The Taming of the Tragedy: Attempts to Rationalise a Tragic Conflict in the First Half of the 19th Century

Pages	19–28
DOI	10.37520/amnpsc.2024.003
Keywords	tragedy – criticism – fate – providence – Josef Jungmann – Rudolf Glaser – Alois Jeitteles
Type of Article	Peer-reviewed
Citation	SMYČKA, Václav. The Taming of the Tragedy: Attempts to Rationalise a Tragic Conflict in the First Half of the 19th Century. Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum. Prague: National Museum, 2024, 69(1-2), 19–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37520/amnpsc.2024.003. ISSN 2570-6861 (Print), 2570-687X (Online). Also available from: https://www.nm.cz/en/periodicals/acta-musei-nationalis-pragae-historia-litterarum/69-1-2/the-taming-of-the-tragedy-attempts-to-rationalise-a-tragic-conflict-in-the-first-half-of-the-19th-century

Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum | 2024/69/1-2

In the pre-March (Vormärz) period, i.e. in the first half of the 19th century, tragedy and the tragic experienced unprecedented interest not only on the part of playwrights and audiences, but also on the part of aestheticians and critics. This study focuses on several questions, namely: Where did this interest come from? Which forms of the tragic were popular and which were rejected? How did critics, such as Josef Jungmann, approach the questions of fatality and the (dis)proportion between the guilt and suffering of the tragic hero? Were the opinions of critics reflected in the works of playwrights? Were there differences in this respect between Czech- and German-written plays and reviews in the Czech lands?

The first part of the study presents the main interpretive frameworks of tragedy that entered into the consideration of this genre in Central Europe and the Czech lands in the first third of the 19th century. Subsequently, attention is focused on the central dispute over fate and providence in tragedies. In the latter case, critics attempted to reconcile the tragic with the positive social values of Biedermeier culture at the cost of significantly narrowing the genre canon and rejecting the form of fatal tragedy. In the third part, the paper presents how the theoretical principles of criticism were reflected in the tragedies written in the Czech lands at that time. Especially in the case of tragic heroes chosen from national history, there was a tension between the need to motivate, in the spirit of poetic justice, the hero’s downfall by his bad character and the desire to portray the national hero as a moral authority. Finally, the last section of the paper focuses on the differences and similarities between these tendencies in Czech- and German-written criticism and drama from the Czech lands. While the arguments of critics against fatalism were similar on both sides, German-written plays seem to have overcome the paradigm of poetic justice slightly earlier.

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