaphysical apprehension. Thus, when it is grasped the
audience is overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety, despair, perplexity and awe
rather than pity and fear. Euripides's tragic vision of the world is an encounter
of men and women with the operative force of the Universe who does not have a
human face. Knowledge as portrayed in Euripidean drama is not associated with
the direct apprehension of the luminous idea of the Good in intimate
association with the idea of Being, or by an organized system of material or
final causes, but with the disclosure of a reality with no telos. Euripides
is proposing a new kind of religiosity which points towards the unfolding of
the absurd and to spiritual or metaphysical grief caused in the human
spirit when it experiences and discovers that it inhabits "a world
where t is impossible to know why it was created, what part man has been
assigned in it, and what constitutes right and wrong actions” (362).
In Euripides’s universe there is no
philosophical or literary space for human success. This is so because the
sphere in which human beings can construct their humanity is the realm of
ethics. In the Euripidean worldview the theological and metaphysical order
exists as an opposition to any human project living no room for the display of
a hopeful human project.
For Aristotle, tragedy generates when a spoudaios hero or
heroine faces misfortune as a result of an intellectual, not a moral offense.
The spoudaios character preserves his/her nobility or arete even
in the most hostile situations. The hero or heroine usually miscalculates the
nature of the force he is fighting and takes refuge in his knowledge and
obedience of moral and civil laws. Thus, Oedipus in the O.T. believes
that he can escape the fate Apollo has designed for him. He exhibits the best
of his humanity in order to counteract Apollo's law. In the
Sophoclean-Aristotelian view of the tragic human beings can successfully face
the operative force of the Universe by courageously sustaining their sense of
truth and justice. No angelical deed is needed, only a sense of what is right.
The audience of O.T. feels pity and fear because they recognize in
Oedipus the nobility of a good man who faces a force that is more powerful than
him.
Sophocles’s O.T. presents the conflict between a mysterious,
infallible god and a decent yet, fallible man. Yet, Oedipus remains attached to
the state as an intellectual creations and his sense of justice and truth. A
deity however can test men humanity by putting men in limits situations. When a
god devises this plan, men should not despair, but rather attach themselves
even stronger to the sphere of values. If men and women behave this way their
misfortune causes pity and fear, because their integrity, nobility or arete
remains intact.
The Euripidean tragic view of the world, opposes cosmic
hostility to human ethico-intellectual projects. In a field in which there is
no room for the ethical solution, the absurd presents its ugly and
despairing face. Euripides introduces to the western world the metaphysical
anguish or grief (penthos) provoked by indifferent deities and the realization
that man's existence is brutal and senseless. Martin Esslin in reference to
early twentieth century drama states:
madness of the human condition is enabled to see this situation
in all its
grimness and despair. Striped of illusions and vaguely felt
fears and
anxieties, he can face this situation consciously, rather than
feeling it
vaguely below the surface of euphemisms and optimistic
illusions. (364)
your own son, the child you bore to Eschion !
Pity me, spare me, Mother! I have done a wrong,
but do not kill your own son for my own offense.
(lines 1118-1121).
Pentheus’s visit to the spectacle of the Bacchae, as
well as the actual visit of the audience to the performance of the play allows
Charles Segal to reflect on the nature of mimetic art. According to Segal,
Pentheus is a “spectator” (theates) of the Dionysian rites. He
"would crouch beneath fir trees, out of sight and is willing to pay a
great sum to see that sight". The robing of Pentheus indicates the
inclusion of a tragedy within a tragedy. Pentheus, the spectator, is also the
actor wearing the mask and dressed like a meanead. However the character-actor
becomes a participant of the rite since this "participation will prove
necessary to the full performance of the rite he would witness."
The robing scene is, thus, a mirror image of the
effect of the play in the audience. The Bacchae is, for Charles Segal, a
"metatragedy." Through Pentheus’s act of voyeurism Euripides creates
a drama within a drama. Pentheus, the spectator of the Bacchae is also,
witness, and victim, of the wild Dionysian rite. On stage, he is the audience
of the spectacle of the Dionysian rite, as well as the victim of the wild
ecstasy of the Bacchae. This form of meta-mimesis increases the distance of the
audience from the brutality of the Dionysian rite. Paradoxically, the audience
itself has also to relinquish the very same distance created by the drama
within the drama, and therefore becomes participants in the penthos or grief of
the sparagmos actually taking place in the play. Seagal calls this
accompaniment of the audience with Pentheus to the bacchic rite "cathartic
sympathy.” Segal states:
It seems that Seagal wants to retain the
intellectual dimension of the Aristotelian term "catharsis" by
proposing empathy, sympathy or identification as tragic emotions that lead to
the discovery of a universal truth. In the case of The Bacchae this
truth is the recognition or anagnorisis of the underlying horror and
cruelty of existence. Although this recognition of the absurdity of existence
seems to be the moral of The Bacchae, I believe that Segal's
interpretation of catharsis is not accurate. A critical examination of Segal's
use of the term catharsis demands a further reference to Aristotle's
theory of tragedy.
