Tragedy

By Feagin, Susan L.

Tragedy is primarily a type of drama, though non-dramatic poetry (‘lyric tragedy’) and some novels (for example, Moby Dick) have laid claim to the description. As a genre, ...

Tragedy

Tragedy began in ancient Greece as a type of drama and has become an important part of the literary and critical tradition in Europe and the United States. ...

Tragedy

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Comedy

By Morreall, John

In the narrowest sense, comedy is drama that makes us laugh and has a happy ending. In a wider sense it is also humorous narrative literature with a ...

Comedy

In the narrowest sense, comedy is drama that makes us laugh and has a happy ending. In a wider sense it is also humorous narrative literature with a ...

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich (1759–1805)

By Reed, T.J.

Schiller was an artist first – a major poet and the leading dramatist of eighteenth-century Germany – and an aesthetician second. At the height of his involvement in ...

Katharsis

By Most, Glenn W.

One of the central concepts of Aristotle’s Poetics, katharsis (’purgation’ or ‘purification’; often spelled catharsis) defines the goal of the tragic poet: by depiction of human ...

Aristotle (384–322 BC)

By Irwin, T.H.

Aristotle of Stagira is one of the two most important philosophers of the ancient world, and one of the four or five most important of any time or ...

Art and truth

By Taylor, Paul

Some things are true within the world of a literary work. It is true, in the world evoked by Madame Bovary, that Emma Roualt married Charles Bovary. In ...

Art and morality

By Tanner, Michael

A complex set of questions is raised by an examination of the relationship between art and morality. First there is a set of empirical considerations about the effect ...

Nussbaum, Martha Craven (1947–)

By van Zyl, Liezl

A characteristic feature of Nussbaum’s work is the way in which she draws upon ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and literature to examine some of the most pressing ...

Poetry

By Shusterman, Richard M.

Though poetry today seems a relatively marginal topic in philosophy, it was crucial for philosophy’s own initial self-definition. In ancient Greece, poetry was revered as the authoritative expression ...

Emotion in response to art

By Levinson, Jerrold

The main philosophical questions concerning emotion in response to art are as follows. (1) What kind or type of emotions are had in response to works of art? ...

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (4/1 BC–AD 65)

By Inwood, Brad

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman statesman and Stoic philosopher, is the earliest Stoic of whose writings any have survived intact. Seneca wrote, in Latin, tragedies and a wide range ...

Mimēsis

By Most, Glenn W.

A crucial term in the literary theories of Plato and Aristotle, mimesis describes the relation between the words of a literary work and the actions and events ...

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788–1860)

By Janaway, Christopher

Schopenhauer, one of the great prose-writers among German philosophers, worked outside the mainstream of academic philosophy. He wrote chiefly in the first half of the nineteenth century, publishing ...

Shestov, Lev (Yehuda Leib Shvartsman) (1866–1938)

By Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer

A major though atypical figure of the Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance, Shestov taught that reason and science can neither explain tragedy and suffering, nor answer the questions that matter ...

Benjamin, Walter (1892–1940)

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was an influential German intellectual, whose activity spanned the late years of the German empire and the volatile Weimar period, culminating in a tragic ...

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900)

By Clark, Maudemarie

Appointed professor of classical philology at the University of Basel when he was just 24 years old, Nietzsche was expected to secure his reputation as a brilliant young ...

Nietzsche: impact on Russian thought

By Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer

Nietzsche’s thought had a massive influence on Russian literature and the arts, religious philosophy and political culture. His popularizers were writers, artists and political radicals who read his ...

Culture

By O’Hear, Anthony

Culture comprises those aspects of human activity which are socially rather than genetically transmitted. Each social group is characterized by its own culture, which informs the thought and ...

Food

By Telfer, Elizabeth

Much human time and attention goes into the production, preparation and consumption of food; hence it is only to be expected that a number of philosophical issues should ...

Unamuno y Jugo, Miguel de (1864–1936)

By Orringer, Nelson R.

The Spanish philosopher-poet Miguel de Unamuno upheld a heterodoxical Catholicism, resembling much nineteenth-century Liberal Protestantism, which viewed reason and faith as antagonistic. By ‘reason’, he understood scientific induction ...

Diogenes of Sinope (412/403–324/321 BC)

By Branham, R. Bracht

Diogenes of Sinope was considered, along with Antisthenes, the founder of Cynicism. His nickname ‘Cynic’, literally ‘doglike’, reflects the highly unconventional lifestyle he lived and advocated. Radically re-evaluating ...

Behaviourism, analytic

By Braddon-Mitchell, David

Analytical behaviourism is the doctrine that talk about mental phenomena is really talk about behaviour, or tendencies to behave. For an analytical behaviourist, to say that Janet desires ...