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To Fall from High or Low Estate? Tragedy and Social Class in Historical Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Edith Hall
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Extract

In a famous essay, the agnostic bertrand russell hailed tragedy as the highest instantiation of human freedom. tragedy results from human beings' persistence in the conscious, imaginative representation of the plight of humanity in the inhumane universe. Tragedy “builds its shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; … within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacles of beauty” (53-54). Russell's “servile captains of tyrant Fate” are the instruments by which metaphysical compulsion tortures humans—Death and Pain and Despair. Man, instead of allowing himself to be terrorized as “the slave of Fate,” creates tragedy “to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life” (57). By transforming the human condition into tragic art, humans create their own world of resistance, in which they can be the truly free “burghers” of a dauntless new city-state of the mind.

Type
Theories and Methodologies
Information
PMLA , Volume 129 , Issue 4: Special Topic Tragedy , October 2014 , pp. 773 - 782
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2014

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