Tragic Play: Irony and Theater from Sophocles to Beckett

by Christoph Menke, James Phillips

Overview

Tragic Play explores the deep philosophical significance of classic and modern tragedies in order to cast light on the tragic dimensions of contemporary experience. Romanticism, it has often been claimed, brought tragedy to an end, making modernity the age after tragedy. Christoph Menke opposes this modernist prejudice by arguing that tragedy remains alive in the present in the distinctively new form of the playful, ironic, and self-consciously performative. Through close readings of plays by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Heiner Müller, and Botho Strauss, Menke shows how tragedy re-emerges in modernity as "tragedy of play." In Hamlet, Endgame, Philoktet, and Ithaka, Menke integrates philosophical theory with critical readings to investigate shifting terms of judgment, curse, reversal, misfortune, and violence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231145565
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/07/2009
Series:	Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Christoph Menke is professor of philosophy at the University of Frankfurt am Main. His publications in English include The Sovereignty of Art, Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida, and Reflections of Equality.

Table of Contents

Prefatory Note
Part I. The Excess of Judgment: A Reading of Oedipus Tyrannus
1. "It was I myself": The Shape of Destiny
Acting, by Knowing
"In the Manner of Tragedy"
2. From Judging to Being Judged: The Story of Oedipus
The Juridification of the Oracle
Placing a Curse
Self-Condemnation
The "Curse of the Law"
3. Author and Character: Oedipus's Existence
Dramatic Existence
Transcendental Dramatics
Excursus: The Concept of Tragic Irony
4. The Violence of Judgment: Oedipus's Experience
Philosophy and Tragedy
The Objectivity of Judgment
Oedipus's Lament
Errors Great and Small
The Paradox in the Judgment of an Error
5. "Learning from Suffering": Tragedy and Life
Part II. Theoretical Interlude: The Process of Tragedy
6. Toward an Aesthetics of Tragedy: From the Beautiful to Play
The Suspension of the Tragic in the Beautiful
Contemplation or Reflection
Acting Out Action
The Freedom of the Actor
7. Promise and Impotence of Play
Parody of Tragedy and Tragedy of Parody: Romantic Comedy
The Untragic Hero: The Dialectical Lehrstück
Meta-theater, by Meta-tragedy
Part III. The Tragedy of Play
8. Tragedy and Skepticism: On Hamlet
Action, by Knowledge
"Madness" and Irony
Dizziness of Reflection: Theater and Tragedy
9. Three Sketches: Beckett, by Müller
The Score of the Feud: Samuel Beckett's Endgame
Gladiators of Play: Heiner Müller's Philoktet
Never: Botho Strauss's Ithaka
Backnotes
Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Martin Donougho

Tragic Play is philosophical while also being informed by classical scholarship and aesthetic and dramaturgical theory. It is ambitious and accessible, as well as exciting.

— Martin Donougho, University of South Carolina

Fred Rush

Christoph Menke develops tragedy as a modern mode of understanding in new and interesting ways. His ideas should generate quite a bit of debate not only in philosophy but also in literary studies and social theory.

— Fred Rush, University of Notre Dame

Boris Gasparov

Christoph Menke's theoretical framework is extremely dense and far-reaching, with a powerfully and consistently built argument that includes textual analyses offering interesting insights.

— Boris Gasparov, Columbia University

Editorial Reviews

"Christoph Menke develops tragedy as a modern mode of understanding in new and interesting ways. His ideas should generate quite a bit of debate not only in philosophy but also in literary studies and social theory."

Fred Rush