SOURCE: Hritzu, John N. “Dramatic Irony in Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris.” Monatshefte 36, no. 5 (May 1944): 217-23.

Irony of various species is a favorite device in all dramatic literature. Irony may be tragic, it may be dramatic; it may be directed consciously by the speaker, it may develop unconsciously; it may be sarcastic or ridiculous, satirical or humorous. In tragedy, especially in Greek tragedy, we are accustomed to that species of irony known as tragic. This species is employed when some catastrophe is about to befall a character in the drama, a catastrophe that is not known to, or forseen by, the victim, but is apparent to the spectators because they either know the plot of the drama or can perceive the catastrophe from the progress of the drama. Tragic irony may be of two kinds: conscious or unconscious. It is conscious when the character, as the speaker, is not himself the victim of any illusion,¹ but he either prepares the catastrophe for some one else or is acquainted with the catastrophe intended for some one else. It is unconscious when the character is the spokesman and at the same time the victim of the impending catastrophe. The latter type of tragic irony is probably the most impressive of the two.² The former type occurs frequently in Euripides³ and in Aeschylus⁴ and in Sophocles⁵ and even in modern drama.⁶

Irony, constructed as it is on the foundations of misconception and illusion and supported by the props of misapprehension and ambiguity, becomes tragic only when the ignorance leads the character to some catastrophic end. If, however, the ignorance on the part of the character or characters leads not to any doom or catastrophe but simply to the prolongation of the identity of facts, then the resulting situation of irony may be termed dramatic; that species of irony in which the characters in a drama, ignorant of certain facts, fail, because of this ignorance, to realize their objective, although the realization is obviously within their reach. This species of irony is apparently unconscious in the main. The speakers are themselves the victims of the illusion; they themselves are the victims of the mistaken identity. Because of the ignorance of the identity of the characters addressed, their expressions assume an inner and outer meaning. The moments become very tense and surcharged with the emotions of expectation and anxiety, as the speakers approach the brink of recognition only to fall back again into the depths of misapprehension.

Of all the writers of tragedies, Greek as well as foreign, no one has ever even approached the excellence of Sophocles in the use of tragic irony. He makes use of both kinds of tragic irony, the unconscious as well as the conscious. It is, however, in the employment of the unconscious kind of tragic irony that Sophocles has reached such heights of success that his irony has become proverbial.⁷ We are acquainted with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and with its tragic irony complex. In this play the irony is not confined merely to the language; it runs through the whole situation. In his confidence and in his presumption, Oedipus advances blindfold to his own destruction. The unconscious utterance of the helpless victim and the helplessness of an aware audience combine to produce tragic emotions that defy a definition.

The same degree of success that Sophocles attained in his development of irony in his tragedies, Goethe seems to have attained in his development of irony in his Iphigenie auf Tauris. Sophocles manifested his dramatic genius in the employment of tragic irony; Goethe, in dramatic irony. Both focused their special attention on the development of the unconscious type of irony in their drama. In the type of irony developed by Goethe, there is no impending doom or catastrophe of which the characters speak unconsciously nor is the language ominously suggestive of things to come. The presence of the irony is occasioned by equivocation and by ambiguity, by a contrast between the outer and the inner meaning of the language—effected solely through ignorance. Iphigenia is hoping almost against hope to be able to see once again members of her family, her sisters and, if the Gods would only have it, her dearly beloved, young brother, Orestes, who had been taken away, or rather sent away, to relatives for safe-keeping following the murder of their father, Agamemnon. She has no idea either of his whereabouts, or even of his existence on this earth. Nor has Orestes, on the other hand, who has come to Tauris for the purpose of receiving purification from guilt of matricide, any suspicion, whatever, of the presence of his sister, Iphigenia, here at the shrine. This mutual ignorance on the part of sister and brother of each other's fate heightens, tremendously, the irony of the situation when they come face to face with each other, little knowing and realizing that the very persons of whom the one is speaking and for whom the other is pining are tangibly present in flesh and in blood.

