Tragedy and Comedy: A Systematic Study and a Critique of Hegel by Mark William Roche (review)

314 REVIEWS MARK WILLIAM ROCHE. Tragedy and Comedy: A Systematic Study and a Critique 0/ Hegel. Albany: State University of New York Press 1998. Pp. 450. $21.95, paperback. In the current deluge of almost uniformly postmodern literary criticism, Mark William Roche's theory of genres, with its neo-Hegelian terminology and somewhat conservative methodology, initially appears quite refreshing. From the very beginning of his book, Roche plays with an open hand: he never hides that his argument is systematic and his selection of texts both encyclopaedic and canonical. The fervour with which he unveils his categorization of genres, as well as the blunt attempt at their hierarchization, make Roche's immanent critique of Hegel so ambitious and, in its repeated rejection of the basic tene!s of postmodern scholarship, so quixotic that one is compelled to root for him. The explicit intention of Tragedy and Comedy is "to improve on Hegel's typology of drama" (39). Roche suggests that this can be done in two ways. First, he sets out to transform Hegel's dialectic so that it will not only allow for the historical evolution of genres but also "recognize the possibility of cyclical structures" (32), and thereby offer a legitimate counterpart to perhaps the last comprehensive typology of genres, Northrop Frye's Anatomy o/Criticism . The study maintains the basic triadic configuration of the Vorlesungen llber die Asthetik but expands on Hegel's sketchy classification of sub-genres by observing "[w]ithin each genre ... a micro-development through these three stages" (42). On the level of tragedy, Roche thus distinguishes between the tragedies of self-sacrifice, stubbornness, opposition, and awareness, while on the level of comedy Hegel's "brief and undialectical" (135) typology is developed into a complex progression from the comedy of coincidence, through the comedies of reduction, negation, and withdrawal, to the comedy of intersubjectivity , a genre that already anticipates the final form, the drama of reconciliation . The only other major departure from the German philosopher is in positing intersubjectivity, as opposed to absolute subjectivity, as the synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity. It is precisely because of the introduction of this concept, Roche writes, that it is necessary to revisit Hegel 's theory of genres. And yet, both Roche's critique of Die Asthetik and his implied rejection of postmodemism fail to convince us. The main reason for this is his failure to maintain not only Hegel's terminology but also his speCUlative vigour. In Roche's use, many of Hegel's crucial abstract concepts become mere synonyms for very tangible phenomena. It seems, for instance, that he often simply equates intersubjectivity with love, or uses the terms "hero" and "subject" as if they were perfectly interchangeable. Because of this, Roche's application of Hegel's dialectic frequently appears mechanical and occasionally even seems a bit unimaginative. Reviews 315 The second reason why Roche does not succeed in providing us with a compelling alternative to postmodem literary criticism can be found in the rigidity of his categorization. Despite his assurances that a genre theory can also account "for works not yet written" (42) - in much the same way that Mendeleev 's periodic table predicted the properties of not-yet-discovered elements - one cannot accept the fact that in order to do so a system of genres would have to bracket a number of already written plays that do not fit the preconceived mould. This hypothesis is even more difficult to swallow because the bracketing implies a negative value judgement of the excluded works. No matter how much one believes in the epistemological validity of fonnulating a typology, a theory of genres founded on the assumption that virtually all postWorld War II ironic drama is an exception to the rule rather than an authentic expression of its Zeitgeist is just too narrow to endorse. For a book whose objective is to prove the drawbacks of "the contemporary disappearance of the hero" (310) and the unwanted consequences of the disintegration of all dramatic values, such logic is too weak. to convert the skeptical and too exclusive to retain the sympathetic. JURE GANTAR, DALHOU SIE UN IV ERSITY, HALIFAX . NS MARY L. BOG UMIL. Understanding August Wilson. Columbia...