This misguided enterprise may somehow have its basis in the working of the whole age toward the comic. The comic lies precisely in the isolation; when one wants to affirm the tragic within this isolation, one has evil in its badness, not the authentic tragic guilt in its ambiguous guiltlessness.
It is not difficult to find examples if one looks at modern lit- erature. For example, the work by Grabbe, Faust und Don Juan"® (in many ways a work of genius), is built upon evil. But, rather than to argue on the basis of a single work, I prefer to show it in the common consciousness of the whole contem- porary age. If one wanted to depict an individual whose un- fortunate childhood had played such havoc with him that these impressions caused his downfall, such a thing would have no The Tragic in Ancient Drama 145 appeal at all to the present age—not, of course, because it was poorly done, for I take the liberty of assuming it was excel- lently done, but because this age applies another standard. It will have nothing to do with such coddling; it automatically makes the individual responsible for his life. Consequently, if the individual succumbs, this is not tragic, but it is bad. One would think that the generation in which I have the honor of living must be a kingdom of gods. But this is by no means so; the vigor, the courage, that wants to be the creator of its own good fortune in this way, indeed, its own creator, is an illu- sion, and when the age loses the tragic, it gains despair. In the tragic there is implicit a sadness and a healing that one indeed must not disdain, and when someone wishes to gain himself in the superhuman way our age tries to do it, he loses himself!” and becomes comic. Every individual, however original he is, is still a child of God, of his age, of his nation, of his family, of his friends, and only in them does he have his truth. Ifhe wants to be the absolute in all this, his relativity, then he becomes lu- dicrous. In languages, there is sometimes found a word that because of its context is so frequently used in a specific case that it eventually becomes, if you please, independent as an ad- verb in this case.'® For the experts such a word has once and for all an accent and a flaw that it never lives down; if, then, this notwithstanding, it should claim to be a substantive and de- mand to be declined in all five cases, it would be genuinely comic. So it goes with the individual also when he, perhaps extracted from the womb of time laboriously enough, wants to be absolute in this enormous relativity. But if he surrenders this claim, is willing to be relative, then he eo ipso has the tragic, even if he were the happiest individual—indeed, I would say the individual is not happy until he has the tragic. Intrinsically, the tragic is infinitely gentle; esthetically it is to human life what divine grace and compassion are; it is even more benign, and therefore I say that it is a motherly love that lulls the troubled one. The ethical is rigorous and hard. There- fore, if a criminal before the judge wants to excuse himself by saying that his mother had a propensity for stealing, especially during the time she was pregnant with him, the judge obtains 123 124 146 Either/Or, I the health officer’s opinion of his mental condition and decides that he is dealing with a thief and not with the thief’s mother. Insofar as the issue here is a crime, the sinner certainly cannot flee into the temple of esthetics, but nevertheless it will indeed have a mitigating word for him. But it would be wrong for him to seek refuge there, for his path takes him to the reli- gious, not to the esthetic. The esthetic lies behind him, and it would be a new sin on his part to seize the esthetic now. The religious is the expression for fatherly love, for it embraces the ethical, but it is mitigated, and by what means—by the very same means that give the tragic its gentleness, by means of continuity. But although the esthetic provides this repose be- fore sin’s profound discrepancy is asserted, the religious does not provide it until this discrepancy is seen in all its frightful- ness. At the very moment the sinner almost swoons under the universal sin that he has taken upon himself because he felt simply that the more guilty he became the greater would be the prospect of being saved, at that same dreadful moment he has the consoling thought that it is universal sinfulness that has asserted itself also in him. But this comfort is a religious com- fort, and anyone who thinks he can attain it in any other way, by esthetic volatilization, for example, has taken the comfort in vain, and he actually does not have it. In a certain sense, therefore, it is a very appropriate discretion on the part of the age to want to make the individual responsible for everything; the trouble is that it does not do it profoundly and inwardly enough, and hence its half-measures. It is conceited enough to disdain the tears of tragedy, but it is also conceited enough to want to do without mercy. And what, after all, is human life, the human race, when these two things are taken away? Either the sadness of the tragic or the profound sorrow and profound joy of religion. Or is this not the striking feature of everything that originates in that happy people!*—a depression of spirit, a sadness in their art, in their poetry, in their life, in their joy? In the foregoing discussion, I have especially sought to stress the difference between ancient and modern tragedy in- sofar as it is apparent in the difference in the guilt of the tragic hero. This is the real focal point from which everything ema- The Tragic in Ancient Drama 147 nates in its specific difference. If the hero is unequivocally guilty, monologue vanishes, fate vanishes; then thought is transparent in dialogue, and action in situation. The same thing may be stated from another side—namely, from the per- spective of the mood that the tragedy evokes. It is well known that Aristotle maintains that tragedy should arouse fear and compassion [Medlidenhed] in the spectator.”° I recall that Hegel in his Esthetics?! picks up this comment and on each of these points makes a double observation, which, however, is not very exhaustive. When Aristotle distinguishes between fear and compassion, one presumably could rather think of the fear as the mood accompanying the particular and of the compas- sion as the mood that is the definitive impression. This latter mood is the one I have particularly in mind because it is the one corresponding to tragic guilt and therefore also has the same implicit dialectic as that concept. On this point, Hegel notes that there are two kinds of compassion, the usual kind that turns its attention to the finite side of suffering, and the truly tragic compassion. This observation is altogether correct but to me of less importance, since that universal emotion is a mis- understanding that can befall modern tragedy just as much as ancient tragedy. But what he adds with regard to true com- passion is true and powerful: “das wahrhafte Mitleiden ist im Gegentheil die Sympathie mit der zugleich sittlichen Berech- tigung des Leidenden [true sympathy, on the contrary, is an accordant feeling with the ethical claim at the same time asso- ciated with the sufferer]’’ (III, p. 531).
