Tragedy, Pessimism, Nietzsche

Abstract

This essay reexamines the link between tragedy and pessimism and disputes some assumptions commonly made about it. Debates about tragedy often suppose that connecting it to pessimism must render it elitist, reactionary or anti-political. But this discussion largely takes place in ignorance of the philosophical tradition of pessimism and, especially, of Nietzsche's aims in characterizing tragedy as an outgrowth of pessimism. While acknowledging limits to the human condition, pessimism, as many inheritors of Nietzsche have seen, rather than confirming existing identities, political or otherwise, instead sanctions a process of self-renovation based on an acknowledgment of the fundamental instability and perishability of human life. Pessimism is as much an ethic of radical possibility as it is of radical insecurity. It makes little sense, therefore, to link pessimistic tragedy with conservative politics. The pessimistic spirit is a restless one, unlikely to be enamored of the status quo. Tragedy, though always anti-utopian, is indeed pessimistic without being either conformist or dead.