Tragedy

Eagleton suggests that for postmodernists who think unity of purpose is an illusion, tragedy simply highlights the fact. Certainly, an enduring point of tragedy is that some tragic events serve no obvious purpose. -Nick Mattise, Insights Magazine Many discussions of tragedy point out that calling an event or situation tragic these days is really just an emotionally charged way of saying very sad indeed ; it has little to do with the literary and philosophical conventions that we associate with tragedy as an art form...One of the most important features of Terry Eagleton's brief but resourceful new book on the subject is the way in which he exposes the shadow side of any such approach. -Rowan Williams, The Tablet [S]ets particular understandings of tragic art in their (usually Marxist) historical context -Richard Harries, Church Times Tragedy will be widely read and is an engaging snapshot of a life-time's thinking about the genre of tragedy. -Simon Goldhill, Times Literary Supplement There is certainly a sense of filling in some gaps from the earlier tome, including elements of expansion and elaboration...As one would expect from Eagleton's voracious intellectual appetite, vast swathes of critical and philosophical writing on tragedy since 2003 are factored into the general argument too. -Tony Pinkney, Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism