A Multicultural Approach to the Idea of Tragedy

In The Death of Tragedy (1961) George Steiner observed that tragedy as a form of drama was “distinctive of Western tradition.” Today, critics and scholars are understandably impatient with this position. Indeed, Andrew Gerstle points to Japanese traditional theater to challenge the idea that there can only be one norm of the concept of the tragic. Yet both Steiner and Gerstle absolutize formalistically the power of tragic art to reveal an unalterable human condition, thereby disconnecting great literary achievements from the perception of contemporary society. The argument of this essay is inspired by Raymond William’s notion of “modern tragedy,” which considers tragedy as a representation of our experience of the permanent contradictions in the process of modernization. From this perspective I critically examine the reception of traditional and modern Japanese literature in an attempt to establish through multicultural dialogue a truly inclusive framework for the interpretation of tragic art.