Abstract

This paper argues that the passages on tragedy in Nietzsche's Daybreak, taken together, articulate a conception of tragic psychology that plays a pivotal role in the overarching argument of the book. I maintain that in Daybreak, Nietzsche construes tragedy as the embodiment of a superior alternative to the moral worldview that is the main target of his critique, and that in the curious phenomenon of tragic pleasure, Nietzsche identifies a potent antidote to what he calls the Circean seductions of morality.