supposes, watchLearwithout taking home any message about how children
ought to behave towards their parents. But even if, say, Schiller is right
that watching Lear sends home a message about the importance offilial
loyalty, one questionLearasks (I would suggest) is how farfilial loyalty
may be stretched – at what point (if any) does a father’s behaviour
become unreasonable and intolerable? One wonders, for example, what
Schiller would make of Hebbel’s Agnes Bernauer, in which Albrecht’s
father disinherits Albrecht and then quietly arranges for the murder of
Albrecht’s innocent wife. Modern debates about the relation between art
and morality also stumble upon these straightforward, interpretative pro-
blems: hence, two philosophers will offer different accounts of the role of
idleness inThe Cherry Orchard.^23 If the message is ambiguous, then the
alleged moral effect is at least diluted. Worse still (as Rousseau suggests),
individual spectators will probablyfind confirmed in an ambiguous narra-
tive whichever morals they took in with them in thefirst place; if so, the
possibility for a real moral confrontation is limited.^24 What’s more, I take
it that we don’t typically think that the best plays are those with clear,
unambiguous morals; it’s probably part of what we think is appealing
aboutThe Cherry Orchardthat it provokes this kind of discussion.
Suppose that a play does communicate something unambiguous about
right and wrong. Defenders of the school of morals nonetheless stumble
across a further problem, namely that theatre doesn’t ask us todoanything in
response. That is, in the most general sense, theatre doesn’t ask that we
change in any way. Defenders of the theatre claim that it is better than
being told a moral principle, because it directly shows the terrible effects of
immorality. However, all the audience is required to do is to sit there and
privately condemn what’s going on. They are not required to act in any
way. In Schiller’s Lear example, we maypromiseto honour our parents–
but do we ever actually fulfil such promises? For Rousseau, this is not
merely a limitation on the effectiveness of theatre as a tool of moral
instruction–it actually makes its effectimmoral:
In giving our tears to thesefictions, we have satisfied all the rights of humanity
without having to give anything more of ourselves; whereas unfortunate people
in person would require attention from us, relief, consolation, and work,
which would involve us in their pains.^25By setting plays in distant times and places (as French tragedians always
did, and many playwrights have done and still do), theatre actually makes
morality moredistant–something for far-off people in far-off places, nothing
to do with the audience when they leave the theatre. Furthermore, con-
demning the immorality ofother peoplehas never been something that wefind
difficult –especially when those ‘other people’ arefictional characters,
A school of morals? 107