“It’s a real tragedy!” That is a phrase we have been accustomed to hearing, or uttering, when we are witness to a sad state of affairs. We may call the outcome of a certain election “a real tragedy” or we may hear about a person who only lived into their twenties before dying of cancer and mark it down as a tragedy (and so it is). But in the classical world of playwriting the words tragedy and comedy had a specific usage and they made up the two primary categories of theater.
Tragedy, as a genre, corresponds well enough with our modern usage of the term. In a play which is labeled as a tragedy you can expect most of the central characters (the ones you come to care for) to either die or end up utterly ruined and destitute of friends or aid. Comedy, on the other hand, does not have the same usage today as it did formerly. A comedy was a true opposite to tragedy which always ends happily for the primary antagonists of the story. A comedy was not necessarily humorous (although it certainly could be) nor was a tragedy necessarily devoid of some humor. Hence Dante’s three part Divine Comedy isn’t always a laugh riot (though it has its moments) but it ends up in Paradise, perfect happiness, and is therefore a comedy.
While it is not terribly surprising that we should desire stories which are comedies, hopeful as they are of everything working out in the end, it turns out that we are also suckers for a good tragedy. Sure, we don’t want to experience tragedy personally, but we find great interest in the tragedy of others! Why is that, anyway? What’s wrong with you and me?
Well, that’s a loaded question. But, setting aside for a moment all the sundry different answers that could be given, I would argue that our interests in tragedy are quite natural and understandable. It is a part of the human condition that we suffer. We do almost everything we can to avoid suffering but we suffer nonetheless. Of course some suffer more greatly than we ourselves do and, perhaps, this brings us an odd kind of comfort and contentment. To know that things are not as bad for us as they might be tends to give us much needed perspective about our own situation. That is one reason, I suppose, that many are drawn to stories of tragedy. If indeed we are able to better count our blessings and be more thankful for God’s good providence in our lives then this is surely a decent reason.
Of course there is a more base reason why some may enjoy a good tragedy, namely, they enjoy tragedy itself. Some people sadistically enjoy watching the suffering of others. Such is the product of a life of vice which has gradually come to take satisfaction in other’s pain. Some will say, “Surely not! Who would really find pleasure in the pain of others?” But history is replete with examples. Need we look further than the gladiatorial games? In Augustine’s Confessions he describes at length how one of his friends, who knew the games to be evil, found himself drawn into watching them. He eventually came to have a bloodlust which was nearly insatiable. We fool ourselves if we think society has moved beyond this. Many today love tragedy for tragedy’s sake, they scan the news because they can’t get enough of human pain and suffering, they watch violent and vile movies and television shows because they enjoy the violence itself. May we quickly repent if we find ourselves going down this road.1
But there is another reason to be interested in tragedy. Tragedy causes reflection. It is in the midst of tragedy that we are forced to think about what we most value in our lives. Sometimes we realize what matters most only once we have lost it and it is too late. Suffering causes us to ask the ultimate questions. Suffering slows us down from our busy lives, forces us out of the ruts of our routine and makes us pause to think about why we are here, what our purpose is, what we value, whether there is more to life than this. When tragedy strikes, you will definitely ask yourself some of these questions.
Unfortunately, although tragedy forces us to ask these kinds of questions (which is good) it also tends to fog our perspective and keep us from thinking as clearly as we ought (which is bad). Therefore, the best time to think about such important questions, ultimate questions of value and meaning, is when we are not personally suffering and before tragedy strikes in our own lives. How can we combine the great opportunity which tragedy affords us to think about ultimate questions while maintaining the clarity which comes from personal calm?
Enter Sophocles.
Sophocles is one of greatest tragedy playwrights of all time. He is best known for his “Theban Cycle” or as it is sometimes called the “Oedipus Trilogy”. The three plays in this collection are Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Oedipus at Colonus. In these three stories Sophocles interacts with some of life’s most ultimate questions and allows the reader (originally the viewer) to enter into the suffering of the main characters so that they may vicariously experience their tragedies and ask the ultimate questions alongside them. Through the practice of empathy for the characters we are allowed to taste in their suffering while not actually suffering personally. Such being the case, with a kind of empathetic detachment, we can experience suffering but not be clouded by the pain which often affects our judgment. The characters of these plays will ask the ultimate questions which all who suffer ask, and therefore we ask the questions with them, but we are allowed to reflect as to what might be meaningful answers to those questions without personally being under the oppression of gut wrenching emotional pain. Our empathy will allow us to understand why the character asks the questions they do, our distance allows us to seek answers in a less biased fashion.
Sophocles was no stranger to suffering and had surely wrestled with these ultimate questions himself. During the late 5th century B.C. the Greeks were warring against the Persians and he served as a General in the Greek military. Without question he saw his share of death and suffering. War has produced many of history’s greatest reflections about ultimate meaning precisely because war produces suffering. Despite the silly modern notion that “poetry and song” is unmanly, history tells another story. Men have sung songs as they marched against the enemy horde and men have written poetry and plays in bunkers and trenches. Such men would stack up just fine in their masculinity next to many modern men who think they are “too manly” to sing in church.
Sophocles is known to have written 123 plays in his time but of those we have only 7 which are extant (surviving to our own day). The three plays which will be considered here were all produced in the latter part of the 5th century. Antigone was the first to be performed and, story wise, is chronologically after the events in the second story Oedipus Rex. One date suggested for the former is c. 442 B.C. with a possible date of c. 430 B.C. being offered for the latter. The final play, Oedipus and Colonus was not actually produced for audience viewing until after Sophocles’ death.2
I will be producing three separate study guides with a brief introduction to each individual story. I will be using the Penguin Classics edition of The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, translated by Robert Fagles for this study. As each guide becomes available you will be able to click on the links below:
Oedipus at Colonus (Coming Soon)
I am not advocating that violence is not ever necessary in life, nor that all movies which have violence are necessarily immoral for Christians to watch. There is a load of difference between watching a movie that has violence than watching a movie for the violence. A film like The Gladiator is worlds apart from Saw.
I am referring to the dates given in the introduction to Greece and the Theater in the front of the Penguin Classics edition which I am commending to you in this post. This introduction is a great little primer and I recommend it.