Peter J. Leithart

Further thoughts from Steiner, and also inspired by Steiner: 1) The dilemma of tragic drama in the modern world, he claims, was that the two main “ideologies” available (at the time of writing, 1961) are Marxism and Christianity, both of which are “anti-tragic.” 2) Steiner . . . . Continue Reading »

Ibsen, Steiner argues, did not write tragedies. Ibsen wrote “dramatic rhetoric” calling society to reform. For real tragedy, there is no such “solution” to be found, there is no remedy, except destructive sacrifice and perhaps a deus ex machina. From this angle, tragedy is . . . . Continue Reading »

Some more quotations from Steiner’s Death of Tragedy : “We cannot understand the romantic movement if we do not perceive at the heart of it the impulse toward drama . . . . The romantic mode is neither an ordering nor a criticism of life; it is a dramatization. And at the origins of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Some thoughts on NT Wright’s Rutherford House Lecture, August 2003. I have little disagreement with much of the lecture, and it clarified a number of things for me. Wright’s views on justification, however, continue to puzzle me at a number of points. Here’s an attempt to clarify . . . . Continue Reading »

Steiner notes that, following the Renaissance, European drama operated under the shadows of neo-classical and Elizabethan dramatic practice, the former “closed” and rigidly adhering to Aristotelian criteria, the other open and experimental. He discusses the theory of Thomas Rymer (a . . . . Continue Reading »

George Steiner in his Death of Tragedy describes the “Shakespearean difference” as mainly due to Shakespeare’s avoidance of fascination with Hellenic models: “The neo-classic view [which rigidified Aristotelian conceptions of tragedy] expresses a growing perception of the . . . . Continue Reading »

There’s some intriguing cross-fertilization going on between the two sabbath healings in Luke 13-14. In 13, Jesus heals the woman who has been bent double for 18 years, and in ch 14 Jesus heals a man with dropsy. In both, the healing is scrutinized critically by the Pharisees, and Jesus . . . . Continue Reading »

Another insight from Sourvinou-Inwood: After offering a reconstruction of the development of tragedy from the hymns of the TRAGODOI through “prototragedy” (which introduced mimetic elements), she gives a brief review of the development of comedy. At the end, she contrasts the two both . . . . Continue Reading »

Discussing the religious origins of Athenian tragedy in her recent Tragedy and Athenian Religion , Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood first examines the early forms of the festival of the City Dionysia. She points out that “tragedy” comes from tragos , a male goat, and that the first hints of . . . . Continue Reading »

Also in the Nov 2003 IJST is the first installment of Robert Jenson’s Maurice Lectures (University of London), entitled “Christ as Culture.” Among other things, Jenson criticizes HR Niebuhr’s framing of the issue as “Christ and culture” by noting that . . . . Continue Reading »