From German idealism onward, Western thinkers have sought to revalue tragedy, invariably converging at one cardinal point: tragic art risks aestheticizing real violence. Tragically Speaking critically examines this revaluation, offering a new understanding of the changing meaning of tragedy in literary and moral discourse. It questions common assumptions about the Greeks philosophical relation to the tragic tradition and about the ethical and political ramifications of contemporary theories of tragedy.

Starting with the poet Friedrich Holderlin and continuing to the present,...