Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: ANARCHISM Colin Ward CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw CLASSICS Mary Beard and ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY John Henderson Julia Annas CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard ANCIENT WARFARE THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon Harry Sidebottom CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE Continental Philosophy John Blair Simon Critchley ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia COSMOLOGY Peter Coles ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn CRYPTOGRAPHY ARCHITECTURE Fred Piper and Sean Murphy Andrew Ballantyne DADA AND SURREALISM ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes David Hopkins ART HISTORY Dana Arnold Darwin Jonathan Howard ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland Democracy Bernard Crick THE HISTORY OF DESCARTES Tom Sorell ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin DINOSAURS David Norman Atheism Julian Baggini DREAMING J. Allan Hobson Augustine Henry Chadwick DRUGS Leslie Iversen BARTHES Jonathan Culler THE EARTH Martin Redfern THE BIBLE John Riches EGYPTIAN MYTH BRITISH POLITICS Geraldine Pinch Anthony Wright EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY Buddha Michael Carrithers BRITAIN Paul Langford BUDDHISM Damien Keown THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown EMOTION Dylan Evans CAPITALISM James Fulcher EMPIRE Stephen Howe THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe ENGELS Terrell Carver CHOICE THEORY Ethics Simon Blackburn Michael Allingham The European Union CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson John Pinder EVOLUTION MEDIEVAL BRITAIN Brian and Deborah Charlesworth John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths FASCISM Kevin Passmore MODERN ART David Cottington FOUCAULT Gary Gutting MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasˇeta THE FRENCH REVOLUTION MOLECULES Philip Ball William Doyle MUSIC Nicholas Cook FREE WILL Thomas Pink Myth Robert A. Segal Freud Anthony Storr NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner Galileo Stillman Drake NINETEENTH-CENTURY Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and GLOBALIZATION H. C. G. Matthew Manfred Steger NORTHERN IRELAND GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin Marc Mulholland HABERMAS PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close James Gordon Finlayson paul E. P. Sanders HEGEL Peter Singer Philosophy Edward Craig HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson Samir Okasha HINDUISM Kim Knott PLATO Julia Annas HISTORY John H. Arnold POLITICS Kenneth Minogue HOBBES Richard Tuck POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY HUME A. J. Ayer David Miller IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POSTCOLONIALISM Indian Philosophy Robert Young Sue Hamilton POSTMODERNISM Intelligence Ian J. Deary Christopher Butler ISLAM Malise Ruthven POSTSTRUCTURALISM JUDAISM Norman Solomon Catherine Belsey Jung Anthony Stevens PREHISTORY Chris Gosden KAFKA Ritchie Robertson PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY KANT Roger Scruton Catherine Osborne KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner Psychology Gillian Butler and THE KORAN Michael Cook Freda McManus LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews QUANTUM THEORY LITERARY THEORY John Polkinghorne Jonathan Culler RENAISSANCE ART LOCKE John Dunn Geraldine A. Johnson LOGIC Graham Priest ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler THE MARQUIS DE SADE RUSSELL A. C. Grayling John Phillips RUSSIAN LITERATURE MARX Peter Singer Catriona Kelly MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope S. A. Smith SCHIZOPHRENIA STUART BRITAIN John Morrill Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone TERRORISM Charles Townshend SCHOPENHAUER THEOLOGY David F. Ford Christopher Janaway THE HISTORY OF TIME SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer Leofranc Holford-Strevens SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt TRAGEDY SOCIAL AND CULTURAL Adrian Poole ANTHROPOLOGY THE TUDORS John Guy John Monaghan and Peter Just TWENTIETH-CENTURY SOCIALISM Michael Newman BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling Socrates C. C. W. Taylor WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR THE WORLD TRADE Helen Graham ORGANIZATION SPINOZA Roger Scruton Amrita Narlikar Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY FUNDAMENTALISM John Parker and Richard Rathbone Malise Ruthven THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea HUMAN EVOLUTION CHAOS Leonard Smith Bernard Wood CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE Paul Wilkinson Robert Tavernor JAZZ Brian Morton CONTEMPORARY ART JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves Julian Stallabrass MANDELA Tom Lodge THE CRUSADES THE MIND Martin Davies Christopher Tyerman NATIONALISM Steven Grosby THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS PERCEPTION Richard Gregory Timothy Lim PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Derrida Simon Glendinning Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot DESIGN John Heskett PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta RACISM Ali Rattansi THE END OF THE WORLD THE RAJ Denis Judd Bill McGuire THE RENAISSANCE EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn Jerry Brotton FEMINISM Margaret Walters ROMAN EMPIRE THE FIRST WORLD WAR Christopher Kelly Michael Howard SARTRE Christina Howells FOSSILS Keith Thomson THE VIKINGS Julian D. Richards For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/vsi/ Adrian Poole Tragedy A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Adrian Poole 2005 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–280235–6 EAN 978–0–19–280235–4 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall Contents Acknowledgements ix List of illustrations xi Introduction 1 1 Who needs it? 3 2 Once upon a time 20 3 The living dead 33 4 Who’s to blame? 44 5 Big ideas 56 6 No laughing matter 69 7 Words, words, words 82 8 Timing 97 9 Endings 112 References 125 Further reading 132 Index 141 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements I owe a debt to the numerous students and colleagues with whom I have discussed tragedy over many years at Cambridge. I am also grateful for recent specific advice and suggestions to Anne Barton, Jonathan Bate, Ian Donaldson, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Kelvin Everest, Tamara Follini, Gérald Garutti, Simon James, Jessica Martin, Drew Milne, and most of all to Margaret de Vaux. I must thank George Miller for the original invitation to contribute this volume to the series, Emily Jolliffe, Becky O’Connor, and Emma Simmons for their assistance and encouragement en route, and my editors Marsha Filion and James Thompson for seeing the work through its final stages. I am gratefully conscious of the generous support I have enjoyed from the award of a British Academy Readership for a larger project on witnessing tragedy, without which this short book would have been even longer in reaching completion.