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According to traditional accounts, the history of tragedy is itself tragic, following a miraculous birth in fifth-century Athens and a brilliant resurgence in the early modern period, tragic drama then falls into a marked decline. While disputing the notion that tragedy has died, this wide-ranging study argues that it faces an unprecedented challenge in modern times from an unexpected quarter, political economy. Since Aristotle, tragedy has been seen as uniquely exhibiting the importance of action for human happiness. Beginning with Adam Smith, however, political economy has claimed that the source of happiness is primarily production. 'Eclipse of Action' examines the tense relations between action and production, doing and making, in playwrights from Aeschylus, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Milton to Beckett, Arthur Miller and Sarah Kane. Richard Halpern places these figures in conversation with works by Aristotle, Smith, Hegel, Marx, Hannah Arendt, Georges Bataille and others in order to trace the long history of the ways in which economic thought and tragic drama interact.
"Thy bloody and invisible hand": tragedy and political economy -- Greek tragedy and the raptor economy: the Oresteia -- Marlowe's theater of night: Doctor Faustus and capital -- Hamlet and the work of death -- The same old grind: Milton's Samson as subtragic hero -- Hegel, Marx, and the novelization of tragedy -- Beckett's tragic pantry -- Postscript: after Beckett.
Includes bibliographical references and index.