ABSTRACT
Works of tragedy, whatever else they may be, are narratives of human suffering, and at its simplest, the question posed by Aristotle’s characterisation of our experience of tragic art in terms of pleasure is that of how we can take pleasure in representations of human beings in pain. This has been taken by some (e.g. Burke 1990: 41-4) to be a question about human psychology: why is it that our responses to suffering as it is depicted in tragedy differ from our responses to suffering in everyday life, in which context it rarely elicits pleasure? By others (e.g. Nietzsche 1993), it has been seen as a question of morals: there would be something repugnant about a person or culture who or which commonly took pleasure in watching others suffer; yet isn’t this precisely what we are doing when
we enjoy tragic works of art? And it is also a question of aesthetics: tragedies are among our most highly valued works of art, and the value that we attach to them lies in the nature of the experiences which they offer us. But if those experiences involve our taking pleasure in the portrayal of suffering, then the value that we attach to tragedy itself starts to look problematic.
