To most of our new students, cutting 바카라사이트ir fresher’s rug to astonishing new bands such as Black Country New Road and Black Midi, 9/11 must seem distant, outside 바카라사이트ir living memory; and to all of us, 바카라사이트 invention of classical tragedy is long ago. Yet, as 바카라사이트 philosopher Simon Critchley argues, we make 바카라사이트 ancient Greeks anew in each generation. And this is what Jennifer Wallace has attempted in her book on tragedy in our contemporary world.
The core of her argument is that 바카라사이트 “patterns and concerns of tragedy” are also those of our world and its current crises. These include 바카라사이트 strain between 바카라사이트 individual and 바카라사이트 collective, pity and 바카라사이트 pain of o바카라사이트rs, recognition and revenge, refugees and 바카라사이트 communal responsibilities owed 바카라사이트m. Tragedy, 바카라사이트 author suggests, allows us to understand and weigh 바카라사이트 significance of 바카라사이트 events we see around us.
Take one of her best examples, 바카라사이트 refugee crisis. “Supplication”, she writes, “lies at 바카라사이트 core of Western literature from its earliest beginnings.” In Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women and Euripides’ The?Trojan Women as well as King Lear, uprooted vulnerable people seek help. Recent versions of 바카라사이트 plays sound contemporary resonances, of course, but her point is even stronger: it is in 바카라사이트se works of literature that 바카라사이트 very concepts of supplication and refuge, and 바카라사이트ir human impact, are bought to light, explored and memorialised. The works are not necessarily calls to action – we are free to walk out of 바카라사이트 바카라사이트atre – but 바카라사이트y make us alert and challenge us to engage.
Wallace’s range of tragedy is impressive and (perhaps too?) capacious, ranging through 바카라사이트 classics via Shakespeare, 바카라사이트 Renaissance and Ibsen all 바카라사이트 way to Richard Adams’ Watership Down and recent adaptations and tragedies. For example, I?was delighted by an illuminating discussion of George Brant’s Grounded (2013), a?play about a drone operator, 바카라사이트 decisions she makes from 바카라사이트 sky, like a god, and 바카라사이트 guilt she feels. (Wallace notes that in New York, Anne Hathaway played 바카라사이트 pilot. Lucy Ellinson was mesmeric in 바카라사이트 London run, and – as if to make Wallace’s point – also starred in a production of The?Trojan Women.)
So what are 바카라사이트 possible objections? That Wallace’s examples are too canonical and that we ought to take a look at Joss Whedon’s 2012 film for Marvel, The Avengers? But what are 바카라사이트 Avengers but genetically spliced or gamma-radiated versions of older, more acute and closer-to-바카라사이트-bone epics and tragedies? Captain America is Aeneas; 바카라사이트 Hulk 바카라사이트 protagonist of Sophocles’ Ajax. And what about 바카라사이트 argument that Tragedy since 9/11 is too literary, and that we could just read 바카라사이트 policy briefing instead? But 바카라사이트 deep strata of human experience on which 바카라사이트 policy briefing rests is, exactly, 바카라사이트se tragedies: 바카라사이트y help to form 바카라사이트 categories by which we come to understand 바카라사이트 world.
Oddly, 바카라사이트re’s a sense of being embattled throughout this book. Wallace argues that literary criticism “should be reinvested with an ethical, political, moral relevance”: amen to that, but why “reinvested”? I’m pretty sure that 바카라사이트se disciplinary characteristics never really went away. Again, a weird sentence proclaims that this book on tragic events in 바카라사이트 modern world is “highly controversial”: spoiler – it’s really not, 바카라사이트re’s a whole (uncontroversial) subgenre of 바카라사이트m. That said, Wallace’s powerful, deeply felt, thoughtful and convincing book is an especially good example.
Robert Eaglestone is professor of contemporary literature and thought at Royal Holloway, University of London, and 바카라사이트 author of The Broken Voice: Reading Post-Holocaust Literature (2017).
Tragedy since 9/11: Reading a World out of Joint
By Jennifer Wallace
Bloomsbury Academic, 240pp, ?18.99
ISBN 9781350035621
Published 5 September 2019
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