Hume and the Delightful Tragedy Problem

Extract

‘It seems an unaccountable pleasure’, Hume writes, ‘which the spectators of a well-written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other passions that are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle; and as soon as the uneasy passions cease to operate, the piece is at an end.’ It is with this opening remark that Hume introduces the main subject of his essay, ‘Of Tragedy’. In that essay he attempts to account for the pleasure spectators of well-written tragedies receive, i.e. he attempts to solve what might aptly be called the ‘delightful tragedy’ problem, which, in essence, is the paradoxical phenomenon of pleasure being aroused from the ‘bosom of uneasiness’. In this paper I shall critically analyse Hume's solution to the problem; the ultimate point of my discussion will be to determine whether his solution is adequate. I shall begin by focusing briefly upon two accounts of the paradoxical pleasure which Hume mentions and criticizes. Then I shall set out and analyse Hume's own account, and thereby determine its adequacy.