Abstract

In contrast to the essay On the Cause of the Pleasure we derive from Tragic Objects, which was still focused on the notion of effect poetics, the essay On the Art of Tragedy develops the concept of effect aesthetics, that is, appeals to the emotional household of the spectator and focuses on the specifically theatrical means necessary to achieve this emotional effect.At the centre of the treatise stands a theory of compassion, that reveals the “anthropological turn” in intellectual discourses of the eighteenth century. The moment of redemption and grace in On the Art of Tragedy acknowledges the Baroque tradition, but also refers to Kantian aesthetics and points ahead to modern aesthetic, such as Schopenhauer and Adorno.