The theoretics of tragedy is as old as the art itself. While Plato wrote (quite disparagingly) on tragedy periodically in some of the dialogues, the foundational text of tragic theory—and, of literary criticism in its entirety—is Aristotle’s Poetics. “Tragedy” for Aristotle, “is a representation of an action of a superior kind—grand, and complete in itself—presented in embellished language, in distinct forms in different parts, performed by actors rather than told by a narrator, effecting, through pity and fear, the purification (catharsis) of such emotions.” All subsequent theories have been elaborations upon, or reactions against, Aristotle’s definition.

In some sense, attempting to present a theory of tragedy directly opposes the spirit of the art. Tragedy is arational (and often anti-rational) and defies reduction, and as such, any attempt at an all-encompassing or unifying theory of tragedy is to show that one hasn’t learned what they should have. At most one can present an interpretation of tragedy, which cannot fully describe its philosophical, psychological, religious, and anthropological importance. Over-theorizing tragedy is also a problem due to its diversity. It is unclear that what Shakespeare, Goethe, or Racine wrote must necessarily relate to the poetry of the Greek tragedians. This post will focus solely on tragedy at the margins: from where it came and on what in contemporary culture most resembles the tragic performance.

The tragic form develops out of the dithyrambs of Dionysus—a chanting hymn of religious devotion—and evolved into tragedy’s chorus. Both the dithyrambs and the chorus could produce ekstasis, or “being beside oneself or rapt out of oneself”. For the dithyramb, the de-localization of the self is the whole of the experience; for tragedy, however, this constitutes only half of the performance. The addition of the tragic hero breaks the ecstatic unity, by introducing an individual consciousness. For a tragic hero to emerge from the collective, their actions and attributes must be superlative to our own, and through the grandiosity of their actions, the hero separates their self from the rest of humanity. It is no coincidence that the tragic for Aristotle requires “action of a superior kind”. The twelve or fifteen members of the chorus are identifiable as ‘Trojan women’ or ‘Theban elders’, but each member of the chorus cannot be considered an individual. A member of the chorus must be thoroughly unremarkable; they could not have the beauty of Helen or the strength of Herakles—in short, the chorus must be like us.

This opposition between the chorus and the hero represents a fundamental conflict of the human condition: at an intellectual level, we are aware that everyone else is just like us but, despite understanding this, we cannot shake our phenomenologically-induced solipsism. We oscillate between the collective and, through the process of individuation, approach the heroic. As the collective, we remain as everyone else and, by extension, we remain safe. By moving away from the crowd, one necessarily moves closer to both heroism and danger. This represents the deeply human fear of moving outside of the community’s expectations to live one’s own life.

Greek tragedy often explores the conflicting levels of community and responsibility with its theme. Antigone must choose between her brother and her city; Orestes must choose between his father and his mother; Medea must choose between her family and her pride. The conflict between community, individuality, and responsibility is not just features of the plot but also—through the agonism between the chorus and the hero—an integral part of the structure of tragedy.

The plot and the structure, in the above instances, align but this need not be the case. Tragic drama can be separated into (at least) two components: the literary and the performative. Greek drama is primarily encountered as text, and this results in theorizing that treats tragedy as if it were strictly a piece of literature. An entirely textual or thematic reading allows novels to be considered tragedies, but if one considers the performative aspect, this categorization is ludicrous. Novels are read in silence, by oneself, over a period of days or weeks. But if a novel cannot function as tragedy in modern life, what does? Of course, there are still theatrical performances of tragedy—and tragedies are still being written—but the theatre no longer has the cultural weight it formerly did. The performances of plays are attended by a small subsection of the population and is skewed towards those with higher education in the humanities and fine arts and as such is too small of a niche or too elitist to accurate fill the role of tragedy. Also (mostly arising from the tradition of Brecht and his ‘epic theatre’), plays have become a primarily intellectual endeavor. Effort is made to remove the emotional or sentimental aspects of drama, further reducing its popularity.

The first popular alternative to tragedy would be film, but in multiple ways, film is an incomplete substitute for the performative function of tragedy. When one attends the theatre, great effort is undergone to create the illusion that one is alone. The room is dark and proper etiquette requires that everyone in the theatre should remain silent throughout the film. The conditions are arranged such that one can fully immerse themselves within the film. Film is more intimate than tragedy, in that characters’ internal states are presentable. While there may be some importance in experiencing personal art or entertainment alone, it is certainly a different experience from those forms that are experienced communally. These alternatives, the novel and film, do not fully capture the performative aspect of tragic drama, but a seemingly disparate form of entertainment does: sport.

There is some link, even in antiquity, between sport and theatre. The classical Greek word ἀγών applies to both sporting contest and dramatic conflict—it is the Greek word from which we get ‘protagonist’ and ‘antagonist’. In Rome, the ludi festivals would contain both athletics and drama. So, while tragedy and sport may not serve the identical collective function, the two activities were complementary. The key similarity between sport and tragedy is the interplay between the communal and the personal, and between the literal and the symbolic.

Those who were not brought up into sport culture and those upon whom the symbolic importance has not been engrained find the whole ordeal ludicrous. To explain sport as a literal event is to miss the mark. If sport was predominantly literal, it would be impossible to explain the riches that are spent, the bones that are broken, and the tears that are shed over the movement of balls into nets, hoops, and endzones. The societal intensity given to sport and its fandom serves as a clear refutation of the idea that man is a rational animal. But it is not as if the seriousness with which tragedy is treated is rational either. It is unclear that one is responding rationally when they are moved and disturbed by the blinding of Oedipus or Gloucester.

The experience, as spectator, of a live sport resembles the performance of tragedy for the ancient Greeks. The crowd of spectators, thinks and chants banal, repetitive sayings in unison, remaining unindividuated while they observe heroism from a distance. The crowd is fully expected to partake in the excitement and rowdiness of the sporting event, assuming that the excitement is collective. Fans who yell at the wrong times or yell the wrong things or bring undue attention to themselves in any other way—with these transgressions against the collective usually occurring after one has had enough intoxicants to make Dionysus himself proud—must be removed from the crowd.

The transgression involves a member of the crowd, the collective unity, attempting to differentiate him- or herself from the rest of the anonymous and unconscious spectators. This behaviour is doubly wrong in that it is an attempt on the part of the fan to elevate him- or herself to the level of the athletes. By drawing eyes and attention, they are challenging their spot in the crowd, and acting as if they deserve to be part of the spectacle and not merely a spectator. The second offense is that this makes the other crowd members (who were formerly without identity) conscious that it is possible for them to be singled out among the other spectators. This results in a heightened self-consciousness that completely opposes the communal function of tragedy and sport. That is why misbehaving fans are treated with such hostility.

In a well-functioning crowd, the heroism is observed through the athletes. At professional sporting events, the crowd observes physical performance that borders on superhuman. With action that appears greater than the members of the crowd can achieve, the athletes have justifiably differentiated themselves from the spectators. Still, the heroes are not exempt from failure, the games allow for the display of the ‘tragic fall’ and the fears associated with the individuation process. The games take on an existential importance by representing our deepest anxieties, and it is through this process that sport can provide a medium for catharsis.

By presenting the fears of individuation and the conflicting levels of responsibility, sport provides the same performative function as ancient Greek tragedy. One need only experience the collective despair of a crowd as a last-second field goal goes awry to understand the weight of these events and one need only possess the slightest capacity for empathy to understand the ‘pity and fear’ Aristotle describes and their tragic importance. With the public spectacle of sport, a venue exists where these intimate and personal worries need not be faced alone.