Patrick Grey on Shakespeare, Christianity, and Aristotle's Poetics

"So critics want to see Shakespeare as early modern and secular, but Shakespeare is also Late Medieval and Christian.

And tragedy for Shakespeare is, I would say, essentially the same thing it is for 15th century, 16th century vernacular drama: tragedy is the failure of a sinner to repent.

Whereas for Aristotle, tragedy is something very alien to a Christian sensibility. Aristotle doesn't really care about moral character.
[PF note: in the context of his poetic, though he does care about moral character in his ethics].

What Aristotle means by 'hamartia' is not sin, but something more like a mistake. And what he means by 'anagnorisis' is not repentance, but something more like a discovery, like a correction of an error as regards to matters of fact.

So for Aristotle, tragedy is amoral: it's like the process of legal discovery that occurs in a court of law.

Nonetheless, I think many critics continue to use Aristotle's terms to describe Shakespeare's plays, which is very confusing. Partly, I think they misunderstand these terms due to this long legacy of misunderstanding. And partly, I'd say more culpably, because it allows critics who are uncomfortable with Shakespeare and Christianity to avoid using more accurate, but more obviously Christian terms such as 'sin' and 'repentance.'"

- Patrick Gray [1]

I am especially interested in Gray's claim that, for Shakespeare, tragedy is the failure to repent.
It can be argued (as I have on my blog) that other key characters *do* strive to repent.

If the real tragedy is the failure to repent, then Claudius is the main tragic figure.
(I have blogged before about the obvious public last-minute repentance of Laertes in the final scene, and about my sense of Ophelia and Gertrude as repenting, and Hamlet repenting of his madness….)

In other words, those who repent inherit heavenly crowns.
Those who do not, inherit the other place.

Yet many still strive to put the round peg of Hamlet into the square hole of Aristotle's definitions.

Implications:
- Sometimes with help from Aristotle, the play is most popularly learned and taught in high schools as if the main tragedy is that Hamlet
- thinks too much;
- does not get the girl;
- does not get the crown;
- does not survive, after Claudius dies.

If only Hamlet had played his cards differently, and won more power and wealth, and the girl,
all the “mammon”...
That's how the play is often approached - !
Little consideration of regret/repentance/redirecting one's actions and priorities....


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NOTES: [1] Interview / Audio Episode: 425. Patrick Gray on Shakespeare
Podcast series / Renaissance and Reformation in Britain
https://historyofphilosophy.net/transcript/shakespeare-gray

Patrick Gray is Professor of Literature and founding Dean of Arts and Letters at the new University of Austin (UATX). Previously he was "Director of Liberal Arts at Durham University, where he was responsible for designing and introducing a new interdisciplinary core curriculum in the humanities. Before taking up his appointment at Durham, Gray taught comparative literature at Deep Springs College and the United States Military Academy at West Point. Gray is the author of Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic, editor of Shakespeare and the Ethics of War, and co-editor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Ethics and Shakespeare and Montaigne" (according to his bio at UATX). 

Images:
Left:  Christ in Majesty. Folio 4 verso from the Aberdeen Bestiary. 12th century. University of Aberdeen.
Public domain, via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/AberdeenBestiaryFolio004vChristInMajesty_%28cropped%29.jpg

Middle: Patrick Gray, screen-grab image (cropped) from YouTube: https://youtu.be/DSBjveYgbgg?si=A_SAHGyf_0JzDrk7

Right: Aristotle, by Raphael, cropped from "Plato (left) and Aristotle in Raphael's 1509 fresco, The School of Athens." Apostolic Palace (residence of the Pope), Vatican City, Stanza della Segnatura. Public domain, via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Sanzio_01_Plato_Aristotle.jpg



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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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