Excerpt from The Paradox of Tragedy: The Mahlon Powell Lectures, 1959 My subject is philosophy, not literary criticism, and the topics raised are dealt with as philosophical questions. My knowledge of drama is somewhat limited, and I am con scious that my appreciation of it may be biased in some respects by the strong impression made upon me in my youth by the Greek dramatists. Even of them I do not write as a classical scholar, but at least I have read most of the plays. With later drama, however, it is a very dif ferent story, and I can well believe that a more extensive and more detailed knowledge would require qualification of my views. My illustrations from post-hellenic drama are pretty well confined to works written in English or French. Such acquaintance as I have with parts of French literature is largely due to my wife, and these essays owe much to her. When using passages from Greek prose or verse, or from French prose, I have thought it best to borrow or give an English translation and, so far as practicable, to dispense with quoting the original language, though I regret the inevitable loss of beauty - in Anouilh as well as in Sophocles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.