Paradoxical Tragedy

Philosophers have nearwhat measures felt that the atonement we take in disaster presents a challenge to reflection, an explanatory challenge that opposite sources of aesthetical enjoyment--comedy or horror, for instance--also present.(1) The idea is that our satisfaction is ultimately puzzleical, that its segments argon tipsy on purely formal grounds, and so some(prenominal) especial(a)(a) explanation of the satisfaction is called for. If we delight in honoring the downfall of the illustrious, why do we? This type of question does non seem to arise, or arise with the identical urgency, for some(prenominal) new(prenominal) kinds of aesthetic enjoyment. To take a simple example, our enjoyment of Matisses The fountain does not ordinarily provoke bafflement about how it is that we be able to find graceful, expressive physical activity benignant to contemplate. My own thought, however, is that on that point is nothing formally unstable in the fragments that contrib ute to the unreflective enjoyment of tragedy, and thus no special explanations of the machination are indispensabilityed. What we rather do pack to think over is the sense that tragedy is paradoxical, and I shall suggest that a spend rationalist picture of the mind creates that sense. I We first need to establish clearer about the specific p finesses that collectively generate the cite paradox. A triad of elements would seem to be necessary. The first element is straightforwardly identifiable: we do enjoy tragedies--at least some well-wrought ones, some of the time. These qualifications are important because a great many an(prenominal) tragedies, like many other kinds of art, are unsuccessfully or imperfectly unfeignedized. Although we might figure that a failed survey underside still yield pleasure, and thereby help to yield a paradox, it is the ack at a timeledged monuments that make the potential problem to the highest degree interesting. Unless we are children or squeamish adults, we do not hightail it ! performances of Othello, or avoid reading The Mayor of Casterbridge; on the contrary, we normally render out such experiences as these works exit and think ourselves better for having had them. The punt element is a micro much rocky to state precisely, but only a little. We could develop with a minimal specification to the effect that there is something caustic about the aesthetically successful tragedy. (I shall omit `aesthetically successful from now on, but the phrase is to be assumed.) We may thence raise specify the unpleasantness by facial expression both that part of our turned on(p) response to tragedy is disagreeably verbalize (we feel ruthfulness for the sad hero, and sorrow is abrasive) or that the vanquish yield(2) of tragedy (what the work is about, namely a trusted time of events involving a certain character) is stressful. Which of these things we express affects the shape of the intended paradox: the first pass on place the problem basically in the space of the emotions, whereas the second will place it in the relationship between representations and real things. For my purposes it makes no difference which shape we insist on.

More should be said about the enduringness of calling either the excited response or the takings depicted object disagreeable, since in these contexts `disagreeable (or `unpleasant) flock be very unhelpful. A subject matter is an purpose of thought, and without further exposition we raise nothing by saying that an object of thought is disagreeable (does it hurt to think about a subject matter?). Perhaps it is enough to say that the sorrow we feel is not an emotion we would in! tentionally cultivate, at least outside the theatre,(3) or that a tragic instalment of events is not a sequence that we, as reasonable or decent persons, would ever desire to initiate or assist. I assume that some commentary along these lines is correct. The third element is perhaps the most difficult of all to state, even crudely, nevertheless it is arguably the most important. In an obscure way, the satisfaction interpreted in tragedy derives from the disagreeable subject matter (or its accessory emotion), and this derivation is not only (or not even) causal.(4) The exalted claims advance on behalf of tragic art are surely move by the sheer fantastic and expressive force of this art, and that power has to be intimately machine-accessible to the dark and serious subjects with which the art deals. It would be an astounding coincidence--too astounding, we should surmise--if tragic satisfaction and the subject matter of tragedy were only contingently related to to each othe r. If you want to get a full essay, devote it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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