Tragedy

A collection of documents relating to the literary theme of tragedy, illustrating the foundations of contemporary thinking on the subject and reflecting the continuing debate on the subject. In the LONGMAN CRITICAL READER series.

This wide-ranging and unique collection of documents on one of the most enduring of literary genres, Tragedy, offers a radical revaluation of its significance in the light of the critical attention that it has received during the past one-hundred and fifty years. The foundations of much contemporary thinking about Tragedy are to be found in the writings of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard; in addition, the dialectical tradition emanating from Marxism, and the psycho-analytical writings of Freud, have extended significantly the horizons of the subject.

With the explosion of interest in the areas of post-structuralism, sociology of culture, social anthropology, feminism, deconstruction, and the study of ritual, new questions are being asked about this persistent artistic exploration of human experience. This book seeks to represent a full selection of these divergent interests, in a series of substantial extracts which display the continuing richness of the debate about a genre which has provoked, and challenged categorical discussion since the appearance of Aristotle''s Poetics.