The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music

by Friedrich Nietzsche

It can be seen, in the first place and most lucidly, as an attack on the dominant account of tragedy which is the inheritance of Aristotle. In that tradition, tragedy improves us, both by giving us food for thought about such matters as hubris, and also, and most famously, by purging us of pity and terror, or through them. The world is interpreted in moral categories, and we see what to avoid and what to embrace.