BEYOND THE TWILIGHT OF REASON
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Sophocles seems to be concerned, in the first place, with the temptation
that power can place in the way of a political leader like Creon to do
whatever is necessary, even to violate divine law, in the interest of the
state. That would be a comfortable position for a writer in our times. But
Sophocles, no less, understands the enormous cost when an individual
tramples on human law even in defense of the most fundamental human
needs. The resulting clash leaves us neither with a burning determination
to overthrow the regime nor one to suppress all insurgency.
It
leaves us
emotionally stimulated and then drained, and it leaves our minds alerted
and sobered. We have become deeper individuals and wiser citizens.
Malraux says, "All art is a revolt against man's fate." Ifhe is right, So–
phocles' plays, the other tragedies, and much of ancient Greek literature
are not art. Malraux's view, it seems to me, reflects not so much the En–
lightenment but the Romantic movement that is determined to see the
artist as an individual apart from, superior to, and in rebellion against the
established order. Sophocles, like Aeschylus and Thucydides, was very
much a part of his society. He fought its battles as a soldier, he understood
and appreciated its necessity and excellences even as he probed its dilem–
mas and weaknesses. His plays, among other things, helped their
audiences to understand and come to terms with man's fate.
It
is man's
fate, part of the tragic human condition, to revolt and struggle against its
negative elements. But human excellence, virtue, even survival, depend
on the establishment of a decent social order and its defense even against
the most passionate and sincere rebels who would smash it in search of
some imagined perfection beyond human grasp.
Because he was part of the society in which he lived and understood
its needs and virtues, Sophocles could compel his fellow citizens honestly
to confront its conflicts and its deepest contradictions. They did not su p–
press, scorn, or, what is worse, ignore him. Instead, they honored him
with prizes, election to the highest military and political office, and with
deep and abiding reverence. Would that all this were possible for modern
artists and their audiences in the world today.
Robert Hass:
The Enlightenment, which everyone here has praised so
highly, began, first of all, as a rationalist critique on privilege and on the
failure of the privileged to imagine anything but their own prerogatives.
It
was also an imaginative leap to another, more democratic imagination
of human society. I would say that in this way, feminism, multicultural–
ism, and deconstruction have been accusing the Western tradition of
blindness, and I'm afraid to a certain extent we've been acting out that
blindness here. What powerful literature can do is enact the reality so that
reason can free us from it. When Professor Himmelfarb was asked what
