The Philosophy of Tragedy
From Plato to Zizek
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9467643 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jonathan Salem‐wiseman (Humber College, corresponding author), J Salem-Wiseman |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 119-122 |
| Publication date | 2014-04-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayt046 |
| OpenAlex | W2329039160 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
As Camus rightly noted, there have been only two historical periods, each spanning roughly a century, during which great tragedies have been written and performed, yet philosophers have fretted more over the definition and significance of this artistic genre than any other. But why? What is it about tragedy and the ‘tragic effect’ that has so gripped such a diverse group of thinkers, many of whom sharing little else in common, intellectually speaking, other than an abiding interest in Sophocles or Shakespeare? Just what is the nature of the pleasure we experience, or the redemption we find, in the viewing of artfully staged, distressing events? While Julian Young’s book may not contain any final answers to these questions, it is certainly about the best place to begin. As readers of Young’s other books (on Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger primarily) have come to expect, it is a model of clear philosophical prose and, as such, an admirable foil to many of the writers under consideration. But there is an austerity here too: getting to the bottom of 15 theories of tragedy in less than 300 pages requires a disciplined, surgical focus, especially since many of the theories are embedded in broader, and highly complex, philosophical arguments. If Young wrote fiction, I suspect he would write short, Ian McEwanish novels, utterly shorn of fussy subplots or inessential details
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Literature · Metaphysics · Pleasure · Proposition · Psychoanalysis · Suspect · Tragedy (event · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2021 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |