© Columbia University Press
Tragic Play: Irony and Theater from Sophocles to Beckett
July, 2009
Cloth, 248 pages, 0 halftones, 0 color illus., 0 line drawings, 0 tables
ISBN: 978-0-231-14556-5
$55.00
/ £38.00
Prefatory Note
Part I. The Excess of Judgment: A Reading of Oedipus Tyrannus
1. “It was I myself”: The Shape of Destiny
Acting, by Knowing
“In the Manner of Tragedy”
2. From Judging to Being Judged: The Story of Oedipus
The Juridification of the Oracle
Placing a Curse
Self-Condemnation
The “Curse of the Law”
3. Author and Character: Oedipus’s Existence
Dramatic Existence
Transcendental Dramatics
Excursus: The Concept of Tragic Irony
4. The Violence of Judgment: Oedipus’s Experience
Philosophy and Tragedy
The Objectivity of Judgment
Oedipus’s Lament
Errors Great and Small
The Paradox in the Judgment of an Error
5. “Learning from Suffering”: Tragedy and Life
Part II. Theoretical Interlude: The Process of Tragedy
6. Toward an Aesthetics of Tragedy: From the Beautiful to Play
The Suspension of the Tragic in the Beautiful
Contemplation or Reflection
Acting Out Action
The Freedom of the Actor
7. Promise and Impotence of Play
Parody of Tragedy and Tragedy of Parody: Romantic Comedy
The Untragic Hero: The Dialectical Lehrstück
Meta-theater, by Meta-tragedy
Part III. The Tragedy of Play
8. Tragedy and Skepticism: On Hamlet
Action, by Knowledge
“Madness” and Irony
Dizziness of Reflection: Theater and Tragedy
9. Three Sketches: Beckett, by Müller
The Score of the Feud: Samuel Beckett’s Endgame
Gladiators of Play: Heiner Müller’s Philoktet
Never: Botho Strauss’s Ithaka
Backnotes
Bibliography