{"id":100,"date":"2018-02-28T04:34:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T04:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/sel3392-agnes-de-castro\/?page_id=100"},"modified":"2018-06-22T15:40:45","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T14:40:45","slug":"tragedy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/sel3392-agnes-de-castro\/tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Tragedy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Emily Bamforth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Alright, let\u2019s get serious: this play is depressing as hell. It is a tragedy, of course. You can\u2019t expect to go to see a tragic play and come out of the theatre feeling all sunshine and rainbows.<\/p>\n

But, believe it or not, the tragic genre isn\u2019t 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<\/em>.[1]<\/a> 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\u2019re much more likely to fret over the loss of our phone charger than the loss of our king\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Pinto\u2019s 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, \u2018Metaphor: What is it good phor?\u2019 (- wow, that was almost painful to type).<\/p>\n

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\u2019re feeling – woe is them! –\u00a0 metaphor is employed to tell us how they feel in a much more emotive and sympathetic way.<\/p>\n

Pinto highlights the fact that metaphor gives us a way of expressing things that can\u2019t 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\u2019d 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)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at the hit 1979 Bee Gees song, \u2018Tragedy\u2019, for an example:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kZrYuYEP_eM<\/p>\n

Lyrics:<\/strong>
\nTragedy
\nWhen the feeling’s gone and you can’t go on
\nIt’s tragedy
\nWhen the morning cries and you don’t know why
\nIt’s hard to bear
\nWith no-one to love you you’re
\nGoin’ nowhere<\/p>\n

Hard-hitting stuff. I know it\u2019s silly, but if we\u2019re thinking about cultural conceptions of tragedy a song of the popular music genre entitled Tragedy<\/em>\u00a0might be able to give us a pretty solid idea of how the tragic is generally perceived. Plus it\u2019s 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.\u00a0There\u2019s a sense of not being able to express emotion through description here too. Yeah, the morning is crying, but why? Can\u2019t 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\u2019d be a lot less effective if the Bee Gees just straight up told us \u2018I\u2019m sad and this is exactly why…\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s just not quite as emotive (or catchy).<\/p>\n

And therein lies the foundation of logic in Pinto\u2019s article: Tragedy = Emotion = Metaphor.<\/p>\n

Her argument about Agnes<\/em> 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\u2019s a lot to chew on here. I\u2019ll break it down for you:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Metaphor is a way of making individual loss a communal experience.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    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\u00a0 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\u2019s at stake politically. And let\u2019s just say the political climate at this time wasn\u2019t exactly easy breezy.<\/p>\n

    Pinto\u2019s 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 \u2013 yeah, an audience is likely to feel similar responses to emotional scenes; I\u2019d be a bit worried if my theatre date started cracking up during a death scene \u2013 but if you think about it, it\u2019s exactly this kind of intense passion which is needed to spark political movement. Change doesn\u2019t come from peace. Pinto identifies this, referencing Charles Batteux\u2019s Principles of Literature\u00a0<\/em>(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 Tib\u00e9rio Pedegache Brand\u00e3o 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\u2019s 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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

    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\u2019s article…<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Pinto argues it comes down to this: ‘what the play attempts to do is to denaturalize gender in order to reinforce political naturalization.’ (163).<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Okay\u2026 so what does this mean? It\u2019s basically a fancy way of saying the girls in Trotter\u2019s play each fall into one of two oppositional ideas of femininity, and by doing this she\u2019s 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!<\/p>\n

      Here are the two different types of women we see in the play:<\/p>\n

      Agnes and The Princess:<\/p>\n