The Play of Man

by Karl Groos

Hir giebt es Hymnen nur und Oden.”

“For drama, stage play, and novel

There is, alas! no public here;

These things are practised down in hell.

Here hymns and odes are de rigueur.”

In studying epic poetry we are struck by the frequency with which the excitement of fighting furnishes the motive. This is the case with almost the whole cycle of primitive epics and folk stories, down to our modern romance; and when an epic is produced, like the Messias, for example, without such stimulus to interest, it falls irretrievably under the reproach of dulness. In the drama war is all-important. A short time ago an unnamed author published an article on dramatic conflict to which I fully subscribe.[494] Since the time of Aristotle the idea of acting has been prominent[495] in any conception of the drama, though there have been some writers like Lenz, Otto Ludwig, and lately Gartelmann, who have stressed the delineation of character. Both theories easily lead to a one-sided view. “Not character as such, but character in conflict it is which lays claim to our interest in the drama, and only such acting is dramatic as reveals the conflict.... The essence of the dramatic consists in the presence of an overwhelming catastrophe which forms the central point of the poem, and its culmination is the writer’s chief task.” It strikes me that this is incontestable, though it may be urged that the conflict is only a means of bringing out the essential features of the character. Thus Wetz strikingly says: “If a poet wishes to portray his hero realistically, then must his environment contrast with his character. He must be put in trying circumstances, and thus be brought out of himself and reveal his utmost depths. Comedy as well as tragedy furnishes such situations; where the amusing complications or fatal passion have once been intimated they must be pursued to their final consequences.”[496] For refined connoisseurs it may be true that in perfect drama[497] conflict is but a means of unveiling character, yet even their interest is deepened by psychological considerations. With naïve spectators, who are to me the more important, it is quite otherwise. The conflict itself is the important thing to them, and the fact that it may afford insight into character is only noteworthy as making the fight more interesting. In any case we are safe in averring that the pleasure afforded by the drama has one very essential feature in common with ring contests, animal fights, races, etc.—namely, that of observing a struggle in which we may inwardly participate.

Tragedy is the highest poetic representation of a contest which is pursued to the bitter end, usually violent defeat.[498] Here we again encounter the question of enjoyment in relation to what is tragic. Volkelt explains it as a result of (1) the exalted character of the excitement; (2) sympathy; (3) strong stimuli; and (4) appreciation of artistic form. The third point, which is also one of ours, he considers subordinate. His first point, however, is not universally applicable, and his second is limited to those cases in which the sufferer is regarded as worthy, and even then pain predominates and only serves to weigh the balance further down on that side. Thus only the last two points remain for universal application. While we grant that appreciation of artistic form is an element in the explanation, the third point, pleasure in intense stimuli, seems to me more important. Volkelt’s view is not a little influenced by Vischu’s contention that “a general disturbance of the emotions constitutes a satisfaction for barbaric crudeness and ennui.” We have already had occasion to show that the enjoyment of strong stimuli is of great significance in all departments of play, but I fail to see anything barbaric about it, and consider this word unworthy to be applied to æsthetic pleasure. Is it not a noble pleasure to stand on a mountain summit or a ship’s prow and watch an approaching storm? And how much more elevated still is the storm of effects which tragedy awakens in us!

In considering fighting play in this connection we must notice a further point which is a corollary to those which have gone before, and is illustrated by some of the examples already given. The man standing on a ship and contemplating the force of a storm (I do not refer to his struggle with it) enjoys more than mere excitement. His soul partakes of the raging of the elements, the seething waves which break on the vessel’s prow, the furious gusts of wind, all this outward strife is inwardly imitated by him, and he is filled with jubilant delight in exercising all his fighting instincts. So also with tragedy. Not only joy in the storm of emotions, but also joy in the contest, is an important means of subduing what is unavoidably painful. While this relation, too, has been appreciated in other spheres, its application to the tragic has not hitherto been made. Indeed, this instinct is usually referred to in a narrow sense as a sort of bloodthirstiness, an idea not always far wrong. Ribot has formulated the following progression: “Pleasure in manslaughter, pleasure in judicial execution, pleasure in witnessing death (murder, gladiatorial combat, and the like), pleasure in seeing the blood of animals gush out (bull and cock fights), pleasure in witnessing violent and gory melodrama [this is only imitation, since the illusion of reality is but momentary], and finally, pleasure in reading bloody romances and following imaginary murder trials.”[499] We can hardly deny that even the cultured spectator feels something of the murderous impulse when, for instance, Hamlet springs with the agility of a tiger toward the king to fix him with a dagger. Yet as a whole this exposition of the theory of tragedy is defective even if we make the murderous impulse cover every variety of injurious conduct. The impulse to inflict injury has nothing to do with the final overthrow of the hero of our sympathies (and we do sympathize often with the very criminals in tragedy), and in the instances cited by Ribot it is usually less the bloodiness of the episode than its character as a fight which attracts us. The feeling of power in combat, not the cruelty of destructiveness, is most prominent. The reason that spectators of an animal fight are not satisfied until one of the fighters is either killed or disabled is surely not because they delight in injury as such, but because the fight can not be decisive until some injury is done.