The dramatic irony in Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris owes its origin to the ambiguous utterance of Apollo, an utterance which is clear, naturally, to the God, but which is ambiguous to, or rather misunderstood by, Orestes. Orestes has murdered his mother at the suggestion and with the approval of Apollo. As a consequence of the murder, he is relentlessly pursued by the furies, the god-sent avengers of blood guilt. After a period of a maddening and sickening pursuit, compassion is finally aroused in the breast of Apollo who promises Orestes deliverance from the pursuit of the furies and purification from the blood guilt of matricide upon the fulfillment of the following instruction:

Bringst du die Schwester, die an Tauris' Ufer
Im Heiligtume wider Willen bleibt,
Nach Griechenland, so löset sich der Fluch.(8)

The dramatic irony, therefore, centers about the identity of two pairs of relatives (Geschwister), Apollo and his sister Diana, the goddess of Tauris, and Orestes and his sister Iphigenia, the priestess at Tauris to the goddess Diana. In his direction and instruction Apollo simply uses the term sister (Die Schwester) without modification, never indicating to Orestes the exact identity of that sister. Apollo has reference to Iphigenia, the sister of Orestes; whereas Orestes is ever under the false impression that Apollo's sister, Diana, is the object of the reference.

When we see Orestes for the first time in the drama, we get a better understanding and a clearer appreciation of the portrayal and the development of the irony of the ambiguity, as we hear him speaking the incorrect version of the promise given to his request by Apollo:

Als ich Apollen bat, das gräßliche
Geleit der Rachegeister von der Seite
Mir abzunehmen, schien er Hilf' und Rettung
Im Tempel seiner vielgeliebten Schwester,
Die über Tauris herrscht, mit hoffnungsreichen,
Gewissen Götterworten zu versprechen;(9)

Orestes despairs of escaping from Tauris; but Pylades, the artful and inventive, attempts to buoy up the low spirits of Orestes by repeating the correct but still ambiguous promise of Apollo:

                                                            … Apollo
Gab uns das Wort: im Heiligtum der Schwester
Sei Trost und Hilf' und Rückkehr dir bereitet.(10)

Pylades adds irony to irony when in the face of the apparent ambiguity of Apollo's utterance he tries to reassure Orestes that divine utterances are not ambiguous:

Der Götter Worte sind nicht doppelsinnig,
Wie der Gedrückte sie im Anmut wähnt.(11)

The Goethean Pylades is more loquacious than the Eurpidean one. In his conversation with Iphigenia, as he mentions the story and the fate of the family of Agamemnon—Iphigenia's own family—he notices a manifestation by her of a sudden and an unusual interest in the story. His direct question, almost rhetorical, is dramatically ironical, as he asks Iphigenia:

Bist du die Tochter eines Freundes? bist
Du nachbarlich in dieser Stadt geboren?(12)

If Pylades only knew and if Iphigenia could only give the answer! It is this ignorance that makes the situation dramatically ironical.

In the first scene of act three, Iphigenia utters her first expression pregnant with dramatic irony as she turns to Orestes, her real brother, whose bonds of captivity she has just loosened in preparation for the sacrifice, and she calls him: O werter Landsmann!¹³ As she concludes her speech she heightens the ironical tenseness of the situation in her expression of thanks, as if in anticipation, to Orestes and to Pylades for having brought to her such moments of hope and of joy:

Wie soll ich euch genug mit Freud' und Segen
Empfangen, die ihr mir das Bild der Helden,
Die ich von Eltern her verehren lernte,
Entgegenbringet und das innre Herz
Mit neuer, schöner Hoffnung schmeichelnd labet!(14)

Orestes, too, like Pylades, becomes curious about the identity of Iphigenia; her answer to his inquiry concerning her name and her family is surcharged with dramatic irony: Du sollst mich lernen!¹⁵

