AugustWilson.net
February 20, 2008
King Hedley II as Greek Tragedy?
By Mike Downing
Dear Dr. Downing,
My name is Deon Greenwood. I'm a student at Idaho State University. I have recently read the play King Hedley II. I found this play to be a maze of morality. This play is powerful in its passion, texture and color. My theme in my up coming paper is this. August Wilson wrote a modern Greek tragedy. I thought King was the flawed hero. Stool Pigeon was the prophet. Aunt Ester was the oracle. Do you think this has any foundation? Or perhaps I'm just cracked!
Thank you for your time.
Deon
Deon,
You are on the
right track. Wilson's plays often echo the themes of Greek tragedy.
My suggestion is to review the basics of Greek drama and then apply them to King
Hedley.
Aristotle is a good place to begin:
Aristotle on Tragedy
(From the Poetics of Aristotle [384-322 BC])
I. Definition
of Tragedy
"Tragedy, then, is a process of imitating an action which has serious
implications, is complete, and possesses magnitude; by means of language which
has been made sensuously attractive, with each of its varieties found separately
in the parts; enacted by the persons themselves and not presented through
narrative; through a course of pity and fear completing the purification
(catharsis, sometimes translated "purgation") of such emotions."
a) "imitation" (mimesis): Contrary to Plato, Aristotle asserts that the artist
does not just copy the shifting appearances of the world, but rather imitates or
represents Reality itself, and gives form and meaning to that Reality. In so
doing, the artist gives shape to the universal, not the accidental. Poetry,
Aristotle says, is "a more philosophical and serious business than history; for
poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars."
b) "an action with serious implications": serious in the sense that it best
raises and purifies pity and fear; serious in a moral, psychological, and social
sense.
c) "complete and possesses magnitude": not just a series of episodes, but a
whole with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The idea of imitation is important
here; the artist does not just slavishly copy everything related to an action,
but selects (represents) only those aspects which give form to universal truths.
d) "language sensuously attractive...in the parts": language must be appropriate
for each part of the play: choruses are in a different meter and rhythm and more
melodious than spoken parts.
e) tragedy (as opposed to epic) relies on an enactment (dramatic performance)
not on "narrative" (the author telling a story).
f) "purification" (catharsis): tragedy first raises (it does not create) the
emotions of pity and fear, then purifies or purges them. Whether Aristotle means
to say that this purification takes place only within the action of the play, or
whether he thinks that the audience also undergoes a cathartic experience, is
still hotly debated. One scholar, Gerald Else, says that tragedy purifies
"whatever is 'filthy' or 'polluted' in the pathos, the tragic act" (98). Others
say that the play arouses emotions of pity and fear in the spectator and then
purifies them (reduces them to beneficent order and proportion) or purges them
(expels them from his/her emotional system).
II. The Tragic Hero
The tragic hero is "a [great] man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice
nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness
but because of some mistake."
a) a great man: "one of those who stand in great repute and prosperity, like
Oedipus and Thyestes: conspicuous men from families of that kind." The hero is
neither a villain nor a model of perfection but is basically good and decent.
b) "mistake" (hamartia): This Greek word, which Aristotle uses only once in the
Poetics, has also been translated as "flaw" or as "error." The great man falls
through--though not entirely because of--some weakness of character, some moral
blindness, or error. We should note that the gods also are in some sense
responsible for the hero's fall.
III. Plot
Aristotle distinguished six elements of tragedy: "plot, characters, verbal
expression, thought, visual adornment, and song-composition." Of these, PLOT is
the most important. The best tragic plot is single and complex, rather than
double ("with opposite endings for good and bad"--a characteristic of comedy in
which the good are rewarded and the wicked punished). All plots have some pathos
(suffering), but a complex plot includes reversal and recognition.
a) "reversal" (peripeteia): occurs when a situation seems to developing in one
direction, then suddenly "reverses" to another. For example, when Oedipus first
hears of the death of Polybus (his supposed father), the news at first seems
good, but then is revealed to be disastrous.
b) "recognition" (anagnorisis or "knowing again" or "knowing back" or "knowing
throughout" )[*]: a change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or
hate. For example, Oedipus kills his father in ignorance and then learns of his
true relationship to the King of Thebes. Recognition scenes in tragedy are of
some horrible event or secret, while those in comedy usually reunite long-lost
relatives or friends. A plot with tragic reversals and recognitions best arouses
pity and fear.
c) "suffering" (pathos): Also translated as "a calamity," the third element of
plot is "a destructive or painful act." The English words "sympathy," "empathy,"
and "apathy" (literally, absence of suffering) all stem from this Greek word.
Works Cited
Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. Gerald F. Else. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P,
1967.
Dorsch, T. R., trans. and ed. Aristotle Horace Longinus: Classical Literary
Criticism.
New York: Penguin, 1965.
Ley, Graham. The Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.
Reinhold, Meyer. Classical
Drama, Greek and Roman. New York: Barrons, 1959.
Good luck with your paper and thanks for writing.
Dr. Michael Downing
Assistant Professor of English
Professional Writing Program
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
Email: downing@kutztown.edu
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