Abstract

Based on renunciation, as defined by Eugene Falk in Renunciation as a Tragic Focus to enlarge the concept of tragedy, the present comparative dissertation in ancient Greek, nineteenth and twentieth-century French and German theater, and literary theory examines the relation between political responsibility and tragic conflict by introducing the action of renunciation of political power as an element of the tragic. The actions of three politically involved characters from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Antigone, and from selected adaptations by Anouilh, Brecht and Sartre aim to show that in a conflict between worldly and spiritual aspirations the genuine and willful renunciation of political power defines the tragic quality because it acts as the cathartic element which enables a politically committed individual to make atonement with a higher, ethical order. ;In the "Prolegomena" the relation between tragedy and political responsibility first appears through Aristotle's writings on human actions and associations. Chapter I discusses the willful renunciation of Oedipus from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex as the prototype for a tragic character. Chapter II presents the case of Creon, as a non-tragic character who chooses to place temporal, historical power above ethical law. Chapter III discusses Orestes, from Sartre's Les Mouches, a character whose ultimate political renunciation is an act of rebellion that leads to the acquisition of true power. Oreste's renunciation emerges as the most political of all actions. ;To enlarge the relation between renunciation, tragic conflict and metaphysical freedom, Chapters III-IV compare Orestes to Nietzsche's 'uebermensch,' Camus's 'rebel,' and Bataille's 'heterogeneous' man. Based on Heideggerian principles of Being and Action, Chapter IV discusses political power as pharmakon to show that the need for its renunciation or preservation is a conscious choice that rises beyond the specific, historical moment to become the criterion by which human action becomes tragic. ;Chapter V concludes by stating that renunciation of political power for the sake of metaphysical freedom achieves reconciliation of action and consciousness , restoring the value of tragic conflict as a catalytic, energy-releasing and productive element of the universe