Whereas Hegel considers compassion more in general and its differentiation in the difference of individualities, I prefer to stress the difference in compassion in relation to the difference in tragic guilt. To indicate this difference at once, I shall sepa- rate the Lidende [suffering] in the word Medlidenhed {compas- sion] and add in each instance the sympathy implicit in the pre- fix med [with], yet in such a way that I do not come to predicate something about the spectator’s mood that could indicate his arbitrariness, but in such a way that in expressing the differ- ence in his mood I also convey the difference in the tragic guilt. In ancient tragedy, the sorrow is more profound, the pain less; 125 126 148 Either/Or, I in modern tragedy, the pain is greater, the sorrow less. Sorrow always has in it something more substantial than pain. Pain always indicates a reflection upon the suffering that sorrow does not know. Psychologically, it is very interesting to ob- serve a child when he sees an adult suffer. ‘The child is not sufficiently reflective to feel pain, and yet his sorrow is infi- nitely deep. He is not sufficiently reflective to have an idea of sin and guilt; when he sees an adult suffer, it does not cross his mind to think about that, and yet if the reason for the suffering is hidden from him, there is a dark presentiment of the reason in the child’s sorrow. So it is also, but in complete and deep har- mony, with the sorrow of the Greeks, and that is why it is si- multaneously so gentle and so deep. On the other hand, when an adult sees a young person, a child, suffer, the pain is greater, the sorrow less. The more pronounced the idea of guilt, the greater the pain, the less profound the sorrow.
Applying this now to the relation between ancient and mod- ern tragedy, one may say: In ancient tragedy, the sorrow is more profound, and in the corresponding consciousness the sorrow is more profound. It must continually be kept in mind that this is not in me but in the tragedy and that, in order to understand properly the profound sorrow in Greek tragedy, I must live into the Greek consciousness. Therefore, when so many admire Greek tragedy, it no doubt is often just parrot- ing, for it is obvious that our age at least has no great sympathy for what is the truly Greek sorrow. The sorrow is more pro- found because the guilt has esthetic ambiguity. In modern times, the pain is greater. One could say of Greek tragedy that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” The wrath of the gods is terrible, but still the pain is not as great as in modern tragedy, where the hero suffers his total guilt, is transparent to himself in his suffering of his guilt.
It is appropriate at this point to show, as with tragic guilt, which sorrow is true esthetic sorrow and which is true esthetic pain. The most bitter pain is obviously repentance, but re- pentance has ethical, not esthetic, reality [Realitet].?° It is the most bitter pain because it has the complete transparency of the total guilt, but precisely because of this transparency it The Tragic in Ancient Drama 149 does not interest esthetically. Repentance has a holiness that eclipses the esthetic. It does not want to be seen, least of all by a spectator, and requires an altogether different kind of self-activity. To be sure, modern comedy has at times brought repentance onto the stage, but this only betrays a lack of judg- ment in the author. One is indeed reminded of the psycholog- ical interest there can be in seeing repentance depicted, but again psychological interest is not the esthetic. This is part of the confusion that manifests itself in so many ways in our day: something is sought where one should not seek it; and what is worse, it is found where one should not find it. One wishes to be edified in the theater, to be esthetically stimulated in church; one wishes to be converted by novels, to be entertained by de- votional books; one wishes to have philosophy in the pulpit and a preacher on the lecture platform. This pain, then, is not esthetic pain, and yet it is obviously that which the present age is working toward as the supreme tragic interest.
