{"product_id":"the-tragic-paradox-9780739171219","title":"The Tragic Paradox","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eParadox informs the narrative sequence, images, and rhetorical tactics contrived by skilled dramatists and novelists. Their literary languages depict not only a war between rivals but also simultaneous affirmation and negation voiced by a tragic individual. They reveal the treason, flux, and duplicity brought into play by an unrelenting drive for respect. Their patterns of speech, action, and image project a convergence of polarities, the convergence of integrity and radical change, of constancy and infidelity. A fanatical drive to fulfill a traditional code of masculine conduct produces the ironic consequence of de-forming that codethe tragic paradox. Tragic literature exploits irony. In Athenian and Shakespearean tragedy, self-righteous male or female aristocrats instigate their own disgrace, shame, and guilt, an un-expected diminishment. They are victimized by a magnificent obsession, a fantasy of un-alloyed authority or virtue, a dream of perfect self-sufficiency or trust.  The authors of tragedy revised the concept of nobility to reflect the strange fact that grandeur elicits its own annulment. Strengths by strengths do fail, Shakespeare wrote in Coriolanus.The playwrights made this paradoxical predicament concrete with a narrative format that equates self-assertion with self-detraction, images that revolve between incredible reversals and provisional reinstatements, and speech that sounds impressively weighty but masks deception, disloyalty, cynicism, and insecurity. Three heroic philosophers, Plato, Hegel, and Nietzsche, contributed invaluable but contrasting accounts of these literary languages (Aristotle''s Poetics will be discussed in connection with Plato''s attitude toward poetry).  Their divergent  descriptions can be reconciled to show that invalidations as well as affirmationsthe transmission of contrariesare essential for tragic composition. An equivocal rhetoric, a mutable imagery, and an ironic progression convey the tortuous pursuit of personal preeminence or (in later tragic works by Kafka and Strindberg) family solidarity and communal safety.  I am trying to integrate the disparate arguments offered by several notable theorists with technical procedures fashioned by the Athenian dramatists and recast by Shakespeare and other writers, procedures that articulate the tragic paradox.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith The Tragic Paradox, Leonard Moss succeeds admirably in demonstrating how major tragic figures in Western literature are defined not by monolithic grandeur, but by self-contradiction. Shakespeare’s phrase in Coriolanus—'Strengths by strengths do fail'— encapsulates the paradox at the heart of tragedy:  it is not exterior forces or inner weakness but rather the striving for greatness itself that causes the tragic protagonist to fall.  In some cases it is a stubborn adherence to a model of masculinity, in others a threat to pride or position that triggers an emotional blindness. Discussing major theoreticians of tragedy (Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Nietzsche) as well as major practitioners (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, and Milton), Moss works on both the macro and the micro level.  In the first part of the book, titled 'The Narrative Language,' he shows how narrative design in tragedy carries out the paradox and in the second two parts, 'The Metaphorical Language' and 'The Rhetorical Language,' he analyzes how paradox functions on the level of figures and images. On both levels, Moss’s readings illuminate a fruitful approach to the understanding of tragedy. -- Mary Anne Frese Witt, author of \"The Search for Modern Tragedy: Aesthetic Fascism in Italy and France\" (Cornell UP, 2001)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction: The Languages of Paradox Part I: The Narrative Language Chapter 1: The Masculine Model Chapter 2: The Tragic Female Chapter 3: The Tragic Sequence  Chapter 4: Shakespeare’s Dangerous Companion Chapter 5: The Relevance of Hegel Part II: The Metaphorical Language Chapter 6: The Artistry of Flux Chapter 7: The Logic of Dreams Part III: The Rhetorical Language Chapter 8: Plato’s Paragon Chapter 9: Milton’s Potpourri Chapter 10: Shakespeare’s Paradox Conclusion: The Truth of Tragedy Notes Two Checklists, 1900-2010 \tThe Theory of Tragedy \tPlato and Aristotle on the Craft of Literature (Annotated)","brand":"Lexington Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51037510664535,"sku":"9780739171219","price":91.8,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780739171219.jpg?v=1750936032","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-tragic-paradox-9780739171219","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}