METATHEATER
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was the only playwright who understood the Greek works and
knew how to imitate them. Moreover, even Racine, a man as
perfectly endowed for writing tragedy as any playwright of any
epoch, could only bring off two successful works in this genre;
Berenice
and
Atalie,
and the first of these is not considered al–
together tragic, since it terminates with the separation of the
lovers, not with their death.) But to return to my question: why
have Western dramatists, bent on writing tragedy, been unable to
do so successfully? Much of their difficulty can be summed up in
a single word: self-consciousness. First, the self-consciousness of
the dramatist himself, and then that of his protagonists. For con–
sider:
if
Antigone were self-conscious enough to suspect her own
motives in burying her brother Polynices, would her story .be a
tragic one? Now the Western playwright is unable to believe in
the reality of a character who is lacking in self-consciousness. Lack
of self-consciousness is as characteristic of Antigone, Oedipus,
and Orestes, as self-consciousness is characteristic of Hamlet, that
towering figure of Western metatheater.
Another, insurmountable difficulty: one cannot create tragedy
without accepting some implacable values as true. Now the
Western imagination has, on the whole, been liberal and skeptical;
it has tended to regard
all
implacable values as false.
Let us look for a moment at a typical Western drama which
was meant to be a tragedy, seems to be a tragedy, and has,
in
fact,
been so designated. I am referring to Melville's
Billy Budd.
Now
in this short novel-it was made into a play by an adapter, and
with all its defects, is still the best dramatic work by an American
-the young sailor, Budd, accused of mutinous action, but whom
the drum court of officers wants to exonerate, is finally sentenced
and executed on the insistence of Captain Vere; this is a man
whom we have been led to believe appreciates Budd, loves him,
and is more convinced of his innocence than any of the other
officers. Did Melville then accept as true at least one implacable
value: ship discipline on a man-of-war? I do not think so. For
why is Melville unable to make Captain Vere's action in demand–
ing
Budd's conviction so unconvincing to us, at least to me? I
never believed in reading
Billy Budd
that it was necessary for the
sailor to hang for discipline on the
Indomitable
to be preserved.
