The Death of Tragedy by George Steiner, and: Tragedy and the Theory of Drama by Elder Olson (review)

1963 BOOK REVIEWS 107 This translation of Krechinsky's Wedding is not only good because some of the qualities of Sokhovo-Kobylin's language and style seem to come through; in choice of words it is excellent. The attractive little volume is a short and most delightful bit of reading, especially for the devotee of Russian literature. Magidoff's rendition would be excellent for a stage performance. Sam Anderson The University of Kansas THE DEATH OF TRAGEDY, by George Steiner, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1961. 355 pp. Price $5.00. TRAGEDY AND THE THEORY OF DRAMA, by Elder Olson. Wayne State University Press. Detroit, 1961, 269 pp. Price $6.50. In his reading of world dramatic literature, George Steiner has discovered a group of plays that reflect what he apparently considers a fact-"the unaltering bias toward inhumanity and destruction in the drift of the world." Since the causes of pain and disaster. whether they lie outside or inside the human soul, are ultimately inexplicable, suffering cannot be avoided or mitigated by prudence, foresight, good will, or social change. Furthermore, suffering is irremediable; the afllicted man cannot expect to find justice, compensation, or redemption. To dramas that reflect this insight, Steiner gives the name "tragedy." Though tragedy has been one of the most admired of literary genres, it has flourished during only a few short periods of world literature; and after the 17th century few authentic tragedies of artistic merit were produced. Steiner's book is a rapid survey of the history of dramatic literature since Shakespeare, focused on the causes for the death of tragedy. Some of the more obvious causes were the lack of talent for the drama by practicing artists, the changing expectations of aUdiences, and tlie rise of competing artistic forms. But the most important cause was that empiricism was destroying the Christian myth and the conception of the organically related levels of reality that it had fostered. A complete mythOlogy, publicly accepted, is the necessary condition for the production of all great art, for without it an artist cannot create the symbolic structures that are the essence of his art. But the production of tragedy requires a special mythology; "it must be one that will support the tragic view of life. According to Steiner, only the ancient Greeks possessed such a mythology. The other great mythologies of the Western world, including the Christian and post-Christian, with their faith in the justice and mercy of God or in empirical reason and progress, have been anti-tragic. Thus tragedy is impossible to Jew, Christian, Marxist, romantic optimist, and social reformer, for they cannot accept the "finality of evil." At best, such artists can create only "near tragedy" or "melodrama"-Goethe's Faust, for example, is "sublime melodrama ." (Steiner should have been more explicit as to how Shakespeare, living under the Christian dispensation, nevertheless managed to write great tragedy.) Contemporary artists, lacking a public and living myth appropriate for tragedy, must either invent their own myths, return to Greek myth, or write in a nonmythical mode. Steiner briefly examines the work of modern dramatists who have attempted each of these strategies. All have failed. At the end of his book Steiner makes a curious statement: tragedy is "that form of art which requires the intolerable burden of God's presence." It would be interesting to know the details ot a theology that could be reconciled with the tragic view of life. 108 MODERN DRAMA May Steiner prides himself on being a practitioner of the "old" criticism. The "old" criticism describes births and deaths of mythologies, movementS, civilizations, and literary genres. It loves the Spenglerian sweep, the broad generalization, and the large polar distinction. It conveys its insights through analogy and figure. It flatters the reader by assuming that he has a thorough knowledge of history. literature, and philosophy. In all of these ways it is opposed to the "new" criticism . The Chicago Critics, a group to which Elder Olson belongs, are also in fundamental disagreement with the "new" critics but, like them, have argued that criticism should concern itself primarily with the particularized study of individual literary texts. For this kind of study, the Chicago...