Finally, we must distinguish the history play from the counterfactual
play. Suppose someone writes a play about the conspiracy against Caesar,
an event that took place, refers to real people, is public; suppose, too, that
she works closely with ancient sources and modern histories; and suppose,
finally, that in the climactic scene, Caesarfights off Casca and escapes to
join Mark Antony before Cassius, Brutus and the others can lay afinger
on him. There is no reason why such a play might not be a great success
as a work of literature; but it is not a history play. We should add, then,
that history plays do not alter the significant historical facts. It is clear
that the category of‘significant historical facts’is loose; but it is also clear that,
for the plays to be history plays, Caesar must die at the hands of the
conspirators, Henry V must win at Agincourt, Robespierre must turn on
Danton and Desmoulins, the Persians must lose at Salamis, and Boris
Godunov must be crowned as Tsar.
These, I take it, are the central features of the history play. Plenty of
plays take a stricter approach to historical accuracy–and we shall discuss
some of the possibilities in what follows. So now that we have an idea of
what they are, we can turn back to our guiding question, following the
performance ofJulius Caesar: did it happen like that? Answers to this
question, I would suggest, could take roughly three forms: it’s the wrong
(or inappropriate) question; yes; no. I shall look at them in that order.
The wrong question?
Is there something wrong with asking whether the real event happened like
the performance? Aristotle, as we have seen, wrote that drama (as a species of
poetry) must treat universals, not historical particulars. In Aristotle’s
terms, history can tell us what has happened, but theatre can tell us what
would happen (which is also the realm of philosophy). Telling us what
would happen–teaching us about universals–is, he suggests, much
more important than just telling us what happened to happen on one
occasion. So, for example, Herodotus the historian may tell us about the Battle
of Salamis; but Aeschylus the tragedian (and Plato, the philosopher) can tell
us universals about, for instance, human conflict and weakness. For him,
then, theatre just isn’t history and it ought not to be. Of course, as he points
out, sometimes things that have happened–historical events–can be the
kinds of things that do in general happen. But here the playwright’s
role is to turn the historical event into something poetic and universal;
the aim is certainly not to give the audience an accurate understanding of
whatever happened to take place.^14 The question, then, should be not
‘did it happen like this?’but the rather clumsier‘wouldit happen like
this (necessarily or for the most part)?’On a common reading, Aristotle is
interested in what types of people do in types of situations.^15
History in the making 79