By Emily Bamforth
Alright, let’s get serious: this play is depressing as hell. It is a tragedy, of course. You can’t expect to go to see a tragic play and come out of the theatre feeling all sunshine and rainbows.
But, believe it or not, the tragic genre isn’t as clear cut as it may seem. Its criteria are actually ever-changing in response to wider cultural ideas of tragedy, as Isabel Pinto points out in her assessment of the use of ‘tragic metaphor’ (we’ll come back to this term later) in Agnes de Castro.[1] I mean, if you think about it, the things that we would consider tragic today would certainly not be the same as during the Restoration period: nowadays we’re much more likely to fret over the loss of our phone charger than the loss of our king’s head.
More technically, while tragedy nowadays tends to be assessed by more formal qualities, like the presence of death, the lack of comedic resolution, etc. (which, don’t get me wrong, is criteria this play would definitely conform to), back then it was all about PASSION and EMOTION and FIERY, HEATED DRAMA AND DEATH. All very intense stuff.
Pinto’s article gives this definition of Tragedy, and aims to explore the importance of metaphor in relation to this as a communal expression of emotion and loss. In other words, Pinto begs the question, ‘Metaphor: What is it good phor?’ (- wow, that was almost painful to type).
Basically, her argument all relies on the idea that ’emotions can be conceptualized through an extensive array of metaphors.’ (159) In other words, the characters are far too dramatic to just say outright what they’re feeling – woe is them! – metaphor is employed to tell us how they feel in a much more emotive and sympathetic way.
Pinto highlights the fact that metaphor gives us a way of expressing things that can’t quite be put into words by tapping into a shared notion of imagery, and using that communal source of meaning to evoke shared emotion for the audience. For example, if someone told you their ‘anger burns as bright as a thousand suns’, we’d all be able to get the gist that they feel pretty strongly. As Pinto puts it: ‘metaphors become part of the emotional pathos that underpins the tragic genre.’ (158)
Let’s take a look at the hit 1979 Bee Gees song, ‘Tragedy’, for an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZrYuYEP_eM
Lyrics:
Tragedy
When the feeling’s gone and you can’t go on
It’s tragedy
When the morning cries and you don’t know why
It’s hard to bear
With no-one to love you you’re
Goin’ nowhere
Hard-hitting stuff. I know it’s silly, but if we’re thinking about cultural conceptions of tragedy a song of the popular music genre entitled Tragedy might be able to give us a pretty solid idea of how the tragic is generally perceived. Plus it’s a banger. The idea that an abstract time of day is crying is a pretty heavy, emotional metaphor, relating the sense of all-consuming sadness that the subject of the song is feeling. And this feeling is intrinsically linked with loss, i.e. the ‘feeling’ which is ‘gone’ as well as the lack of some one to love you, bolstering Pinto’s argument that the feeling of loss is powerfully tragic. There’s a sense of not being able to express emotion through description here too. Yeah, the morning is crying, but why? Can’t say. And yet, through the power of metaphor, we all know exactly what these pop princes are singing about, so much so that we made it #1 in the 1979 UK charts. It is precisely this kind of empathy-through-metaphor that the tragic genre relies on; it’d be a lot less effective if the Bee Gees just straight up told us ‘I’m sad and this is exactly why…’ – it’s just not quite as emotive (or catchy).
And therein lies the foundation of logic in Pinto’s article: Tragedy = Emotion = Metaphor.
Her argument about Agnes is kind of split into two main sections: Firstly, how metaphor functions as a means of tragic community, whether political or cultural, within the play. And, secondly, how this metaphorically expressed discourse of tragedy functions in terms of gender and international politics. Yeah, there’s a lot to chew on here. I’ll break it down for you:
- Metaphor is a way of making individual loss a communal experience.
Pinto first sets up the idea that individual tragedy revolves around the loss of something, whether this be a loved one, or something more abstract (like freedom, identity, or power). The latter of these, and often the former, Pinto points out, are signals of ‘the individual quest against an unfair world’ (153), and therefore the idea of individual tragedy becomes a political one. The idea of mental loss becomes aligned with what’s at stake politically. And let’s just say the political climate at this time wasn’t exactly easy breezy.