How true is the statement, and for that reason, how ironical it is for a sister to tell her brother that he will soon come to know her identity! The irony waxes stronger and more dramatic when for the first time the process of recognition comes closer to its climax with the mention of names. The irony assumes the quality of the dramatic for the reason that the ignorance is only partial at any given time; that is, knowledge is concealed only from one of the two persons engaged in conversation. It is always the other person of the duet that is in ignorance of the identification. Thus, when Iphigenia asks Orestes whether Orestes and his and her older sister Electra are alive, how dramatic and ironical it is for Orestes to answer in the affirmative: Sie leben.¹⁶ Iphigenia, naturally enough, seems unable to restrain her emotions on hearing the answer to her proposed question, a setting that proves proper for Orestes' ironic exclamation as he warns her of future restraint of further outbursts and advises her, in ironic truth, to prepare and control herself for the relay of information concerning the unfolding of the story of the tragedy of the family of Agamemnon, the tragedy in reality of her own family:

Bist du gastfreundlich diesem Königshause,
Bist du mit nähern Banden ihm verbunden,
Wie deine schöne Freude mir verrät,
So bändige dein Herz und halt es fest.(17)

Each remark from the lips of Orestes and of Iphigenia lends a note and tone of intensification to the onward rush of the progress of the development of the irony of the situation. How ironical is Orestes' reply (O, könnte man von seinem Tode sprechen!)¹⁸ to Iphigenia's no less ironical imperative; Sprich mir von Orest.¹⁹ The dramatic irony is nearing its climax for Iphigenia. Immediately precedent to the crash and the stroke of the force of the climax upon Iphigenia, Orestes satisfies Iphigenia's insistence upon his relation of the true story of the flight of Orestes (i.e., of himself), from the avenging furies.²⁰ Pylades, however, previously had concocted a false story about Orestes, telling Iphigenia that Orestes was Laodamas, his eldest brother, and the eldest son of King Adrastus. Laodamas has killed his youngest brother in a quarrel over inheritance.²¹ The real Orestes had no knowledge of this concoction and for this reason is stunned momentarily by Iphigenia's ironical remark of genuine identification, upon hearing the story of the real Orestes:

Unseliger, du bist in gleichem Fall,
Und fühlst, was er, der arme Flüchtling leidet!(22)

With almost every statement Iphigenia and Orestes identify themselves without knowing it. Iphigenia is telling Orestes in effect, that he, the unidentified Orestes, is suffering the same mental confusion and torture and anguish that the real Orestes of the story had suffered. How really ironical and dramatical is the statement, since the similarity of events is occasioned not by likeness but by actual identity! How well Orestes realizes this identity as he, as if realizing Iphigenia's awareness of him, asks with a start:

Was sagst du mir? Was wähnst du gleichen Fall?²³

When Iphigenia explains the meaning of her statement, indicating that she had reference merely to the similarity of torture suffered by Laodamas, the fictioned Orestes, and the real Orestes, the matricide, Orestes can no longer brook delay and ends the game of misrepresentation as with an expression of complete sincerity and truthfulness he remarks tersely: Ich bin Orest!²⁴ The curtain of the last act of the scene of the dramatic irony concerning the identity of Orestes falls down with dramatic suddenness and force. One half of the problem of the mistaken identity has been solved. Iphigenia now knows the identity of the stranger. But the problem is not completely solved until Orestes has become convinced of the identity of the priestess standing before him.

The lines²⁵ that follow immediately upon Orestes expression of his identity are very ironical and dramatical, although they do not as such advance the story of Iphigenia's identity. Orestes does not expect freedom from sacrifice as a consequence of his revelation to Iphigenia. In almost tragic earnestness—the quality that intensifies the ironic effect of the passage—Orestes wishes, directly, to Iphigenia and to Pylades, and indirectly to himself, success in the flight to Greece where a new lease on life and on happiness may be taken. If only the veil of irony could have been removed and if he had only known that he was including himself in that wish of a successful escape!

