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영어

This article examines the possibility of tragedy in today’s context through Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002). Since the 1960s, Albee had written nonrealistic absurdist comedies through which he had revealed his cynicism or even pessimism about the postmodern world that seemed impossible to be changed and saved. With the advent of the new millennium, however, Albee returned to realism with The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, and he added a subtitle as “Notes toward a Definition of Tragedy.” Albee’s articulation of the play’s genre is related to the playwright’s view of the new era, which is marked by the 9/11 terrorist attack from the beginning. Thus, with The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Albee opened discourse on the revival of tragedy in the post-postmodern world. While bestiality in the play revisits an old concept of taboo in the classic Greek tragedy, the narrative about the fall of an American middle-class family represents a common theme of liberal tragedy. Most of all, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is a tragedy in the contemporary context because of its open ending; everyone suffers but no one is saved as there is no fixed scapegoat to take the blame. This open ending of the play implies an aspect of tragedy in recent history that has no comfort zone, making everyone suffer. Therefore, revisiting and revising the convention of the genre, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? brings questions about tragedy in the contemporary era and suggests itself as an example of it.