Theorist Diagram

Tragedy

Plato -> Aristotle -> Nietzsche -> Freud -> Lacan -> Horkheimer/Adorno

Symbolism/Author’s intentions

Plato -> Augustine -> Maimonides -> Hume -> Kant -> Schleiermacher -> Emerson -> Nietzsche -> Freud -> Lacan -> Eliot -> Wimsatt/Beardsley

Genius

Maimonides -> Hume -> Kant -> Hegel -> Wordsworth -> Coleridge -> Emerson -> Nietzsche -> Horkheimer/Adorno

Education/Societal Impact

Plato -> Aristotle -> de Pizan -> Sidney -> Wollstonecraft -> Hegel -> Emerson -> Marx/Engels -> Horkheimer/Adorno -> Althusser -> Eliot

Most theorists consider tragedy to be one of the greatest art forms, and they usually look to Plato and Aristotle’s parameters for what is a good tragedy. Freud and Lacan take a slightly different approach, as Freud connects tragedy to the Oedipus complex and Lacan has a more tenuous connection between the imitation and mimicry in the mirror stage and Aristotle’s definition of tragedy as a representation of an action. However, neither Freud nor Lacan argue with any of Aristotle’s rules about good tragedy, and theorists such as Horkheimer and Adorno have returned to Aristotle and now complain that tragedies have become more about just punishment than about reversals and the suffering of good men. A constant problem for theorists is how to interpret symbolism in art, and how much the author’s intentions matter. Some theorists, such as Hume and Schleiermacher, think that the author’s background and intentions are vital to an accurate interpretation of their work, while others, such as Eliot, Wimsatt, and Beardsley, think that the author is irrelevant once he or she has finished the work. Augustine and Nietzsche both say that words are metaphors for other things, and both theorists have theories on how to interpret the metaphors. Freud and Lacan also believe that almost everything is a symbol representing something else, often revealing something about the author’s subconscious. Many theories have been presented regarding symbolism and how an author impacts his or her work, but none have been proved to be better than all of the others yet.

The concept of genius has been a steady theme throughout the works of many theorists. Some theorists directly use the term ‘genius,’ and some simply state ideas that match other theorists’ definitions of the term. Most often, a genius is defined as someone who is separate from most of society because of some superiority, whether it is innate or whether they were chosen to be superior. From Maimonides’ assertion that only a few can understand to Nietzsche’s Übermensch, most theorists have some theory of genius. When this theory reaches Horkheimer and Adorno, these theorists take the idea of genius in a different direction. In an attack against capitalism, Horkheimer and Adorno say that individuals are chosen to be special and admired by society, but they are chosen completely at random and so are in fact not any different from the rest of us. Finally, the question of how art affects society and how society affects art has been discussed for centuries with conflicting results. Plato believes that poetry brings out inappropriate emotions that will hurt society, while Sidney thinks that poetry supports virtue. Wollstonecraft claims that society educates us, and Horkheimer and Adorno say that society manipulates and controls us.