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偉人と凡人次に,クルーチ氏が悲劇について言っていることについて考えてみよう。彼は,イプセンの『幽霊』は（シェークスピアの）『リア王』より劣っていると主張しているが,この点では,私も賛成しないわけにはいかない。彼は次のように言っている。王侯と彼ら（彼女ら）の悲哀を扱う古風な類の悲劇は,現代にあわないというのは,疑いもなく事実であるし,（王侯ではなく,地位や身分の低い）無名の個人の悲しみを同じ手法で扱おうとしても,効果は同じではない。しかし,その理由は,私たちの人生観が劣悪になったということでは決してなく,まったくその反対である。それは次のような事実によっている。即ち,特定の人々を悲劇的な情熱を持つ権利がある'この世の偉大な人間'であるとし,他方その他の人間は,すべてこれら少数者の偉大さを生み出すためにだけ骨折りあくせく働かなければならない,とはもはや我々は考えないということ（事実）である。 シェイクスピアは,次のように言っている。 乞食が死んでも彗星は現われない(が), このような現代的な悲劇の実例は,まだほとんど存在してない。なぜなら,古い技法と古い伝統は捨てさられなければならないけれども,それは単なる教養ある平凡さによって取って変わられることであってはならないからである（←「教養ある平凡さ」によって変わられることなく,古い伝統と技法は廃棄されるべき）。悲劇を書くためには,人は,悲劇を感じなければならない。そして悲劇を感じるためには,人は自分が生きている世界を,知性（頭）だけでなく,血と肉をもって知っていなければならない。クルーチ氏は,著書の所々で絶望について語っている。そして,私たちは,彼が不毛な世界を英雄的に受け入れているのをみて心が動かされる。しかし,世界がそのように不毛に見えるのは,彼や大部分の文学者たちが,新しい刺激に対して昔の（ような）情緒を感じることをまだ学んでいないためである。そうした刺激はすでにあるが,しかし,文学者グループの中にはない。文学者グループは,社会生活と活き活きとした接触を持っていない。もしも,人間の感情に,悲劇と真の幸福の両者が発するところの,真剣さと深さを持たせたいのであれば（←悲劇も真の幸福も,人間の感情の真剣さと深さから生じてくる）,そうした接触は不可欠である。
私は,すべての人にこの一連の行動をお勧めするのではなく,クルーチ氏の診断する病気にかかっている人たちに対してのみお勧めする。私の信じるところでは,このような生活を何年か送れば,元インテリ（青年）は,いくら書かないと努力しても,もはやものを書かずにはいられなくなっている自分に気づくことになるだろう。そして,その時が来たときには,彼の執筆行為は,彼にとって,無益なものに思われないだろう。 |
I come next to what Mr. Krutch has to say about tragedy. He contends, and in this I cannot but agree with him, that Ibsen's Ghosts is inferior to King Leer. 'No increased powers of expression, no greater gift for words, could have transformed Ibsen into Shakespeare. The materials out of which the latter created his works - his conception of human dignity, his sense of the importance of human passions, his vision of the amplitude of human life - simply did not and could not exist for lbsen, as they did not and could not exist for his contemporaries. God and Man and Nature had all somehow dwindled in the course of the intervening centuries, not because the realistic creed of modern art led us to seek out mean people, but because this meanness of human life was somehow thrust upon us by the operation of that same process which led to the development of realistic theories of art by which our vision could be justified:' It is undoubtedly the case that the old-fashioned kind of tragedy which dealt with princes and their sorrows is not suitable to our age, and when we try to treat in the same manner the sorrows of an obscure individual the effect is not the same. The reason for this is not, however, any deterioration in our outlook on life, but quite the reverse. It is due to the fact that we can no longer regard certain individuals as the great ones of the earth, who have a right to tragic passions, while all the rest must merely drudge and toil to produce the magnificence of those few. Shakespeare says:
When beggars die, there are no comets seen;In Shakespeare's day this sentiment, if not literally believed, at least expressed an outlook which was practically universal and most profoundly accepted by Shakespeare himself. Consequently the death of Cinna the poet is comic, whereas the deaths of Caesar, Brutus and Cassius are tragic. The cosmic significance of an individual death is lost to us because we have become democratic, not only in outward forms, but in our inmost convictions. High tragedy in the present day, therefore, has to concern itself rather with the community than with the individual. I would give as an example of what I mean Ernst Toller's Massenmensch. I do not maintain that this work is as good as the best that has been done in the best ages in the past, but I do maintain that it is justly comparable; it is noble, profound and actual, concerned with heroic action, and 'purging the reader through pity and terror', as Aristotle said it should. There are as yet few examples of this modern kind of tragedy, since the old technique and the old traditions have to be abandoned without being replaced by mere educated commonplace. To write tragedy, a man must feel tragedy. To feel tragedy, a man must be aware of the world in which he lives, not only with his mind, but with his blood and sinews. Mr Krutch talks throughout his book at intervals about despair, and one is touched by his heroic acceptance of a bleak world, but the bleakness is due to the fact that he and most literary men have not yet learnt to feel the old emotions in response to new stimuli. The stimuli exist, but not in literary coteries. Literary coteries have no vital contact with the life of the community, and such contact is necessary if men's feelings are to have the seriousness and depth within which both tragedy and true happiness proceed. To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: 'Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a labourer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy all your energies.' I do not recommend this course of action to everyone, but only to those who suffer from the disease which Mr. Krutch diagnoses. I believe that, after some years of such an existence, the ex-intellectual will find that in spite of his efforts he can no longer refrain from writing, and when this time comes his writing will not seem to him futile. 
（カット写真）［京都市左京区「永観堂・禅林寺」, 2004.11.28 撮影］ 写真の続き： n.1 n.2 n.3 n.4 n.5 n.6. n.7. |
