Buchner's alternative to history

The point is that to make imagination speak like this in the face of despair about life is to perform an action that is as much a part of life as any other, and is therefore, in the most paradoxical-seeming way, an act of faith. More than that, Buchner's alternative to history - which is what imaginative art might be thought of - constitutes his triumph over the very forces that on the level of sheer physical experience cause him to despair. In writing his plays, Buchner added to life a new fact which is both a recognition of disaster and a cure for thinking it all there is. Like the classic writers of tragedy, he leaves us not in despair but in possession of a means for confronting what would otherwise have killed us behind our backs. - Richard Gilman