The Paradox Of Tragedy

First published in 1960, The Paradox of Tragedy raises the fundamental question, why do we enjoy tragic drama with its themes of death and disaster? Aristotle’s theory of catharsis is still widely accepted as a satisfactory explanation of this paradox. In the first of its two connected essays, D.D. Raphael argues that Aristotle’s account of tragic emotions is distorted by a faulty psychology and fails to solve the problem. Raphael offers instead a new theory of Tragedy, as a conflict between two forms of the sublime, in which the sublimity of human heroism is exalted above the sublimity of overwhelming power. The spirit of the Tragedy is liable to conflict with doctrines of Biblical theology, and the difficulties of fusing the two are explored with illustrations from Greek, Biblical, English, and French literature. The second essay discusses the wider topic of philosophical drama, considering in what sense tragic and other forms of serious drama may be called philosophical, and also pointing out the dramatic shape of much of Plato’s philosophy. In this discussion, the question of religious Tragedy reappears in a different perspective. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular.

Paradox informs the narrative sequence, images, and rhetorical tactics contrived by skilled dramatists and novelists. Their literary languages depict not only a war between rivals but also simultaneous affirmation and negation voiced by a tragic individual. They reveal the treason, flux, and duplicity brought into play by an unrelenting drive for respect. Their patterns of speech, action, and image project a convergence of polarities, the convergence of integrity and radical change, of constancy and infidelity. A fanatical drive to fulfill a traditional code of masculine conduct produces the ironic consequence of de-forming that code—the tragic paradox. Tragic literature exploits irony. In Athenian and Shakespearean tragedy, self-righteous male or female aristocrats instigate their own disgrace, shame, and guilt, an un-expected diminishment. They are victimized by a magnificent obsession, a fantasy of un-alloyed authority or virtue, a dream of perfect self-sufficiency or trust. The authors of tragedy revised the concept of “nobility” to reflect the strange fact that grandeur elicits its own annulment. “Strengths by strengths do fail,” Shakespeare wrote in Coriolanus. The playwrights made this paradoxical predicament concrete with a narrative format that equates self-assertion with self-detraction, images that revolve between incredible reversals and provisional reinstatements, and speech that sounds impressively weighty but masks deception, disloyalty, cynicism, and insecurity. Three heroic philosophers, Plato, Hegel, and Nietzsche, contributed invaluable but contrasting accounts of these literary languages (Aristotle's Poetics will be discussed in connection with Plato's attitude toward poetry). Their divergent descriptions can be reconciled to show that invalidations as well as affirmations—the transmission of contraries—are essential for tragic composition. An equivocal rhetoric, a mutable imagery, and an ironic progression convey the tortuous pursuit of personal preeminence or (in later tragic works by Kafka and Strindberg) family solidarity and communal safety. I am trying to integrate the disparate arguments offered by several notable theorists with technical procedures fashioned by the Athenian dramatists and recast by Shakespeare and other writers, procedures that articulate the tragic paradox.

A collection of newly composed essays, some with a historical focus and some with a contemporary focus, which addresses the problem of explaining the appeal of artworks whose appreciation entails negative or difficult emotions on the appreciator's part - what has traditionally been known as "the paradox of tragedy".

First published in 1960, The Paradox of Tragedy raises the fundamental question, why do we enjoy tragic drama with its themes of death and disaster? D. D. Raphael offers a new theory of Tragedy, as a conflict between two forms of the sublime.

This book uses Greek poetry and Plato's philosophy to explain the appeal of tragedy and explore the non-cognitive value of aesthetic engagement.

Excerpt from The Paradox of Tragedy: The Mahlon Powell Lectures, 1959 My subject is philosophy, not literary criticism, and the topics raised are dealt with as philosophical questions. My knowledge of drama is somewhat limited, and I am con scious that my appreciation of it may be biased in some respects by the strong impression made upon me in my youth by the Greek dramatists. Even of them I do not write as a classical scholar, but at least I have read most of the plays. With later drama, however, it is a very dif ferent story, and I can well believe that a more extensive and more detailed knowledge would require qualification of my views. My illustrations from post-hellenic drama are pretty well confined to works written in English or French. Such acquaintance as I have with parts of French literature is largely due to my wife, and these essays owe much to her. When using passages from Greek prose or verse, or from French prose, I have thought it best to borrow or give an English translation and, so far as practicable, to dispense with quoting the original language, though I regret the inevitable loss of beauty - in Anouilh as well as in Sophocles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.