Of tragedy and Hume

I didn't realize that David Hume wrote a treatise "On Tragedy." (As in, the tragedy of great plays and literature, and some music and plastic arts.) Walter Kaufmann referenced it in a quote cited in a new bio of him. It's from a Kaufmann work I hadn't read before.

Here's an abridged version. (The unabridged, linked off it, is about twice as long, and itself is less than, oh, 3,500 words?)

Hume reflects quasi-Aristotelian ideas in what makes good presentation of tragedy good. It needs nuance, counterbalance and framing, among other things.

He includes talk of the passions, which may be part of why good tragedy appealed to him. He then discusses what sets tragedy apart from if we saw a similar incident in real life. He says it's artistic eloquence, including but not limited to how it resolves the suffering and the issues behind it. In other words, he points to something similar to Aristotle's cathexis, though he doesn't use that language.

He also thinks that good tragedy, if based on real history, succeeds by having some distance from the historical time in question.

Hume also flips this on its head, as to why we weary of hypochondriachal and similar narratives in real life.

He also thinks it should not be too grotesque. Here, Kaufmann disagrees with him, referencing the Isenheim altarpiece approvingly.

Give it a read.