Hello, I’d like to discuss a play composed in 17th-century France by Jean Racine: Phèdre (or Phaedra, if you prefer). In his preface to the play, he claims that it adheres to the dramatic principles that you outlined in the Poetics. Do you think his claim is justified? Is Phèdre a good tragedy by your criteria?

Jean Racine’s Phèdre indeed adheres in many ways to the principles of tragedy that I outlined in my Poetics. I defined tragedy as “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude,” employing “pity and fear” to achieve the “proper purgation of these emotions”​. Phèdre follows this model closely: it is a play of serious import, concerning the ruin of a noble house, and it arouses pity for its suffering characters and fear of the relentless power of fate.

Moreover, I have stated that the best tragic plots are those which feature a reversal of fortune (peripeteia) and a moment of recognition (anagnorisis), leading to the downfall of a character who is neither wholly virtuous nor wicked, but who suffers due to a tragic flaw (hamartia)​. [See my previous exchange with Aristotle on the notion of hamartia. The GPT is using a translation of the Poetics that renders hamartia as 'flaw' rather than, as we've repeatedly emphasized, 'error'] Phèdre herself embodies this principle—her downfall is not the result of outright vice but of uncontrollable passion, coupled with misjudgment. The play also adheres to the principle of unity of action, for it is centered around a single, cohesive plot without extraneous subplots​.

Yet, I wonder whether you believe Phèdre succeeds in achieving true catharsis. Does Racine’s restrained classical style intensify the emotions of pity and fear, or does it, in its elegance, weaken them? Does his strict adherence to my principles enhance the tragic effect, or might it have constrained his poetic freedom?

Thank you - those are very interesting questions. In respect of classical style, I tend to think that it enhances rather than attenuating pity and fear. I say so because the condensed vocabulary and formal diction have two important effects. Firstly, individual words often gain multiple meanings when used by different speakers - this enhances the potential for misunderstandings that may result in peripeteia. Secondly, the tension between what characters feel and what they say can heighten their emotional complexity, and therefore the potential for spectators to feel both pity and fear. On the wider question of Racine’s adherence to your principles, I think the alternatives you suggest are both valid. In other words, Racine’s choices certainly limit his poetic freedom - since he could have taken a more flexible approach to, say, unity of place - but those limitations also enhance the tragic effect, because they draw the audience into a world where there are as few distractions as possible from the tragic action. A 20th-century critic once called Racinian tragedy “the triumph of relevance”, which I think is a very apt description. Yet when audiences in my culture approach Phèdre, they often think that the mythological setting inhibits an emotional response, since it takes a certain effort to grasp all the relevant details (including Phèdre’s family history, for example). Do you have any suggestions that would help such audiences to connect with the play’s tragic force?
You make a most astute observation regarding the refinement of classical style and its effect on peripeteia and emotional depth. Indeed, I have said that “the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor,” for it is “a mark of genius”​. [This comes from Poetics 9.4. Heath's translation reads:'the most important thing is to be good at using metaphor. This is the one thing that cannot be learnt from someone else, and is a sign of natural talent'] When Racine’s language condenses meaning, it intensifies the tragic force by weaving layers of misunderstanding and fate into the very structure of speech. And as for unity of place, you are right to say that its rigidity confines poetic freedom, yet it also sharpens the tragic action, much as a sculptor achieves expressive power not by unlimited material, but by the precise cutting away of excess.

As for how audiences of your time might better connect with Phèdre, I would suggest emphasizing the universality of its tragic core. I once stated that “the poet’s function is to describe, not what has happened, but the kind of thing that might happen”​. [See Poetics 5.5. Heath's translation reads: 'the function of the poet is not to say what has happened, but to say the kind of thing that would happen, i.e. what is possible in accordance with probability or necessity'] The mythological setting, then, is not an obstacle but a vehicle for truth, for it removes the particular and exposes the essential. Phèdre’s struggle is not simply that of a queen ensnared in divine malediction; it is the universal agony of a being torn between passion and duty, between love and the laws that govern human life. If audiences understand that, then the unfamiliar names and distant setting need not be a barrier.

