Title: Revisiting Pity, Fear and Catharsis from a Heideggerian Perspective
Abstract: Discussions of pity, fear and catharsis and their ethical implications are perhaps the most well-worn concepts in the discission of tragedy and literature. However, this paper seeks to revisit them from a point-of-view formed by Heidegger: or, at least, by the Heidegger of the 1920s.
For Aristotle, tragedy, through “pity and fear” (Poetics 1449b27) leads to “the purification of the emotions” (1149b28), catharsis. In the introduction to his beautiful translation of the Poetics (these days, Aristotle’s best-selling work), Anthony Kenny makes a thought-provoking point when he suggests that while pity and fear are the emotions that arise from tragedy, catharsis might also arise from other emotions in relation to other forms of literature or drama: perhaps the lost volume on comedy explored “the relation of the emotions of amusement to the virtue of wittiness or conviviality”: a reading of Anna Karenina may teach us to love wisely rather than too well”.
However, a Heideggerian account suggests something very different: pity and fear are not just any emotions amongst others, contingently chosen by Aristotle. Rather they are fundamental and revealing forms of our attunement to the world, other people and ourselves, so revealing of the deepest structures of being. That is: an ontological account puts these terms into a different perspective and draws out even more clearly their ethical implications.
Bio: Robert Eaglestone is Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway, University of London. He works on contemporary literature and literary theory, contemporary philosophy and on Holocaust and Genocide studies. He is the author of eight books, including Literature: Why it matters (Polity, 2019 and Beijing: Peking University Press, 2020) and, most recently, Truth and Wonder: a literary introduction to Plato and Aristotle (Routledge 2022). He is the editor or co-editor of ten further books, including Brexit and Literature (London: Routledge, 2018) and The Routledge Companion to Twenty First Century Literary Fiction (Routledge, 2019). His work has been translated into seven languages, including Chinese. He has advised the UK government. He is a National Teaching Fellow and member of the Academia Europaea.