On quotation of the tragic. Notes on tradition and intransmissibility

Abstract

If there is no doubt that the tradition of the ancient theatre has transmitted to us something of its own experience, to the point that we name as tragedies some works from Shakespeare and Goethe and we take as tragic some moments of the Pasolini and Bergman movies as well, for example, how is it possible to talk about the death of the tragedy, about the rupture of the tragic impulse? At the same time, how is it possible that a world without gods, with an understanding of the action that conceives it leaded by an inner faculty that did not even existed in the 5^th century BC in Greece, the will, still has a place for something called tragedy? The solution to these questions depends on the history understanding that leads the researcher, thinker or collector who build them up. The difference is clear if we understand as opposite concepts transhistoricity – typical of the answer from Vernant and Naquet to these same questions – and intransmissibility, indicated by Hannah Arendt on the use of quotes.