Impossible Representation: Edward Albee and the End of Liberal Tragedy

In Modern Tragedy, Raymond Williams expounds on the democratization of the tragic hero and the emergence of a literary formula that focused exclusively on the moral or ethical predicaments of the individual, whose private, quasi-transcendental suffering gained prestige in works by Henrik Ibsen and Arthur Miller. This essay argues that Edward Albee's 2002 play The Goat; or Who is Sylvia? poses a challenge to this liberal formula for tragic theatre and critiques the predominant paradigm of American political life that it embodies. As a dramatic experiment that documents the rupture of the fabric of a family, The Goat tests the limits of generic accommodation, powerfully connecting the event of genre renovation to political regeneration. Albee's deliberations on perversion and hysteria, comic seriousness, and political self-knowledge call into question the legitimacy of liberal contractarianism, illustrating how liberalism is, itself, experienced as contingent and deeply inadequate.