Tragic Pleasure from Homer to Plato

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

Rana Saadi Liebert (Author)

9781316635698, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 August 2021

228 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.314 kg

This book offers a resolution of the paradox posed by the pleasure of tragedy by returning to its earliest articulations in archaic Greek poetry and its subsequent emergence as a philosophical problem in Plato's Republic. Socrates' claim that tragic poetry satisfies our 'hunger for tears' hearkens back to archaic conceptions of both poetry and mourning that suggest a common source of pleasure in the human appetite for heightened forms of emotional distress. By unearthing a psychosomatic model of aesthetic engagement implicit in archaic poetry and philosophically elaborated by Plato, this volume not only sheds new light on the Republic's notorious indictment of poetry, but also identifies rationally and ethically disinterested sources of value in our pursuit of aesthetic states. In doing so the book resolves an intractable paradox in aesthetic theory and human psychology: the appeal of painful emotions.

Introduction: the pleasure of tragedy
1. The taste of archaic poetry
2. Emotional satisfaction in archaic poetry
3. Tragic pleasure in Plato's Republic
Epilogue: poetry and privacy: towards an Aristotelian defense of poetry and a Platonic alternative.

Subject Areas: Psychology: emotions [JMQ], Philosophy: aesthetics [HPN], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]