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Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure?
Why does tragedy give pleasure? Why do people who are neither wicked nor depraved enjoy watching plays about suffering and death? Is it because we see horrific matter controlled by majestic art? Or because tragedy actually reaches out to the dark side of human nature? Nuttall's wide-ranging, lively, and engaging book offers a new answer to this perennial question. Writers discussed include Aristotle, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, and Freud.
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First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
A.D. Nuttall
22 books4 followersAnthony David Nuttall was an English literary critic and academic.
Nuttall was educated at Hereford Cathedral School, Watford Grammar School for Boys and Merton College, Oxford, where he studied both Classical Moderations and English Literature. As a postgraduate he wrote a B.Litt thesis on Shakespeare's The Tempest subsequently published as Two Concepts of Allegory (1968), and considered by some to be his most original book. Nuttall first taught at Sussex University where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor of English and where his students included the philosopher A.C. Grayling and the critic and biographer Robert Fraser. After a tumultuous period as Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Sussex, he moved on to New College, Oxford in 1984, eventually being elected to an Oxford chair.
His published works include studies of Shakespeare and works on the connections between philosophy and literature. Prominent among the first is Shakespeare the Thinker (2007), in which he examines the philosophical issues implicit in Shakespeare's plays, and among the second A Common Sky in which he follows through the literary repercussions of the English empiricist tradition and of the idea of solipcism. His work is characterised throughout by wide reading (especially in classical sources), common sense, a deep and broad humanity, a robust sense of humour and by occasional - and sometimes eccentric - references to popular culture (In Shakespeare the Thinker, for example, he cites the TV series "Wife Swap".) His brother Jeff Nuttall was a poet and an important figure in 1960s counterculture. To him he dedicated his book The Alternative Trinity, a study of the Gnostic tradition in English literature through Marlowe and Milton to William Blake, a poet to whom both brothers had been attracted in their youth, if in rather different ways.
From Wikipedia.
Obituaries:
The Times (UK) Online, The Guardian (UK) Online.
Nuttall was educated at Hereford Cathedral School, Watford Grammar School for Boys and Merton College, Oxford, where he studied both Classical Moderations and English Literature. As a postgraduate he wrote a B.Litt thesis on Shakespeare's The Tempest subsequently published as Two Concepts of Allegory (1968), and considered by some to be his most original book. Nuttall first taught at Sussex University where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor of English and where his students included the philosopher A.C. Grayling and the critic and biographer Robert Fraser. After a tumultuous period as Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Sussex, he moved on to New College, Oxford in 1984, eventually being elected to an Oxford chair.
His published works include studies of Shakespeare and works on the connections between philosophy and literature. Prominent among the first is Shakespeare the Thinker (2007), in which he examines the philosophical issues implicit in Shakespeare's plays, and among the second A Common Sky in which he follows through the literary repercussions of the English empiricist tradition and of the idea of solipcism. His work is characterised throughout by wide reading (especially in classical sources), common sense, a deep and broad humanity, a robust sense of humour and by occasional - and sometimes eccentric - references to popular culture (In Shakespeare the Thinker, for example, he cites the TV series "Wife Swap".) His brother Jeff Nuttall was a poet and an important figure in 1960s counterculture. To him he dedicated his book The Alternative Trinity, a study of the Gnostic tradition in English literature through Marlowe and Milton to William Blake, a poet to whom both brothers had been attracted in their youth, if in rather different ways.
From Wikipedia.
Obituaries:
The Times (UK) Online, The Guardian (UK) Online.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 3, 2024
The last sentence of this book is: . Why have I just read a whole book purporting to solve it then?
More seriously, this is an interesting read. The analysis of Lear in particular was very well done and convincing, and Nuttall is sound on Aristotle and Freud both (although the latter section drags on). The middle chapter dominated by Sidney was little more than a terrible tangent and I struggled to find the relevance of individual paragraphs to the overall argument, although they were not inaccurate. Overall, Nuttall has compelling theories and is a skilled close-reader but this text, despite its brevity, struggles to maintain its focus and as a result its argument falls flat.
More seriously, this is an interesting read. The analysis of Lear in particular was very well done and convincing, and Nuttall is sound on Aristotle and Freud both (although the latter section drags on). The middle chapter dominated by Sidney was little more than a terrible tangent and I struggled to find the relevance of individual paragraphs to the overall argument, although they were not inaccurate. Overall, Nuttall has compelling theories and is a skilled close-reader but this text, despite its brevity, struggles to maintain its focus and as a result its argument falls flat.
February 1, 2024
2.5 rounded up *
whole lot of yapping but then the last chapter was pretty good and a great analysis of lear, although not as conclusive as i would have hoped considering the sheer amount of waffling he did at the beginning
whole lot of yapping but then the last chapter was pretty good and a great analysis of lear, although not as conclusive as i would have hoped considering the sheer amount of waffling he did at the beginning
December 7, 2025
only read aristotle and after
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September 14, 2009Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure? by A. D. Nuttall (2001)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews