A second element of the Aristotelian drama is that it takes itself to
present universal truths–truths that hold for all people at all times. (One
canfind traces of this view in thePoetics, of course, in Aristotle’sclaimsabout
poetry and universals.) Thus, once presented with purported universal,
unchanging truths, the Aristotelian audience concludes that this is just
the way things are for human beings, and there’s nothing to be done about
it:‘a few circumstances may vary, the environments are altered, but man
remains unchanged.’^37 The result is resignation and inaction. Brecht’s
objections to this are philosophical: according to his Marxist view (about
which more later), the central or most important truths about human
beings change as their stage of technological development changes. Of
course, human beings still eat and breathe and so on, but they hardly
need theatre to tell them that; it’s what’s changed – the economy,
industry, political structures–that matters. These changes have been
brought about by human beings and could potentially be changed by
human beings. To resign oneself to the universal, negative fate of‘human
nature’ is therefore to make a mistake. Genuine progress is possible:
positive and negative.
One can see how thesefirst two thoughts might relate in Brecht’s view:
the theatre he objects to turns everything into a matter of oversimplified
emotional interactions and, therefore, makes it seem as though all people
at all times face the same kinds of emotional dilemmas. We watch the
play orfilm set in Ancient Rome and think to ourselves: they were just
like us! If the Hollywood biopic were forced to spend more time on the
specific, historical details then perhaps it wouldn’t be able to reduce
everything to the love story or the personal struggle.
The third feature of Aristotelian drama is empathy.‘Empathy’, as many
have noted, is hardly a clearly defined term and Brecht is not always
unambiguous in the way he uses it. Broadly speaking, the kind of empathy
that characterises the Aristotelian drama occurs when the spectator feels
what the principal character feels. In doing so, she identifies with the
situation of the principal character. Thus, each spectator at an Aristotelian
performance ofOedipus Tyrannusis transformed into a little Oedipus and
feels equally trapped in Oedipus’ fate. This kind of empathy, Brecht
sometimes suggests, is the single most important feature of the
Aristotelian drama.^38
For Brecht, all of these elements are related. They come together in the
Aristotelian drama: the play simplifies human conflict, presenting it as an
individual’s emotional suffering at the hands of fate; absorbed in the
action, I suffer the pains of the main character and imagine myself as that
character; I conclude that this is just how life is and has always been and
I feel pleasurably resigned to this fate. We have already suggested how
thefirst two features might be connected (emotional simplification and
Collective action 179