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AN APPROACH TO TRAGEDY IT AsPECTS OF THE TRAGIC VEIN We have not been able to discuss the raw materials of tragedy without implicit consideration of the tragic vein. Now, however, we are in a position formally to take note of matters of first importance. What has been derived from Aristotle's Poetics will be obvious; so too, that which has come from a study of works of literature that have long been called tragedies. But not even the writer himself can tell how much has been gathered from materials not immediately associated with the subject. Patently a discussion like this should be expository, not prescriptive. As we all know, artists are not bound by the dicta of their fellow artists or those of critics and scholars; tl,ey create their work in response to the urgency of their cerebrational powers and experience, and according to the character of their rhythmic grasp. This does not mean that an artist has absolute license, for if his work is to be considered seriously it must have some essential relationship with other products of artistic enterprise. More narrowly, if an 'artist insists that his drama is a tragedy, the work must have somethiog essential in common with all other tragedies. It is this common area with which we are presently concerned. . The Term "Tragedy." We should not begin a study like this without agreeing as to the limits of the key word. In general language usage the term "tragedy" is variously employed to describe events and circumstances that are characterized by sufferiog, unhappioess, and death, both in the plane of natural occurrence and the plane of factitious occurrence. 'In our discussion, however, we shall use the word "tragedy" solely to label a particular class of factitious OCClUTences which appear in some narrative works of literature. For us a tragedy is a kind of rbythmized verbal expression io a plane of nonfact; io other words, it is a work of art. Setting. The tragic action must have an acceptable basis; that is, certaio elements of the environment must make possible both the values and the conflict. In a drama the stage setting represents a factitious phYSical environment; the utterances and actions of the dramatis personae usually focus the attention on ODe or more of the .social iostitutions; and, impliCitly or explicitly, the entire work reflects the cultural atmosphere of the creative artist. The stage settiog and. the 71 72 CARL E. W. L. DAHLSTROM September institutional setting are inevitably qualified by the cultural atmosphere , but they may be deployed with some freedom according to the craft needs of the dramatist. It is the cultural setting, however, that is of prime importance, for it alone indicates the values by virtue of which the conflicts are engendered. If therefore a tragedy is to be composed, the writer must live and work in a favorable cultural atmosphere. Before proceeding any further we should define the role of factitious occurrence in the general setting. In so far as this reflects natural occurrence, it should be clear that there can be no disorder in nature qua nature. There can be nothing but unending change. A colleague teaching students of anatomy was wont to assure his students that in any disagreement between textbook and cadaver, the latter was always right, for nature is always right in the sense that it is what it is without qualification. Moreover, as Emma von Rit06k tells us, "... Nature of and for itself ... lies outside the reairn of values."· Moral conflicts and spiritual anguish are never in nature; hence a work of literature that endeavors to limit itself to a disinterested presentation of events reflecting natural occurrence automatically confines itself to a neutral report . devoid of all human values. The plane of natural occurrence can be functional in a setting only when it is employed in combination with nonfact planes. This means that it is the cultural atmosphere that is the indispensable element in a work of tragedy. Let us make another approach to the same idea. It is generally assumed that man lives in a real world, that is, a world so fixed and solid that it is substantially unaffected by ideas. But in...

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