An Essay on the Tragic

by Szondi, Peter; Fleming, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780804743952
• ISBN10: 0804743959
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-23
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Peter Szondis pathbreaking work is a succinct and elegant argument for distinguishing between a philosophy of the tragic and the poetics of tragedy espoused by Aristotle. The first of the books two parts consists of a series of commentaries on philosophical and aesthetic texts from twelve thinkers and poets between 1795 and 1915: Schelling, Holderlin, Hegel, Solger, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Vischer, Kierkegaard, Hebbel, Nietzsche, Simmel, and Scheler. The various definitions of tragedy are read not so much in terms of their specific philosophies, but rather in the way their views assist in analyzing tragedies with an aim to establish a general concept of the tragic. The second part presents exemplary analyses of eight tragedies: Sophocles'Oedipus Rex, CalderonsLife Is a Dream, ShakespearesOthello, GryphiusLeo Armenius, RacinesPhaedra, SchillersDemetrius, Kleist'sThe Schroffenstein Familyand Buchner'sDanton's Death. The readings neither presuppose a concept of the tragic determined by context (as in Hegel's idea of the conflict between two orders of right), nor do they focus exclusively on the texts explicit contents. Instead, they elaborate the dialectical or aporetic structures at the heart of the tragic. The works analyzed represent the four great epochs of tragic poetry: the age of Greek tragedy; the Baroque era in Spain, England, and Germany; French Classicism; and the age of Goethe.

Author Biography

Peter Szondi (1929-1971) was Professor of Comparative Literature at the Free University in Berlin. He is the author of groundbreaking works on the theory of drama, on literary hermeneutics, on Hölderlin, and on Celan.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(6)
PART I. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TRAGIC
Schelling	7	(4)
Holderlin	11	(4)
Hegel	15	(8)
Solger	23	(2)
Goethe	25	(3)
Schopenhauer	28	(3)
Friedrich Theodor Vischer	31	(3)
Kierkegaard	34	(3)
Hebbel	37	(4)
Nietzsche	41	(3)
Simmel	44	(3)
Scheler	47	(12)
Transition	49	(10)
PART II. ANALYSES OF THE TRAGIC
Oedipus Rex	59	(5)
Life Is a Dream	64	(6)
Othello	70	(4)
Leo Armenius	74	(4)
Phaedra	78	(4)
Demetrius	82	(8)
The Schroffenstein Family	90	(5)
Danton's Death	95	(6)
Notes	101