The Ludic Logic of Tragedy

Abstract

Logical argumentation and reasoning have been embedded in tragedies, beginning already two generations before Aristotle formulated the principles of logic. Therefore, these logical principles can also be extracted from tragedies, here exemplified by examining Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus. Looking more closely at the 'use' of logic in these plays—in particular the use of deductive syllogism and the law of contradiction—the article draws attention to the fact that logical reasoning often collapses and is even subverted, in particular in contexts where someone attempts to define what it means to be human. While rationality and logic are seen as the defining characteristic of being human in philosophical contexts, the theatrical uses of logic contradicts and even subverts this logic, by logical means. Arguing with rational means that there is something contradictory (and irrational) in human nature creates a paradoxical situation on which what I term the ‘ludic logic of tragedy’ is based.

Notes

1 Antigone was supposedly written in or even before 441 BC; Oedipus Tyrannus is thought to have been written in 429 BC. I will not include a discussion of the last of the Theban plays, Oedipus at Colonus, from 406 BC, which was also Sophocles’ last play, here. The events depicted in the Theban plays begin with Oedipus Tyrannus, continue with Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, which was the first of the three plays to be written, closes the Labdacean family epic.

2 The many and multifaceted translations of deinon/deinotaton must be discussed extensively in a separate context. A few of the possibilities that have been given in translation are fearful, terrible, dread, dire, uncanny, mighty, powerful, wondrous, marvelous or strange, projecting a sense of being powerful, related to being able, clever, cunning and skilful. The English translations of Antigone prefer options in the direction of wondrous and marvelous, while German translations prefer fearful even monstrous (ungeheuer), following the foundational translation by Hölderlin. I will not discuss these issues here.