Orestes must now endure alone the brunt of the weight of the dramatic irony, Iphigenia knows his identity; he does not know hers. The remarks of Iphigenia now assume a heightened inner and outer meaning. How profoundly ironical is her remark to Orestes' insistence the she forget him, the criminal, and that she cease to implicate herself in his tragedy of miseries and woes: Mein Schicksal ist an deines fest gebunden.²⁶ Iphigenia now utters Orestes' name in dead earnest for she knows his identity. She endeavors to direct his attention to the truth of her forthcoming confession of self identification. After she has learned from the lips of Orestes that besides Electra he had another younger sister, i.e., Iphigenia, she is completely convinced of his identity and with dramatic terseness she utters these words of revelation:

Orest, ich bin's! Sieh Iphigenien!
Ich lebe!(27)

The gravity of the weight of the revelation is too heavy for Orestes to bear. He expresses a deep sense of doubt as he responds: Du! Laß! Hinweg!²⁸ In fact, so certain does he feel the error in Iphigenia's statement that he even threatens her with violence should she insist on coming nearer to demonstrate her signs of sisterly affection:

Ich rate dir, berühre nicht die Locken!
Wie von Kreusas Brautkleid zündet sich
Ein unauslöschlich Feuer von mir fort.
Laß mich! Wie Herkules will ich Unwürd'ger
Den Tod voll Schmach, in mich verschlossen, sterben.(29)

It requires the refreshening effects of a trance³⁰ and the reassurance of a friend like Pylades³¹ to convince Orestes of the identity of Iphigenia.

Thus is concluded the presentation in Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris of the dramatic irony involving the mistaken identity of Orestes and Iphigenia and the subsequent scene of recognition. It seems to me that Goethe in his drama has developed for us a species of dramatic irony no less remarkable in its effects than that species of tragic irony developed by Sophocles in his tragedies.

The presence of irony in a Greek tragedy was consistent with the Greek notion of the irony of human destiny and the futility of human wisdom.³² An abundance as well as meagerness of knowledge can be equally futile and even harmful. By gaining an abundance of information, Oedipus in Sophocles Oedipus Rex arrived at the revelation of his own acts of monstrosity; by the absence of sufficient information, Iphigenie in Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris approached dangerously close to the enactment of her brother's, Orestes', sacrifice. Tragic irony gains momentum by its directive suggestiveness of what is about to happen; dramatic irony, of what may happen. Tragic irony is the irony of catastrophe; dramatic irony, of ambiguity.

The interest and the pathos of such a spectacle is intense and all absorbing. The audience would not be properly motivated or could not be unless the veil of the secret were removed from their eyes, unless the consequences of the irony were known to and foreseen by the spectators who become fully acquainted with the plot. These themes of irony and of destiny necessitated the presence in these dramas of irony of a recognition scene of anagnorisis,³³ a scene in which all ambiguity is revealed, a scene in which those involved discover too late, to their sorrow, as in the Oedipus Rex or before it is to late, as in Iphigenie auf Tauris, the real nature of their position, when they have through ignorance either committed, or have been upon the point of committing, some fatal deed.

Notes

1. Haigh, Attic Theater, Oxford, 1907, p. 175.

2. Cf. Haigh, p. 176.

3. Cf. Euripides, Bacch., 947-972.

4. Cf. Aeschylus, Agam., 910-913; 973 974.

5. Cf. Sophocles, Ajax, 657-659; Electra, 1448-1457.

6. Cf. Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 1, scene 5; Middleton. Changeling, act 3, scene 2.

7. Cf. Haigh, p. 175.

8. Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris, lines 2113-2115.

9. Iphigenie auf Tauris, lines 564-568.

10. Iphigenie auf Tauris, lines 610-612.

11. Iphigenie auf Tauris, lines 613-614.

12. Ibid., lines 886-887.

13. Ibid., line 941.

14. Ibid., lines 944-948.

15. Ibid., line 952.

16. Ibid., line 982.

17. Ibid., lines 985-988.

18. Ibid., line 1051.

19. Ibid., line 1050.

20. Ibid., lines 1051-1070.

21. Ibid., lines 824-836.

22. Ibid., lines 1072-1073.

23. Ibid., line 1073.

24. Ibid., line 1083.

25. Ibid., lines 1083 ff.

26. Ibid., line 1122.

27. Ibid., lines 1173-1174.

28. Ibid., line 1174.

29. Ibid., lines 1175-1179.

30. Ibid., lines 1223 ff.

31. Ibid., lines 1332 ff.

32. Cf. Haigh, 346.

33. Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, ch. 16.