Pinto’s article then argues that metaphor plays an important role in this, not only as a way to communicate loss, but as a way of inciting a sense of tragic community in the audience. According to Pinto, the emotional impact of the onstage world creates a ‘collective experience of loss,’ and therefore ‘metaphors of loss took part in the dynamics between culture and its representations, defining a community of the tragic as the right setting to access the literate culture and to reclaim social empowerment.’ (Pinto, 155) Alright, that might seem like a bit of a jump – yeah, an audience is likely to feel similar responses to emotional scenes; I’d be a bit worried if my theatre date started cracking up during a death scene – but if you think about it, it’s exactly this kind of intense passion which is needed to spark political movement. Change doesn’t come from peace. Pinto identifies this, referencing Charles Batteux’s Principles of Literature (1760), in which he argues ‘the connection between tragedy, and catharsis in particular, and a set of sad emotions, such as fear and pity, would strongly engage the audience, and thus enlarge its sensibility’ (Pinto, 156). In fact, as Pinto mentions, Miguel Tibério Pedegache Brandão e Ivo believed tragedy must ‘incite extreme passion and affection on the audience’ in order to ‘have a role in the upheaval of the nation’s taste. According to his view, as the most important genre tragedy was meant to play a role in the shaping of national identity.’ (Pinto, 156). Yikes, no pressure. The idea at the bottom of these guys’ ideas of tragedy, though, is that their purpose is to form community through emotion. And, as Pinto has argued, this can only really be achieved through metaphor.
So, what exactly is the communal, political message Trotter is getting at in her play? This bring us on to the second half of Pinto’s article…
- Pinto argues it comes down to this: ‘what the play attempts to do is to denaturalize gender in order to reinforce political naturalization.’ (163).
Okay… so what does this mean? It’s basically a fancy way of saying the girls in Trotter’s play each fall into one of two oppositional ideas of femininity, and by doing this she’s highlighting the opposing national forces within the play, Portugal and Spain. The individual struggle between the girls then becomes a wider political tragedy. Again, this may seem like a stretch, but bear with me!
Here are the two different types of women we see in the play:
Agnes and The Princess:
- Moral, virtuous
- Patient, kind, hospitable
- Powerful
- Spanish ties
Elvira and Bianca:
- Immoral, devious
- Jealous, hateful, unwelcoming
- Less powerful (although they hold no real political sway, I think it’s unfair to call them weak)
- Against Spain, decidedly Portuguese
So the ‘goodies’ are Spanish, and the ‘baddies’ are Portuguese. If I’ve learned anything from my degree, it’s that stuff like this is rarely a coincidence. And this is exactly what Pinto argues.
Alright, so what is this beef between Spain and Portugal all about? Pinto lays it out pretty plain for us, mapping its progress from the ‘establishment of Portugal’s borders in the twelfth century’, to its ‘imperial expansion from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century’, stating it ‘reaches a critical point with the dual monarchy between 1580 and 1640’ (163). She goes on to say that ‘During the last period, Portugal and Spain had the same king, which was unmistakably a Spanish one. As a reaction to this regime, there was an organized movement for the upheaval of the Portuguese identity’ (163).
As Pinto points out, this political rivalry is set up alongside the rivalry between the two sets of girls from the very beginning in Elvira and Bianca’s assertion that to wear a Portuguese crown, Constantia must renounce her Spanish identity (163-4).
So, by breaking down female gender roles and setting up this opposition between women, ‘gender denaturalization becomes a mere strategy to assert political naturalization.’ (163)
Pinto brings this all back to her favourite literary device, metaphor, referencing the specific discourse of metaphor in this denaturalization. And herein lies the evidence for her argument that metaphor is the sole of tragic community, necessary for the politicisation of individual loss and emotion.
A Response
As for my (very important) thoughts on all of this: I think it’s a very interesting argument, and, although complex, one that does make a lot of sense. It’s heavily loaded with literary theory, which I think Pinto executes necessarily well.
