Abstract

From around 1800, particularly in Germany, Greek tragedy has been privileged in popular and scholarly discourse for its relation to apparently timeless metaphysical, existential, ethical, aesthetic, and psychological questions. As a major concern of modern philosophy, it has fascinated thinkers including Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger. Tragedy and the Idea of Modernity considers this tradition of philosophy in relation to the ancientGreek works themselves, and mediates between the concerns of classicists and those of intellectual historians and philosophers.