Abstract
A PLEASANTLY written little pamphlet on the spirit of tragedy and its philosophical implications. Mr. Ziegler's main contention is that the object of tragedy is to exhibit the absolute domination of the whole personality of the tragic hero by a single impulse or purpose. The tragic catastrophe affords, as it were, an ocular demonstration of the “illogicality” or “guilt” of any finite purpose which sets itself up against the totality of the world- process. This thought is then affiliated by the writer to the central idea of von Hartmann's doctrine of the unconscious, the “redemption” of the “cosmos” from itself. As in duty bound, Mr. Ziegler exhibits all the intellectual prejudices of the sentimental-romantic school to which he belongs. He is, of course, anti-semitic, and is quite sure that “we Germans” are the metaphysical salt of a degenerate world. Also he prefers Richard Wagner to Shakespeare as an exponent of the tragic idea. From his somewhat sentimental point of view he has some interesting criticisms of ancient and modern tragedy. This is not the place to discuss his theory in detail, but one question may perhaps be put to him. On his view, so long as the tragic hero wills something passionately, it must be a matter of indifference what he wills. Richard III. or, for the matter of that, Bluebeard is as good a hero as Antigone or Othello. Now does not this position, to say the least of it, require some substantiation? With more reverent study of the great masters of tragedy and less rhetoric about the defects of the Jews and the superhuman excellences of the German genius, he may in future make a more valuable contribu tion to aesthetic theory.
Zur Metaphysik des Tragischer.
By L. Ziegler. Pp. ix + 104. (Leipzig: Dürr'schen Buchhandlung.) Price Mk. 1.60.
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T., A. Zur Metaphysik des Tragischer . Nature 66, 342 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/066342b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/066342b0