Animus vol 1 (1996) www.swgc.mun.ca
The Recovery Of A Comprehensive View Of Greek Tragedy
© Paul Epstein
An accurate view of Greek Tragedy is currently very much a desideratum. While in
the poetical world of Tragedy, a human individuality is formed through the imitation of
the gods by participation in the life of Family and State, contemporary views obscure this
divine-human dialectic. Falling within the logic developed by Nietzsche in his Birth of
Tragedy, they assume a human individuality complete in itself and make it the subject of
the tragic action. 1
At stake in the recovery of a comprehensive view of Greek Tragedy is not mere
archaeological exactness, but a right understanding of our spiritual history, ancient and
modern. Tragedy has played an essential role in the development of that Hellenic spirit
which together with the Judaic has animated our Western and Christian civilization.
Moreover, a profound enthusiasm for Greek Tragedy has captured the European
imagination since the end of the eighteenth century, and a deeper interpretation than that
of Nietzsche is necessary to make that enthusiasm comprehensible.
This article proposes, therefore, first to locate Tragedy in its general spiritual context,
by presenting it as a further development of the spiritual world that the war between the
Titans and Olympians has established. Second, it will argue that the Nietzschean view of
tragedy does not respect the primacy of the Olympian gods in the formation of human
individuality. Third, in a consideration of Antigone it proposes to suggest an
Interpretation of one tragedy in accord with the principles expressed more generally in
the first two parts of the article. Lastly, it will seek to show that in its discovery of a
rational humanity imitative of the gods lies the true interest of tragedy both as part of our
history and our contemporary life.
1 This does not imply that contemporary critics are professed Nietzs