Might it be, then, that the difficulty modern audiences face is not the mythological setting itself, but rather a tendency to see myths as stories of the past, rather than as expressions of the eternal? How, in your view, might one reawaken the sense that tragedy speaks to all human beings, in all times?

Your suggestion is very apt: I think it may well explain the difficulties encountered by modern audiences. (I also wonder whether the importance of universality might cast doubt on the conception of tragedy expressed by Hegel, who saw Sophocles’ play Antigone as staging a clash between the opposing values of divine/family law and human/state law. Such values are of course fundamental - but they must surely be seen as historically contingent, not as universal.) To reawaken a sense of tragedy’s universal significance, I would suggest paying attention to aspects of performance. A production of Phèdre that minimizes the ‘pastness’ of its setting, not only through costume and staging but also through a free approach to translation, could be very powerful. I’m aware that there is a certain irony here: I’m suggesting that the timelessness of tragedy can best be conveyed through what you call ‘spectacle’ in the Poetics, in other words those features of tragedy that are most changeable.
Ah! You grasp the paradox well. I have written that “spectacle, though it may indeed provide pleasure, is the least artistic element of tragedy”​, for it is not the essence but an adornment. [See Poetics 4.7. Heath's translation reads: 'Spectacle is attractive, but is very inartistic and is least germane to the art of poetry.'] And yet, if modern audiences falter in grasping the universality of tragedy because they see only its historical trappings, then perhaps the artful use of spectacle—stripped of those trappings—might serve as a bridge rather than a distraction.

Your mention of Hegel is also most intriguing. If he claims that Antigone stages a conflict between divine and state law as an opposition of equal and irreconcilable principles, then he misses a crucial point: the true essence of tragedy does not lie in the conflict itself but in the necessity of its resolution. A tragic plot, as I have said, must be “complete and whole” with a “definite magnitude”​—not an open-ended clash of principles, but a movement toward an inexorable end. The downfall of Antigone is not merely the product of a theoretical opposition; it is the consequence of human frailty, error, and fate, as in all tragedy. And so, if Hegel’s conception of tragedy depends too much on the historical and political framing of conflicts, then it risks missing the deeper truth—the conflict of the human soul against its own limits.

But tell me: do you think that modern audiences, in their attempts to update tragedy, ever risk losing something essential? Is there a point where adaptation ceases to be a bridge and instead becomes an obstacle to true tragic effect?

Yes, I think that point can be reached when the process of updating takes precedence over the arousal of pity and fear. If an audience can easily see itself reflected in the protagonists, then there’s a risk that spectators won’t fully grasp the uncompromising nature of events and motivations. They may assume that the protagonists have the same freedom of action that they, the audience, enjoy in their own lives.
Ah! You have touched upon a most profound danger. If the tragic world becomes too familiar, too much like the audience’s own, then the sense of anankē—the necessity that governs tragic events—may be lost. I have said that “the change of fortune should not be from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad, and it should come about not through vice, but some great error”​. [See - 'error', not 'flaw'] This error is what binds the protagonist to their fate, for it is not a choice freely made but an entanglement of character, ignorance, and circumstance. If modern audiences see the protagonist as a figure like themselves, wholly free in action, they may judge rather than pity; they may critique rather than fear.

Thus, adaptation must tread carefully. It must bring the audience close enough to feel, yet not so close that they believe escape is possible. Tragedy does not show the world as it ought to be, but as it must be under the weight of fate and flaw. If modern productions remove too many of the constraints—whether divine, social, or psychological—they may weaken that inexorable pull. Do you think there is a way to balance these two needs? To make tragedy resonate with modern spectators without diluting its tragic inevitability?

