Tragedy vs Rationalism

Thursday, November 09, 2011

Human Life According To Tragedians and Rationalists

According to Greek philosophers, a poet is a human being who possesses divine powers: he is a prophet. Homer, an ancient Greek poet, organized the universe according to the Cosmos, where every single god and goddess had a specific role. This organization gave order to human life. Moreover, according to the Greek point of view, the most important thing in life is beauty, aesthetics. Therefore, the world is a true, beautiful and orderly Cosmos. Greek literature was highly influenced by Homer’s writings. In fact, tragic and rationalistic understandings of human life were inspired from the Hellenic polytheism. Tragedy and rationalism perceive human life in different ways which are going to be studied in this essay.

Tragic works of art were inspired by Homer’s epics and Greek plays that used to resort to catharsis to purge the spectators’ passions. Sophocles, one of the most famous tragic authors, tries to make sense of human life through different elements. First of all, human beings are ‘blind’, they lack insight. They do not commit mistakes on purpose. In Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, Oedipus’s main tragic flaw is the fact that he thinks that he has insight. However, although he solved the sphinx’s difficult riddle, he remains ‘blind’ (161). According to tragedians reason is not enough to describe someone as insightful. Furthermore, life is ambiguous. Oedipus saved the city from a monster, however he brought, unconsciously, a plague upon it. Alethea is hidden. The world is beyond our understanding. It took time for Oedipus to discover the truth about his father’s death (232). Moreover, the universe is built according to a given order that no one can rise above, not even the gods. What happens to Oedipus is considered as justice. He has broken a cosmic law and therefore he receives inevitable retribution, regardless of whether he knew what he was doing : he blinds...