Historical Materialism and Tragedy

With the advent of Marxism and the emphasis upon human history, including those mechanisms which are responsible for social change, what had been an essentially religious perspective upon tragedy now gradually assumed a much more secular interest. The dramatist Bertold Brecht sought to issue a challenge to the Aristotelian conception of tragedy, questioning from a historical-materialist standpoint the need for heroism as such. His concern is with the ways in which Aristotelian definitions of tragedy disempower audiences by demanding an assent to suffering. The validation of suffering which Brecht perceives in tragedy is not so much a mark of the human quality of the sufferer as an indication of the barbarism of a culture. Walter Benjamin&s;s account of The Origins of German Tragic Drama is more difficult to classify. The excerpt included here reads the development of German tragic drama in terms of an engagement with Nietzsche, though the emphasis upon mourning is important.

Art · Epistemology · Historical materialism · Literature · Materialism · Political science · Tragedy (event) · German Literature and Culture Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and Historical Thought · Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation