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  • Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us by Simon Critchley, and: Poetics of History: Rousseau and the Theater of Originary Mimesis by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
  • David Krasner
TRAGEDY, THE GREEKS, AND US. By Simon Critchley. New York: Pantheon Books, 2019; pp. 336.
POETICS OF HISTORY: ROUSSEAU AND THE THEATER OF ORIGINARY MIMESIS. By Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. Translated by Jeff Fort. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019; pp. 176.

Tragedy and philosophy have a long history of antipathy. Plato and his later acolyte Rousseau, in particular, saw tragedy, with its supposed corrupting influence and disingenuousness, as so anathema to their visions for humanity as a whole that they banished tragedy from their morally utopian cities. They each viewed theatre, with its emphasis on mimesis, as deceptive slight-of-hand and therefore un-trustworthy; it teaches people that simulacrum is a substitute for genuine human interaction and so encourages a disregard for virtue and decorum among the populace. Plato, in particular, saw tragedy as the harbinger of imagination run amok, misdirected from idealistic pursuit and toward delusion, fakery, and untrustworthiness. In the tenth book of Plato’s Republic (c.370 bce), he inveighs against tragedy’s emphasis on appearance over reality. The performing artist is an imitator who dwells in appearances rather than truth and deceives through phantasm. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles (Letter to M. D’Alembert on the Theatre, 1758) similarly condemns tragedy (and comedy) as frivolous amusements, promoting what he calls “the double illusion of self-love” (la double illusion de lamour propre)—leading to egocentric narcissism at the expense of humility, restraint, and truthfulness. For Rousseau, flaunting oneself (se montrer) is as bad as portraying oneself in a role (se montrer autre que ce qu’on est), the very skill of an accomplished actor. Ultimately, theatre is antithetical from what he calls “the natural man” (l’homme sauvage), which is the basis of his promulgation of the raw (and thus sincere and natural) condition of humanity against Enlightenment rationality.

Simon Critchley and the late Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe seek to turn the tables on the vexed relationship between tragedy and philosophy. They examine tragedy and its opponents, credit tragic theatre as virtuous, and raise critical questions about the usefulness of tragedy in our current lives. Critchley wants to “defend tragedy against philosophy,” positing that “tragedy articulates a philosophical view that challenges the authority of philosophy by giving voice to what is contradictory about us, what is constricted about us, what is precarious about us, and what is limited about us” (9). In other words, philosophy, emerging from Plato, seeks to bring clarity and pristine ideality to life, while tragedy, by contrast, fosters contradictions, presents incomprehensible suffering, and illuminates the uncertainty of existence. Critchley presents tragedy as a visceral, non-rational condition of life that gainsays Plato’s attempt to lift humanity toward the light of rationality. Tragedy, contra Plato’s idealization, is closer to, and more consistent with, the truth of lived experience.

The significance of Lacoue-Labarthe’s study lies in demonstrating the importance of Rousseau’s thought for the advancement of theatre. His counterintuitive argument (which cuts against the grain of Rousseau’s objection to theatre) unfolds as follows: if Rousseau believes humanity is at its best when stressing the raw, honest, nascent state-of-nature, then imitation is one of the most salient and well-known features of our Ur-like (originary) behavior. Thus if imitation (mimesis) is a core feature of l’homme sauvage, theatre is the repository of imitation, leading to the subtitle of the book, “originary mimesis.” Rousseau’s “The Savage Man” is for Lacoue-Labarthe, admiringly, “a mimetic animal” who is therefore “originarily, an actor” (33–35). It follows that Rousseau actually favors theatre because imitation is natural sincerity, sincerity is exemplary [End Page 381] (being honest and virtuous), and theatre is imitation—ergo, theatre personifies humanity at its most sincere.

Both authors stake their claims through labyrinthian arguments. Each painstakingly and articulately takes readers through dialectical ebb and flow, with Plato (for Critchley) and Rousseau (for Lacoue-Labarthe) as their chess-like competitors. Critchley writes passionately with a presentist emphasis on Greek drama in order...

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