This also turns out to be the case with tragic guilt. Our age has lost all the substantial categories of family, state, kindred; 27%t must turn the single individual over to himself completely in such a way that, strictly speaking, he becomes his own cre- ator. Consequently his guilt is sin, his pain repentance, but thereby the tragic is canceled. Furthermore, suffering tragedy in the stricter sense has essentially lost its tragic interest, for the power that is the source of the suffering has lost its meaning, and the spectator shouts: Help yourself, and heaven will help you—in other words, the spectator has lost compassion, but in a subjective and also in an objective sense compassion is the au- thentic expression of the tragic.
For the sake of clarity, before developing this exposition further, I shall define a little more explicitly true esthetic sor- row. Sorrow and pain move in opposite directions. If one does not want to spoil this by a foolish consistency (something that I shall prevent in also another way), one may say: The greater the guiltlessness, the greater the sorrow. If this is insisted upon, the tragic will be canceled. An element of guilt always remains, but this element is not actually reflected subjectively; this is why the sorrow in Greek tragedy is so profound. To I 127 128 150 Ejither/Or, I forestall premature conclusions, I shall just point out that overstatements result only in shifting the issue over into an- other realm. The unity of absolute guiltlessness and absolute guilt is not an esthetic category but a metaphysical one.
The real reason people have always had scruples about call- ing the life of Christ a tragedy is that they felt that esthetic cat- egories do not exhaust the matter. That the life of Christ is something more than can be exhausted in esthetic categories is apparent also in another way—namely, that these neutralize themselves in this phenomenon and are rendered inconse- quential. Tragic action always contains an element of suffer- ing, and tragic suffering an element of action; the esthetic lies in their relativity. The identity of an absolute action and an ab- solute suffering is beyond the powers of the esthetic and be- longs to the metaphysical. In the life of Christ there is this identity, for his suffering is absolute, since it is absolutely free action, and his action is absolute suffering, since it is absolute obedience.
Thus, the element of guilt that remains is not subjectively reflected, and this makes the sorrow profound. In other words, tragic guilt is more than just subjective guilt—it is hereditary guilt; but hereditary guilt, like hereditary sin, is a substantial category, and it is precisely this substantiality that makes the sorrow more profound.
The ever admired trilogy of Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus the King, and Antigone, hinges essentially on this gen- uine tragic interest. But hereditary guilt involves the contra- diction of being guilt and yet not being guilt.22 The bond by which the individual becomes guilty is precisely [filial] piety, but the guilt that it thereby incurs has every possible esthetic amphiboly.”? One might promptly think that the people who must have developed the profoundly tragic was the Jewish na- tion. For example, when it is said of Jehovah that he is a jeal- ous God, that he visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations,*° or when we hear those terrible curses in the Old Testament, one could easily be tempted to want to seek tragic material here. But Judaism is too ethically mature for that; even though they are terrible, Je- The Tragic in Ancient Drama 151 hovah’s curses are also righteous punishment. It was not this way in Greece; the wrath of the gods has no ethical character, only esthetic ambiguity.
In Greek tragedy itself, there is a transition from sorrow to pain, and I would cite Philoctetes as an example of this.*! In a stricter sense, this is a tragedy of suffering. But here, too, a high degree of objectivity still prevails. The Greek hero rests in his fate; his fate is unalterable; of that there can be no further discussion. This element is really the component of sorrow in the pain. The first doubt with which pain really begins is this: Why is this happening to me; can it not be otherwise? To be sure, Philoctetes?? has something that has always been striking to me and that essentially separates it from that immortal tril- ogy: a high degree of reflection**—the masterly depicted self- contradiction in his pain, in which there is such profound hu- man truth, but still there is an objectivity that carries the whole. Philoctetes’ reflection is not absorbed in itself, and it is genuinely Greek when he laments that no one knows his pain.* There is an extraordinary truth in this, and yet precisely here there is also a manifestation of the difference from the really reflective pain that always wants to be alone with its pain, that seeks a new pain in the solitude of this pain.
The true tragic sorrow, then, requires an element of guilt, the true tragic pain an element of guiltlessness; the true tragic sorrow requires an element of transparency, the true tragic pain an element of opacity. I believe this is the best way to sug- gest the dialectic in which the qualifications of sorrow and pain touch each other, and also the dialectic implicit in the concept: tragic guilt.
