스페인 비극에 나타난 비(非)보수적 전통 - 로뻬와 로르까의 비극을 중심으로

Abstract

As one can observe, the origins of Western tragedy can be discovered from the Greek tragedy. And, Aristotle’s Poetic is agreed among many scholars to be the most genuinely intensified Greek tragedy. The Greek tragedy in Aristotle’s Poetic shows both progressive and conservative sides when seen from our point of views in the present day. First of all, the most noticeable progressive element of Greek tragedy is its ultimate aim of sublimity of the human spirit in fighting to overcome one’s immutable fate. First of all, in Greek tragedy, the most noticeable progressive element is that it is orientated to its extremity. The extremity is then against immutable fate and in order to overcome this fate it is sublime that the human spirit fights till the end to overcome it. However, by focusing on other elements of Greek tragedy, one would also conversely be able to discover the conservative dispositions which are inherent in the Greek tragedy. For example, according to Aristotle’s Poetic, Greek tragedy is the story of the ruling class, namely those with vested rights. Therefore, it can be said that Greek tragedy played the role of delivering androcentric ideologies focused not on commoners, but on the royalty and nobles. Furthermore, the particular feature of the Greek tragedy’s main character accepting pain and death to take responsibility of moral fault or mistake he had made unintentionally is not seen to be free from conservative standards. With such basis of ancient Greek tragedy, the Western Tragedies have leaned even more towards conservatism after the Middle Ages. Hence, the sublime human spirit of Greek tragedy has been buried by the moral standard of Christian doctrine and the principle of punishing the evil and rewarding the good. And, what was left in the audiences’ mind was the main character’s compassion and fear due to his tragic end, and through this the focus was on the realization of the emphasis on the moral lessons or justification of God’s judgment. In short, based on Christian perspectives, Western Tragedy had since the Middle Ages delivered the absoluteness of theocentric law and order by emphasizing the punishment of evil along with the restoration of tampered order. However, the interesting fact is that Spanish drama was found to be relatively weak in terms of the aforementioned conservativeness of Western Tragedies or even found to be un-conservative in some ways. Such characteristics of Spanish drama can be clearly perceived in the works of Lope de Vega and Federico Garcia Lorca who are two well-known dramatists during 17th and 20th century, the periods when the genre of drama and play was most active in the history of Spanish literature. The death of the main character Alonso in Lope’s El caballero de Olmedo is not perceived to be a price for violating God’s teachings but instead gives a feeling of sublimity of a man’s will to face the fate bestowed upon him. And, the ending of Lope’s other work on tragedy, El castigo sin venganza, is as tragic as any other traditional tragedy. However, the audience would have felt more touched not by the moral and ethical lessons, but instead by Duke of Ferrara’s mental sublimity of not abandoning the Christian teachings and love for his family, even in the most extreme situation. On the other hand, Lorca’s work on tragedy is one step ahead on the disposition on progression when compared with Lope’s work. In Yerma, La casa de Bernarde Alba, and Bodas de sangre, Lorca portrays antipathy towards the pre-existing social traditions and ethics of patriarchy, androcentrism, and marriage using various female characters. Through such facts, it can be confirmed that unlike the existing Western Tragedies, un-conservative traditions exists in Spanish tragedies.