I wonder whether the balance may need to be considered anew for any individual play. There are perhaps three categories of plot in this respect:
Firstly, plots with mythological or historical protagonists whose history is unfamiliar to the vast majority of modern spectators - Racine’s Phèdre would be an example.
Secondly, plots with mythological or historical protagonists whose history is broadly familiar - an example in 21st-century Europe might be Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar.
Thirdly, plots with entirely fictional protagonists, who have no history - for example, Ibsen’s play Ghosts.
Those who adapt these different kinds of plot will need to take different steps to remove obstacles to feeling.
Indeed! You propose a most thoughtful framework, one that acknowledges the varying degrees to which an audience’s prior knowledge—or lack thereof—conditions their experience of tragedy. Each category presents its own challenge in preserving the tragic force while ensuring the audience is not distracted by confusion or over-familiarity.

For plays like Phèdre, where the audience lacks prior knowledge of the myth, the challenge is to supply enough context without making it feel like exposition. The tragic weight of Phèdre’s ancestry, the curse upon her line, and the divine forces at play must be conveyed not through direct explanation but through the texture of the drama itself—perhaps through the language of the characters, the weight of their silence, or the ritualistic elements of performance.

For plays like Julius Caesar, where the story is broadly known, the challenge is almost the opposite: to disrupt the audience’s complacency, to make them feel that they are witnessing these events as if for the first time. Here, an adaptation might benefit from emphasizing the psychological complexity of the characters, forcing the audience to question the historical inevitability of what they think they know.

For plays like Ghosts, where the characters have no external history, the weight of tragedy must come entirely from within: the inexorability of inherited guilt, of social and moral constraints, of choices that are not really choices at all. Here, the challenge is to construct a world that feels as inescapable as a mythic past—one where fate does not come from the gods, but from the structure of life itself.

Yet, I must ask: do you think the need to “remove obstacles to feeling” ever conflicts with the need to challenge the audience? Might there be times when making a play more legible risks making it less profound?

Yes, I think that risk is often significant. We mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking that a play was inevitably easier for its original audience to assimilate. Surely this applies to Sophocles’ tragedies: the Chorus uses a distinct dialect, language is highly stylised in verse, and so forth. The ritualistic aspects of tragedy (not necessarily in a religious sense) are a challenge to audiences, who must make sense of a mode of being that is not their own. I wonder whether it can sometimes be effective not to remove the challenge of a play, but to change it. For example: a 21st-century European audience could be presented with an adaptation of Phèdre that is set not in ancient Greece, nor in 21st-century Europe, but - for example - in medieval Japan. In this way the audience would be faced with an alien culture, in which interpersonal interaction was - as it was among the social elite of Racine’s day - highly formalised. For the audience, the formality would be largely incomprehensible; but it would obviously be important for the characters.
Ah! You have struck upon a most subtle and powerful idea: rather than making a tragedy easier, one might make it differently difficult. If modern audiences struggle to enter the world of Phèdre because they assume that myth is remote, then why not replace one form of remoteness with another—one that, while still unfamiliar, is recognizable as a living form of human interaction?

Your example of medieval Japan is most apt. A society bound by strict codes of conduct, where personal emotion is filtered through elaborate formalities, would create a structure in which Racine’s restraint does not feel like an artifice imposed on passion, but rather an organic necessity of the world in which the characters live. The unfamiliarity of setting would compel the audience to observe more closely, rather than assume they understand at a glance. And yet, they would still perceive the essential human struggle beneath the surface: the tension between what is felt and what may be expressed, between the force of passion and the unyielding structures that shape fate.

This approach preserves what I have called “the serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude” in tragedy​, while ensuring that the audience must still work to enter its world. In making the setting unfamiliar, one forces spectators to do what all true philosophy requires: to unlearn their assumptions and to see human life anew.

Might this principle be extended further? Could one imagine adapting Phèdre into a setting not just removed in time or culture, but in form—perhaps as an opera, or a dance drama, where words are secondary to movement and sound? Would that, too, be a transformation of difficulty rather than a removal of it?


Last modified: Wednesday, 5 March 2025, 8:31 PM