Tragic pleasure from Homer to Plato / Rana Saadi Liebert, Bard College, New York.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Liebert, Rana Saadi, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato. Republic.

Plato.

Republic (Plato).

Greek drama (Tragedy)--History and criticism.

Greek drama (Tragedy).

Emotions in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

ix, 218 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Summary:

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: the pleasure of tragedy

The taste of archaic poetry

Emotional satisfaction in archaic poetry

Tragic pleasure in Plato's Republic

Epilogue: poetry and privacy: towards an Aristotelian defense of poetry and a Platonic alternative.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781107184442

1107184444

OCLC:

972640122