Hegel's Tragedy Theory Research In Theoretical View Of Western Tragedy

Hegel's tragedy theory was formed in the first half of 19th century. It is the highest peak of western tragedy theories. Hegel's tragedy theory inherits traditions of ancient Greek and Roman tragedies, as well as enlightens voluntarism and the tragedy theories after that. It summarizes the main accomplishment of tragedy theories in German classical aesthetical period and writes a new page in the history of tragedy study. Hegel brings concepts like conflict and dialectic into tragedy study. He is also credited with his rational study which reaches its climax since the Renaissance. After Hegel, irrationalism prevails as disapproval to rationalism. This dissertation surely takes a risk since it studies Hegel's tragedy theory, which is a comparatively familiar realm to Chinese scholars, whereupon it must have some new materials and throw new light on the intact structure of Hegel's tragedy theory, so as to make a better understanding of it. Therefore, there are five main tasks in this dissertation: making a review of cultural resources of Hegel's tragedy theory in history; exploring the philosophical and ethical base of the theory; describing the whole system of the theory ; drawing its historical coordinate; talking on its present value.Hegel is deeply influenced by the ancient Greek culture and the social environment of German classical aesthetics period. His tragedy theory fully manifests the characteristics of ancient Greek culture and the spirit of German classical aesthetics period. During these periods, rationalism and mysticism, views of destiny and freedom, as well as optimism and the spirit- body -separate -thought coexist, which are precisely the Hegel tragedy theory's historical cultural bases. Influenced by these thoughts and Aristotle, Goethe, Hegel builds up his tragedy mansion which makes the ancient times, the west and the ethics entity as center. This building has not only inherited the western tragedy theory tradition, and has its own innovation too——the ethics knowledge and the massive usage of dialectical methods. Stepping from this building's first floor, what present in us in turn are the symbolic art, the classical art and the romantic art. Walk into the door of romantic art, we see the drawing, music and poetry arts. Poetry includes epic poetry, lyric poetry and drama poetry, whereas tragedy belongs to the drama poetry. Hegel's tragedy theory is a complete system, which contains twelve categories (ethics entity, ethics strength, general world situation, situation, conflict, movement, plot, interest, character, disposition, deconstruction and reconcile) and five principles (the theories of tragedy conflict, tragedy model , entity of tragedy structure, ethics entity center and tragedy effect). These categories and principles form the system's skeleton. What makes this skeleton alive is absolute idea which displays the concrete image of ethics strength. Absolute idea decides the way of expression. Tragedy expresses itself with tragic language. It is a language with characteristics on diction, which make it different from sculpt or music. The usage of rhythm is one of its characteristics. According to these ideas and ways of expression, tragedy writers create great scripts. The creation has a lot to do with imagination and inspiration. There are possibilities for tragedy writers to innovate or develop on contents, forms or techniques. Scripts are created not only for reading, but also for acting. Compared with ancient Greece, the acting art of modern tragedy is more mature and a professional team of actors has formed. Consequently, the requirement for actors has also been improved. Usually, the performance of actors is on the stage. The art of stage is a comprehensive art relating to many forms of art such as literature, acting, poetry, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dancing and craftwork. There are distinctive differences between ancient Greek tragedy and modern tragedy on the usages of poetry and music on stage. The most obvious difference is that modern tragedy does not have chorus, whereas chorus plays an important role in ancient Greek tragedy. Chorus represents the will of people and motivates the development of plot. Under the motivation of chorus and the conflict which is unavoidable in tragedy, tragic ending finally happens. There are three formulas of the ancient Greece tragedy. In modern tragedy time, tragedy changes in origin, character's goal, character's disposition and the result, thus it has better catered to the modern audience's interest.Hegel's tragedy theory had both generalized western classic tragedy theory and started a theoretical era of modern and contemporary tragedies in the west and has a magnificent influence on the following times. As long as tragedy theories are concerned, Shopenhauer, Nietzche, Belinsky, Chernnyshevsky, Marx, Engels all owe Hegel a lot. In China, it has present value to talk on Hegel's tragedy theory—the reason is that the problems tragedy is facing on can be explained by studying Hegel's tragedy theory. It is well known that, nowadays, tragedy, as well as other traditional arts, is struggling for existence. Someone blames the commercial operation and this opinion matches with Hegel's "arts destination theory" in some degree. There is another opinion that the problems tragedy is facing on are not causing by commerce, but by not enough commerce. The lack has been caused by the lack of enough introspection and limitation on tragedy's being politicized and the lack of tragedy's independence. How to treat these opinions dialectically means a lot on tragedy's future.