Tragic artists and romantic heroes
Why is it that we feel so attached to the tragic romantic hero?
August 1770, London. The struggling poet, Thomas Chatterton, facing mounting pressure from his family to pursue a career in law, takes a fatal dose of arsenic. Dead in a tiny attic, which he rented for pennies; Chatterton was just seventeen. He left behind a body of delicate, sentimental, and unpublished poetry. He did not yet know it, and could not have imagined such, but he had just become a tragic romantic hero; rejected by the cruel and unflinching world of modernity.
For romantics, such as myself, there is no greater hero than the tragic artist. Be it in literature, music, art; expressions of the senses are where such figures play. It is where they share the moments and sensations that separate man from all other earthly forms of life. Pain, sorrow, angst, joy, love. While all experience these things, few understand them, and fewer truly embody them in life.
It is an archetype as old as the written word. Oedipus Rex was a tragic hero, as was Icarus, Agamemnon, Young Werther. However, those who truly reach out, and touch the lives of us ordinary civilians, are those who truly lived.
What is it that makes for such a figure? Is it just a matter of sensitivity, profundity, and an early demise? Perhaps.
However, I believe there to be another component, one that truly creates a larger-than-life figure; and that is a lifetime of obscurity. One could point at the likes of Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, or Elvis Presley, and see the tragic romantic hero, and they may be as such. One could point at Ian Curtis, who stood on the precipice of stardom and recognition, only to succumb to his crippling depression and epilepsy on the eve of Joy Division’s first US tour. However, I see a category above these figures, defined by the aforementioned obscurity.
July, 1890, southern France. The painter Vincent Van Gogh staggers home, clutching his stomach. He has a self-inflicted gunshot that would prove deadly after two days of agony. It is said that his final words were to the effect of “I couldn’t even kill myself right.”
At the time, he was considered a madman, a failure. He had only sold one painting, out of an estimated two thousand pieces of art. He lived in poverty, supported by his younger brother. Prone to bouts of depression and psychosis, all he had was art. It does not need to be stated that Van Gogh is, today, one of the most renowned artists in history. His works are everywhere, they are iconic.
November, 1974, Warwickshire. The wistful, fragile, and morose folk singer Nick Drake also takes a fatal dose, this time of antidepressants. While it is unclear if this was an accident or a suicide, Drake left behind a world that barely knew his name. Sales of his three records, now considered to be hallmarks of the British folk scene, sold fewer than five thousand copies during his life.
The examples I have listed are men who, through their tragic circumstances, and creative brilliance, have achieved something resembling immortality. But why? Why is it that we feel so attached to the tragic romantic hero? There are a few theories.
One is that the reverence we hold them in is a simple matter of their creative profile. Thomas Chatterton did indeed write delicate and transcendent poetry. Nick Drake wrote and sung excellent folk music, Van Gogh did indeed create wonderful art. Perhaps we feel a certain guilt at the circumstances of their lives, coupled with an honest admiration of their work; and the two work in tandem to create the given emotional response.
Another, bleaker theory is that these artists represent a fear that we all hold: that we are doomed to irrelevance, doomed to be forgotten about. We fear that our works will never know recognition, and one day we will all be mere statistics. By imposing a posthumous praise upon the deceased, we may hope to gain some positive karma, and that we too shall be known as they are. As a writer who is primarily devoted to fiction and poetry, I can attest to this fear.
Perhaps it is a product of modernity, for modern society is viewed by many outside of the mainstream as alienating, atomising, and hopeless. In a secular world, the tragic hero is a quasi-Christ-like figure. In a secular world, living on in art is an afterlife that all can believe in.
Perhaps it will never be known why we respond in the way that we do to such a life. Perhaps we cannot know, and shouldn't know. Mystery is a vanishing thing, and not every facet of life needs to be explained.
Some things are just self-evident.
Some art is just great.
Some lives are just sad.