For Aristotle the tragic emotions that lead to catharsis
are pity and fear. The audience identifies with the hero if, and only if, it
recognizes in him an individual who is fairly credible, above the norm, yet not
holly. He is capable of making mistakes, of assessing a situation poorly and
missing the mark. This kind of hamartia brings an undeserved downfall
that causes pity in the audience and makes them fear that they will face the
same kind of fate. Pentheus is not this kind of hero. It might even be
inappropriate to call him such. As a matter of fact, there is no truly
Aristotelian hero in any of the Euripidean plays, since his characters are
individuals who navigate in the sphere of the absurd. They simply have no
choices. If they have no choices it is impossible to indicate which are their
intellectual mistakes. Segal himself acknowledges that there is no hero in The
Bacchae since the play contains no single center of heroic action "
(Segal, 160). He adds that there is "no dominant personality whose
strength of spirit is somehow tested, discovered, or affirmed" (160).
In sum if there is no hero, there is no hamartia
and if there is no hamartia there is no catharsis since Aristotle separate
these terms only for the purpose of analysis, but in the Poetics they are
logically intertwined. If there is no spoudaios hero in The Bacchae
it becomes difficult to apply concepts such as hamartia and catharsis to this
play and preserving their Aristotelian meaning. It should be noticed, however,
that this valid not only for The Bacchae, but for any other tragedies
that falls beyond the ideal tragedy of Aristotle. Only Sophocles O.T.
seems to fulfill Aristotle's prescription. Yet, Segal claims that tragedy in
general, and The Bacchae in particular, allows the audience to surrender
"something of their own Dionysian impulses without the violent and bloody
rending of a literal or emotional sparagmos" (168). This seems to imply an
interpretation of catharsis as some sort of "moral
purification," that is, a process "by which excesses and deficiencies
in the emotion of pity and fear are eliminated and the proper mean in them is
achieved" (Golden 27). However, Segal is not talking about pity and fear
but about "surrendering" our Dionysian instincts and it is hard to
see how these destructive, yet human emotions, can be purged. The brutal sparagmos
of Pentheus shows that Dionysian impulses cannot be suppressed or surrendered.
In the sphere of Dionysian impulses there is no mode or method to eliminate
excesses and deficiencies. There simply cannot be any moral purification of
an operative force of the universe, since the universe is not an ethical but a
theological or metaphysical entity. Segal confuses ethics with ontology or
metaphysics. Metaphysical insights cannot be cathartically purged, but
intellectually understood. Segal's proposal that Dionysus destructive epiphany
can be purged is ironically similar to Pentheus idea that Dionysus can be suppressed
and repressed by the legal structure and the police power of the State.
Besides, it is difficult to point to the learning
experience associated with catharsis if the term is deprived of its intellectual
import. This not to say that there is nothing to be learned from Euripidean
drama and specifically from The Bacchae. I have already pointed to some
general tenets of this play. It might be more reasonable to argue that The
Bacchae and Euripidean drama in general, are sui generis. There is
not, to my knowledge a specific tragic pattern that would fit this unique play
about the absurdity and senselessness of human existence except for the insight
into the nature of the absurd provided by twentieth century playwrights such as
Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, and philosophical writers such as Kafka and Camus.
It is possible however, that Aristotle might have agreed with Segal that
through tragedy "man discerns the painful reality of his life" (158).
This cathartic discernment can only be brought about by the emotions of pity
and fear as explained above, and Euripides’s The Bacchae causes in the
spectator or reader awe and perplexity, anxiety and despair. Grief or penthos
is the emotion associated with the recognition of the absurd.
Pentheus, the rationalist, not only refuses to
worship Dionysus but forbids others to do so. From a political point of view
Pentheus, is right in opposing the dislocating cult of the Bacchae. On the
other hand, Dionysus epiphany opposes men to the established civil order. The
dichotomy homo naturans, homo politicus takes tragic-absurd
overtones. Dionysos demands from the homo politicus to surrender his
humanity and encounter his own bestial nature. Pentheus, although initially
refusing, will be put in a no exit situation. He simply cannot choose between
his civilized and his instinctual side.
Euripides invites the audience to reflect about the
incurable schism between homonaturans and homo politicus. Perhaps
the universal truth embodied in The Bacchae is the acceptance of this
paradox as essentially human.
Alianza, 1989.
vols. 1 & 3 Chicago: The U of Chicago Press, 1991
Books, 1969.
New York: Dover Publications, 1982.
(1976) 21-33.
Euripidian Criticism, Durham: UNC Press, 1985.