“The Martyr as Dramatic Hero” is the first essay in W.H. Auden’s Secondary Worlds, a collection of talks to the memory of T.S. Eliot. While outlining what distinguishes the martyr from other common hero types (i.e. the tragic hero, or the epic hero), Auden offers this sober warning:
The conception of saving truth is a highly dangerous one, for those who believe that it can be a duty to die for the truth, can come all too easily to believe that it is also a duty to kill for it. The history of the Christian Church—no other religious body has killed so many people for doctrinal reasons—has taught us that we cannot reserve the title of martyr for those who die for beliefs that coincide with our own, that a man who dies to bear witness to dialectical materialism is no less a martyr than one who dies to bear witness to the Nicene formulae. (page 17)
It should be noted that Auden is speaking of “The Martyr” as a literary type of hero (contrasting it with three other hero types). Yet, even divorced from that context, his words are worth thinking about. What is more important: a man’s life or a man’s beliefs? And on that theme, is it ever a capital offense to hold wrong beliefs? It’s only easy to say “No!” if you’re a chronological snob.
Tags: martyr, martyrdom, Secondary Worlds, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden
