The essay focuses on the mechanism of the double motivation in the Wallenstein trilogy, a scheme according to which the catastrophe of the hero is the consequence both of his individual conduct and of the force exerted by destiny. This constellation/configuration is, in its constitutive ambiguity, open to some of the fundamental motives of the dramatic action, such as astrology, the relationship between freedom and contingency, the limitations posed by the action of the individual in history.
