From the Ashes: The Tragicomedy of Justice and Mercy in a Providential History, Pt. 1

Introduction

History is a tragicomedy, and this is best. Much ink has been spilt over the question of what literary genre is best and whether or not the best art will conform to life or is purely creative. We will take the position that art should conform to life at its root and that the genre is best which best conforms to reality. But the metaphysical question of reality's nature must be resolved before we can discuss how reality affects art. We shall thus deal with this question, seeking to paint the frame of reality and history in dramatic terms—as being a coherent plotline with crucial characters and an order and purpose derived from the intention of its Author. We shall then analyze it and demonstrate its effectiveness in affecting the human heart and soul for good, attempt to demonstrate that such a philosophy of life and art is necessary to the preservation of art and criticism, and that, in artistic terms, such a dramatic view of reality itself is at once biblically, philosophically, and artistically satisfying.

As we shall attempt to demonstrate, the drama of history best fits the form of a tragicomedy. The tragicomic drama relies for its effectiveness on the tension between justice and mercy, retribution and forgiveness. The struggle and synthesis of these in dramatic literature shall thus be analyzed, as well as how the drama of history exemplifies this, making the fundamental framework of ultimate reality a beautiful work of art itself and reinforcing the idea that art should be mimetic of life.

These two major points—analysis of tragicomedy and the conformity of reality to its form, and the dramatic form of history itself—shall be the focus of this essay.

Literature and Life

Should art conform to life? Can it? It is typical to be told, in Romantic fashion, that true art is spontaneously created. One cannot allow himself to be limited by forms and modes. To attempt to conform to reality is to limit one's creative abilities and submit to arbitrary conventions about the nature of reality. But this assumes a number of things about man and his abilities. The Romantic idea is based on the concept that man is truly the measure of all things; indeed, it goes beyond the Deism of the preceding Neoclassical period, in which Alexander Pope asserted that man should only be concerned with the mundane things which are proper to him, to the idea that man is barely, if at all, answerable to anything outside of himself. Further, his creative abilities are unbounded by “nature.” Nature is whatever proceeds from the writer, freely and spontaneously. Man has creative abilities without bounds and without an objective reference point.

But does this not ultimately end in an art without purpose, “a sound and fury, signifying nothing”? If each man is the measure of his own work, and if his creations have meaning as his creation of them grants purpose to them, then there is no transcendent order beyond himself. There is no reason for him to expect that it will impress anyone else with the same urgency or message that he meant for it. It implies a chaotic world with no transcendent order—that is, such a one in which literary conventions, if enforced, would be arbitrary of necessity. But this is to undermine all framework of dramatic and literary theory. If each author is the sole judge of his own work, then it follows as a corollary that no one else may dare presume to judge it. If no one may judge it on any level, then literary criticism is ended, and we have a mass of narcissists writing plays for themselves. Without order to drama, an author may elicit feeling in others—a grin or even grim laughter or despair—but no serious intellectual engagement; one may produce a melodrama or farce, but never a tragedy or comedy. The reason one may not interact with anything based in this literary theory is simply because one can neither ask nor answer the question which is most proper to literature, insofar as literature is a concrete manifestation and application of philosophy: “why?”


Sisyphus and Hell

But what if there is no transcendent order to the universe? What if life is chaotic and without meaning or direction, and one does not know and cannot answer “why?” On these grounds, wouldn't a dramatic theory reflecting this be appropriate? Some, such as Samuel Beckett, have applied this to such plays as Waiting for Godot. Godot is without a traditional plot structure and has a directionless story; the characters' end state is no different from their beginning state, despite the many things that happen in between. The events within the play have no effect on the characters or their situation. It would be a comic tragedy, a grim laughing in the face of despair, were there at least a downfall into darkness, but there is no tragic hero and no downfall. The characters begin as fallen and remain as fallen, with no lasting relief in the meantime. Eric Bentley puts it thus: “The motto of the movement is...that hell is the place we are already in.” (Bentley, 338) “The movement of a modern tragedy is all that Schiller's Mary Stuart is not: its movement is simply and steadily down to defeat.” (Bentley, 339)

This is obviously an untenable literary theory for any Christian, and especially those who view all reality as constant evidence of a loving and providential God who is immanently involved in His creation. This shall be discussed further below. But it even seems internally inconsistent. If there is no meaning, then why bother to write drama and present it as drama? If there is no message, why bother to present something that transmits a message? There is substance to Bentley's analysis: “if a transcendence by beauty argues an unflinching courage, transcendence by courage argues a courage just as unflinching in the face of a world even more comfortless.” (Bentley, 339-340) To know that the world is meaningless and still to live on does argue a sort of courage. Most men would quail, and it takes a grand effort to overcome the despair resulting from such a reflection. But in the final analysis, the effort is still Sisyphian, and the world is still meaningless, and thus even the effort itself is ultimately meaningless and will make no impression on the plot of the world, or even on the character of the actor. Even his courage is worthless, and the Sisyphus who continues to roll the stone is of no more meaning than he who sits down and lets himself be crushed beneath its weight.

On the other hand, the fact that such courage does exist, and the fact of our admiration of it—when we do not cynically laugh at it—is evidence that the world is not as we think it is. If the author wishes courage to be admired, he is upholding courage as a transcendent good, or at least as something intrinsically valuable. And this is ultimately in defiance of his own worldview.