BUT I think it’s a detriment to the credibility of her argument that Pinto doesn’t evidence it with more than one text. She justifies her choice to do this by referring to Agnes as ‘a paradigmatic example of tragedy in the long eighteenth century’ (168), but it just limits her argument for me. It’d be interesting to see how Pinto would address this concept in other tragedies from this period, and there’s definitely scope to do this since the basis of her argument lies in literary theory, rather than something which Trotter’s play uniquely achieves. Tragic metaphor is a device used liberally on the stage in this period, and by disregarding this, Pinto is only weakening her argument.
For example, Pinto could analyse the use of tragic metaphor in Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d (1683).[2] The play follows the story of Jaffier, a Venetian who has secretly married Belvidera, the daughter of a senator named Priuli. This Priuli guy is a bit posh and therefore is not so keen on Jaffier, who is, quite frankly, skint. So, as any normal bloke would, Jaffier decides to join his friend Pierre in a plot against the Senate of Venice. Sounds like a classic underdog story – a hard-done-by romantic helping to take down a morally questionable government – but, it’s not that simple. To win the trust of his new co-conspirators, Jaffier must offer his new wife, Belvidera as a hostage to the leader of the pack, Renault, who subsequently attempts to rape her. A bit later on, after it all goes a bit wrong for the conspirators, Jaffier threatens to kill his own wife to try and get her to persuade her dad to pardon those involved in the plot. So, we start to get the picture that this isn’t so much a case of good vs. evil, as Pinto argues is the case in Agnes de Castro. This is achieved largely through the character of Belvidera, who often uses metaphor to relay the tragedy she endures at the hands of these men. For instance, in the final scene, when she’s telling her dad about the fact that her husband tried to murder her (which is horrifying as it is), calls Jaffier ‘a raging Lion, / Pacing the Earth, and tearing up his Steps, / Fate in his Eyes, and roaring with the Pain / Of burning Fury’ (Venice Preserv’d, Act 5.1).
Here we can see how Pinto’s idea of tragic metaphor comes into play, invoking our communal perceptions of a wild, predatory beast to heighten the passion of the scene, and thus the emotional response. The fact that the character uses metaphor to convince another of the tragedy she has faced is certainly a testament to the ability of metaphor to form tragic community, which is a large aspect of Pinto’s theory. This emotional response would surely also cause the audience to reassess the political undertones of the play, which is generally agreed to allude to the Popish Plot (1678-81). The use of metaphor to demonise the men in this play destabilises the ‘good vs. evil’ narrative that could be applied to the real-life conspirators and government of Otway’s contemporary society. This use of metaphor thus adheres to Pinto’s argument that the tragic community formed through metaphor is a means of political change (although Otway’s play achieves this in slightly different ways to Trotter’s, and to different ends). It’s easy to see why adding this kind of nuance and depth to her argument would allow Pinto to explore her theory of tragic metaphor in a far more convincing way by grounding it with more evidence, as well as highlighting its constant aim among a myriad of uses and results.
Another thing I find troubling is Pinto’s failure to address the fact that this play was performed for an English audience, not a Spanish or Portuguese one. Her argument is based around the idea that tragic metaphor galvanises political action and shapes national identity, but I can’t help but think that an English audience when faced with this Spanish-Portuguese dynamic could only sit there thinking ‘… well what does that have to do with me?’ Perhaps there are parallels to be drawn with English politics, particularly when it comes to Scottish affairs, but this justification is absent from Pinto’s article, and so her use of this play to evidence her argument doesn’t quite connect. Yet another reason for her to expand her sources.
In metaphoric summary: Pinto’s lake is vast and deep, yet lacks the amount of stepping stones which would allow us to traverse it. We need more solid foundations on which we can stand to fully ponder the lake’s beauty… How deep is that?! Thought of it all by myself.
[1] Isabel Pinto, ‘Naturalizing Politics and Metaphors of Loss: Forms of Sociability in Catharine Trotter’s Agnes de Castro’, Luso-Brazilian Review, 53:2 (2016), 153-170.
[2] Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d. 2nd ed. (London: Bathurst and Lownds, 1683).