The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-11-20

struggle the ruin of typical human
/ life, a ruin to which we ourselves might
| be subject IL thus mysteriously beset.
/ The hero, too, must be a person 10 eX-
cite general interest, always one of
some repute in the social or political
/ world. While we cannot say that this
/ is an invariable law (witness George
! Eliot'S success with the Weaver of
/ Raveloe') the fact remains that thus
far no great tragedy has appeared in
which the hero was drawn from the
! humble or obscure walks of life.
Furthermore. the hero must be per-
+, son of essentially noble nature; other
wise we should feel satisfaction at his
overthrow, not compassion Plays of
the type of Richard ILL.," or THE
Jew of Malta do not fall into the same
class with Hamlet Macbeth" and
Lear They are not tragedies in the
Aristotelian sense. 1t has been suggest
ed that they be called satiric tragedies
after the analogy OF the satiric form of
epic.
| 1t is commonly said that ancient
tragedy with which we oftenest COM
pare Shakespeare's tragedies) pictures
mans struggle with forces outside him.
| self, while the modern paints the strug-
gle of man with himself. There is ap-
parent truth in the distinction, but it is
! frequently overdrawn. and ii has little
value for the student. The antitheSis,
like figures of emphasis in general, mis-
leads if taken literally Close reflection
shows us that there is no sharp dis
tinction between the struggle of Orestes
and of Macbeth, of Oedipus, and of
Lear. The element of fatality of irres-
lstible external influences soliciting or
driving to ruin, is present in them all.
AS already pointed out, this element of
fatality, of inevitableneSs, is the very
essence of tragedy, ancient or modern.
1t is the basis of our pity for the VIC
tim, of our fear Cor sense of OPP
pression') for ourselves. In this the
drama is a picture of life Can "imita-
ton" of life as Aristotle phrased III,
but truer than actual life, as art is
truer than nature, because more UNI
versal
In a question of so great difficulty
there are certain to be readers who will
take exception to the views here set
forth. In this age of scientific discovery
it has become the habit of many mindc
to endeavor to bring every department
of human activity under the operation
of ascertainable law. Everything con-
nected with our emotional and spiritual
life must be explained by the law of
cause and effect, as in the world of
sense. And so it comes about that some
critics of Shakespeare, assuming his
conformity 10 nature, seek to find G
moral justification for all that hap
pens in his tragedies Othello suffers
his deserts because he is jealous; Des-
demona, because she marries against
her fathers wishes a man of foreign
race and afterward prevaricates when
questioned by her husband: Lear. be-
cause he is rash, petulant and vain
Cordelia, because she is stubborn to-
ward her aged father and afterward in
vades with hostile force her native
land; Macbeth, because he is inordin-
ately ambitious and superstitious. if
not worse, etc. etc. This style of criti-
cism seems to US superficial and pro-
fame. utterly subversive of the high
and true ends of tragic art. 1t proceeds
upon the false assumption that there
must be some causal connection be-
tween human misfortune and moral de =
linquency, whereas we know that
calamity sometimes follows close upon
deeds of the nohlest heroism. Aristotle
defined the tragic hero as "a person Of
great repute falling into adversely. not
through wickedness. but through some
error" This tragic error is not
necessarily a moral fault at all (wit-
ness the case of Antigone). and indeed
never affords an adequate cause for the
catastrophe. as far as human eve can
see. As a matter of prudential wis.,
dom It is we'll to remember that as we
SOW so also shall we reap, but il is none
the less true that we often reap where
we have not sown. One man soweth and
another reapeth. Shakespeare was too
great an artist as well as too great
thinker, to attempt to measure the