While, then, we can not adopt this theory of the destructive impulse, yet we can learn from it, especially on one point to which we have given too little attention. We do take a certain pleasure in the catastrophe involving the personages of a drama which differs from our satisfaction in a fighting play; we sympathize with the sufferer, and yet experience feelings of pleasure. So long as the crisis delays, the case is indistinguishable from all other fighting plays; but how can we take part by inner imitation in the general collapse and yet enjoy the spectacle? In answer to this I must say that I am extremely doubtful whether the moment of the catastrophe is always enjoyable; I am inclined to think that quite often the sources of pleasure are insufficient to outweigh genuine grief. In this case inner imitation persists because the spectator is hypnotized by the extraordinary tension, and is unable to desist. I think, for example, that no one experiences lively feelings of delight while Wallenstein is being murdered behind the scenes, in spite of the intense stimulus, importance of the interests involved, etc. It is not essential that every instant of æsthetic contemplation should be filled with unadulterated pleasure. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly instances in which the catastrophe is actually enjoyed; and since we are not prepared to accept the explanation of this given above, let us inquire whether we can find one more satisfactory from the standpoint which we have adopted—namely, that of fighting play strictly speaking. An example will make my view clear, and one which may be explained in two ways. Let us picture to ourselves a Roman amphitheatre with the spectators assembled to witness a fight between a “bestarius” and a lion, and suppose that the man, in spite of wonderful agility, receives more and more serious wounds and is finally slain by the maddened brute. Suppose, further, that inner imitation on the part of the spectators is engaged by the man, as is natural, so that their pleasure can not be referred to triumph in the lion’s victory. To us the most conspicuous feature of the whole thing is the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the spectators, and reading modern descriptions of these old Roman customs only strengthens this idea. The barbarity was undoubtedly there, but was it the ground of their enjoyment? I think not, for thousands of the breathless spectators. On the contrary, that which moves these people is one of the strongest and most stirring stimuli known to us, sympathy with the courage and persistence of fighters to the death. For the best and probably the most of the spectators the satisfaction is not in mere witnessing cruel horrors, but first in the invincible courage which is undaunted in their presence, or in case of the hero’s defeat it consists in a victory over their own sympathetic terror. How clearly this passage from Cicero indicates this! “When you see the boys in Sparta, the lads in Olympia, or barbarians in the arena suffer the severest blows and bear them silently, will you wail like a woman when you feel pain? Boxers never lament when they are beaten from the ring, and what wounds they get! Can you not put up with a single hurt from the buffetings of life? What fighter, even an ordinary one, ever sighs or groans or goes about with a downcast face? Which of them has tamely submitted to death?”

In a similar way the sight of misfortune in tragedy may give pleasure because the outward undoing of the hero is calculated to awaken in us a feeling of triumph in which imitation gives us a part. As I have said, I do not believe that this is always the case, but rather that while the tragedy as a whole gives pleasure the supreme moment may be painful; and in still other circumstances the storm of emotion, one of all-conquering Fate, etc., may cause feelings of satisfaction when there is no inner victory. It is never so intense, however, as when this is present—a proof of the importance of fighting play. The utmost triumph for a fighter is the victory over his fear of defeat, and such victory is afforded by our playful sympathy with a tragic incident. Then fighting play becomes a source of such pleasure as is attributed ordinarily to exalted influences. Such side lights on a subject are seldom without important significance, and our problem is now thrown into somewhat this form. Tragedy most perfectly represents combat when it is pursued to a catastrophe. Since we habitually sympathize with the human element, the contradiction ensues of our experiencing pleasure in the suffering which we deplore and are involved in. We explain this apparent contradiction by assuming that the catastrophe becomes the foundation for an inner victory which converts it into a triumph. An examination of the various elevating effects which Volkelt’s analysis discloses reveals much that is irrelevant from our standpoint. The most salient of these points is his tragic opposition, whereas we have found that the catastrophe is in itself enjoyable only when exultation in the triumph of desolation is based on dread of that very thing. When the exhilaration depends merely on the overwhelming nature of Fate or when a moment of respite is snatched for the doomed hero, the poignancy of our sympathy with the final suffering is softened. Independent satisfaction in the catastrophe is present only where there is an element of fighting play, and herein lies the essence of our theory—that is, when inner imitation transforms defeat into victory. “Courage and self-possession in the presence of a powerful enemy, of threatened danger or calamity, or of difficult and anxious questions—this is what the tragic artist displays. All that is martial in us holds saturnalia in the presence of tragedy.”[500]