Hegel on Tragedy (Harper torchbooks ; TB 1869)

By Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Book Overview

First published by Doubleday in 1962, Hegel on Tragedy is once again available. This unique collection of passages drawn from Hegel's major works contains a wealth of material on modern and ancient... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061318698
• ISBN13: 9780061318696
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Joanna Cotler Books
• Length: 404 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Hegel did not view Greek tragedy as a collision between good and evil, but between competing goods

I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art. Throughout my years of studying the play "Antigone," I have been impressed by learning the fact that between Aristotle and Freud critics, philosophers and scholars have written so much about the play. There can be no doubt this is due to the fact as I have discovered "Antigone" was so successful at providing a lens for one to "see," and thus understand the essence of human life with all its tragic pitfalls. In particular, G. W. F. Hegel spent a considerable amount of time gleaning lessons from "Antigone" that have helped me to use it as a lens to "see" more clearly how humans have to question and ultimately choose between competing moral choices. In "Hegel On Tragedy," according to Hegel's account of Greek tragedy, Hegel did not view Greek tragedy as a collision between good and evil, but between competing goods. In addition, Hegel proposes in his interpretation of Greek tragedy, that the sufferings of the tragic hero are merely the means of reconciling the opposing moral goods--between two entirely ethical worlds that clash and cannot come together. Both Antigone and Creon have a moral vision or belief that they are destined to follow, which is the one-sidedness of their moral vision that clashes with the one-sidedness of the other character's moral vision. Both sides of contradiction are justified. Hegel finds that it is the conflict of irreconcilable yet justifiable moral worlds that will lead to the tragic death of the hero in Greek tragedy. This is an important point that Hegel makes, because I have found throughout my life that like Antigone, rarely am I given the opportunity to choose between good and evil. Usually I have been faced with the tougher moral choice of having to choose between moral goods. This is a great book that explores Hegel's philosophical writings, which opens up the world disclosiveness of Greek tragedy and the lessons they can still teach us today. I recommend this work for anyone interested in philosophy, philosophy of art, Greek culture, and Greek tragedy.