Since it is at variance with the aims of our association* to provide coherent works or larger unities, since it is not our in- tention to labor on a Tower of Babel that God in his right- eousness can descend and destroy, since we, in our conscious- ness that such confusion justly occurred, acknowledge as characteristic of all human endeavor in its truth that it is frag- mentary, that it is precisely this which distinguishes it from nature’s infinite coherence, that an individual’s wealth consists specifically in his capacity for fragmentary prodigality and 129 152 Either/Or, I what is the producing individual’s enjoyment is the receiving individual’s also, not the laborious and careful accomplish- ment or the tedious interpretation of this accomplishment but the production and the pleasure of the glinting transiency, which for the producer holds much more than the consum- mated accomplishment, since it is a glimpse of the idea and holds a bonus for the recipient, since its fulguration [Fulgura- tion]°> stimulates his own productivity—since all this, I say, is at variance with our association’s inclination, indeed, since the periodic sentence just read must almost be regarded as a seri- ous attack on the ejaculatory style in which the idea breaks forth without achieving a breakthrough, to which officiality is attached in our society—therefore, after having pointed out that my conduct still cannot be called mutinous, inasmuch as the bond that holds this periodic sentence together is so loose that the parenthetical clauses therein strut about aphoristically and willfully enough, I shall merely call to mind that my style has made an attempt to appear to be what it is not: revolution- ary.
Our society requires a renewal and rebirth at every single meeting and to that end requires that its intrinsic activity be re- juvenated by a new description of its productivity. Let us, then, designate our intention as a venture in fragmentary en- deavor or the art of writing posthumous [efterladt, left behind] papers. A completely finished work is disproportionate to the poetizing personality; because of the disjointed and desultory character of unfinished papers, one feels a need to poetize the personality along with them. Unfinished papers are like a ruin, and what place of resort could be more natural for the buried? The art, then, is to produce skillfully the same effect, the same carelessness and fortuitousness, the same anacoluthic [anako- luthisk] thought process; the art is to evoke an enjoyment that is never present tense but always has an element of the past and thus is present in the past. This is already expressed in the expression “‘left behind.” Indeed, in a certain sense everything a poet has produced is something left behind, but it would never occur to anyone to call a completely finished work a work left behind, even if it had the accidental feature of not The Tragic in Ancient Drama 153 having been published in his lifetime. I also assume it to be a feature of all authentic human production in its truth, as we have interpreted it, that it is property left behind, since it is not granted to human beings to live with an eternal view like the gods’. Consequently, I shall call what is being produced among us property left behind [Efterladenskab], that is, artistic property left behind; negligence [Efterladenhed], indolence, we shall call the genius that we prize; the vis inertiae [force of in- ertia] we shall call the natural law that we worship. With this I have complied with our hallowed customs and conventions.
So, my dear Zuuraeavexewpevor, come closer to me, forma circle around me as I send my tragic heroine out into the world, *’as I give the daughter of sorrow a dowry of pain as her outfit. She is my work, but still her outline is so indistinct, her form so nebulous, that each and every one of you can for- liebe sig®® (fall in love] with her and be able to love her in your own way. She is my creation, her thoughts are my thoughts, and yet it is as if in a night of love [ had rested with her, as if she in my embrace had confided a deep secret to me, had breathed it out together with her soul, as if she had then in- stantly changed before me, had disappeared, so that the only trace of her actuality was the mood that remained behind, in- stead of the reverse situation that she is brought forth by my mood to ever greater actuality. I put words into her mouth, and yet it seems to me as if I abused her confidence; it seems to me as if she were standing reproachfully behind me, and yet it is the reverse—in her secrecy she becomes ever more visible. She belongs to me, she lawfully belongs to me, and yet at times it is as if | had cunningly crept into her confidence, as if I always had to look behind me for her; and yet it is the reverse, she is always in front of me—only as I lead her forward does she come into existence.
Antigone*? is her name. I shall keep this name from the an- cient tragedy, to which I shall hold for the most part, although from another angle everything will be modern. But first one comment. I am using a female character* because I believe that a female nature will be best suited to show the difference. Asa woman, she will have enough substantiality*! for the sorrow { 130 131 154 Either/Or, I to manifest itself, but as one belonging to a reflective world she will have sufficient reflection to experience the pain. In order for the sorrow to be experienced, the tragic guilt must vacillate between guilt and guiltlessness, and the vehicle by which guilt enters her consciousness must always be a qualification of sub- stantiality. But since the tragic guilt must have this indefinite- ness in order for the sorrow to be experienced, reflection must not be present in its infinitude, for then it would reflect her out of her guilt, inasmuch as reflection in its infinite subjectivity cannot allow the factor of hereditary sin, which produces the sorrow, to remain. But since reflection has been awakened, it will reflect her not out of the sorrow but into it; at every mo- ment it will transform sorrow into pain for her.
