ABSTRACT
I N order to describe the conceptual scheme of the tragic vision in its entirety, we should need to bring out the elements common to Shakespeare, Racine, Kant, Pascal, to certain of Michelangelo's statues and probably to a number of other works of varying importance. The present state of our knowledge, however, does not make this possible, with the result that the idea of the tragic vision, such as I have examined it in a number of earlier studies, applies only to the writings of Kant, Pascal and Racine. I hope eventually to be able to develop it to the point where it can be used to analyse the works mentioned above, but all that I can do at the moment is to describe this instrument of research at its-present state of development, maintaining that in spite of all its imperfections it will enable us to reach a better understanding of French and German literature and ideas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