So, then, the family of Labdakos* is the object of the indig- nation of the gods:*? Oedipus has killed the sphinx, liberated Thebes; Oedipus has murdered his father, married his mother; and Antigone is the fruit of this marriage. So it goes in the Greek tragedy. Here I deviate. With me, everything is the same, and yet everything is different. Everyone knows that he has killed the sphinx and freed Thebes, and Oedipus is hailed and admired and is happy in his marriage with Jocasta. The rest is hidden from the people’s eyes, and no suspicion has ever brought this horrible dream into the world of actuality. Only Antigone knows it. How she found out is extraneous to the tragic interest, and in that respect everyone is left to his own explanation. At an early age, before she had reached maturity, dark hints of this horrible secret had momentarily gripped her soul, until certainty hurled her with one blow into the arms of anxiety. Here at once I have a definition of the tragic in mod- ern times, for an anxiety is a reflection and in that respect is es- sentially different from sorrow. Anxiety is the vehicle by which the subject appropriates sorrow and assimilates it. Anx- iety is the motive power by which sorrow penetrates a per- son’s heart. But the movement is not swift like that of an ar- row; it is consecutive; it is not once and for all, but it is continually becoming. As a passionately erotic glance craves its object, so anxiety looks cravingly upon sorrow. Just as the quiet, incorruptible eye of love is preoccupied with the be- The Tragic in Ancient Drama 155 loved object, so anxiety’s self-preoccupation is with sorrow. But anxiety has an added factor that makes it cling even harder to its object, for it both loves and fears it. Anxiety has a double function; in part it is the exploring movement that continually makes contact and by this groping discovers sorrow as it cir- cles around it. Or anxiety is sudden; all the sorrow is lodged in one instant, yet in such a way that this instant immediately dis- solves in a consecutive series. In this sense, anxiety is a genuine tragic category, and the old saying quem deus vult perdere, pri- mum dementat [whom a god would destroy he first makes mad]** is really and truly applicable here. “That anxiety is a re- flection category is shown by language itself, for I always say that I am anxious about something, and I thereby distinguish between the anxiety and that about which I am anxious, and I can never use “‘anxiety” objectively; whereas when I say ‘““my sorrow,” I can be expressing as much about what I am griev- ing over as about my sorrow over it. Furthermore, anxiety al- ways contains a reflection on time, for I cannot be anxious about the present but only about the past or the future, but the past and the future, kept in opposition to each other in such a way that the present vanishes, are categories of reflection. Greek sorrow, however, like all Greek life, is in the present, and therefore the sorrow is deeper, but the pain less. Anxiety, therefore, belongs essentially to the tragic. Hamlet is such a tragic figure because he suspects his mother’s crime. Robert le diable** asks how it could happen that he does so much evil. Hoegne,*” whom his mother had conceived with a troll, acci- dentally comes to see his image in the water and asks his mother whence his body acquired such a form.
The difference is easy to see now. In Greek tragedy, Antig- one is not occupied at all with her father’s unfortunate fate. This rests like an impregnable sorrow on the whole family. Antigone, like every other young Greek girl, goes on living free from care—indeed, since her death is determined, the cho- rus is sorry for her because she must depart from this life at such a young age, depart from it without having tasted its most beautiful joy—obviously forgetful of the family’s own profound sorrow. This by no means says that it is light-mind- 132 133 156 Either/Or, I edness or that the particular individual stands all alone without concern for his relationships to the family. But this is genu- inely Greek. To them, life relationships, like the horizon under which they live, are given once and for all. Even though this is dark and full of clouds, it is also unchangeable. This gives a dominant tone to the soul, and this is sorrow, not pain. In Antigone, the tragic guilt is focused upon a specific point, that she has buried her brother in defiance of the king’s injunction. If this is viewed as an isolated fact, as a collision between sis- terly love and piety and an arbitrary human injunction, Antig- one would cease to be a Greek tragedy; it would be an alto- gether modern tragic theme. What provides the tragic interest in the Greek sense is that Oedipus’s sad fate resonates in the brother’s unfortunate death, in the sister’s conflict with a spe- cific human injunction; it is, as it were, the afterpains, Oedi- pus’s tragic fate, spreading out into each branch of his family. This totality makes the spectator’s sorrow so very profound. It is not an individual who goes under, but a little world; it is the objective grief, unloosed, that now strides ahead, like a force of nature, in its own terrible consistency, and Antigone’s sad fate is like the echo of her father’s, an intensified sorrow. Therefore, when Antigone, in defiance of the king’s injunc- tion, decides to bury her brother, we see in this not so much a