Abstract

A sequel to his New Apologists, this latest work sees the "tragic vision" as the Dionysian component of tragedy, in an irreducible tension with the ethical or Apollonian: a conflict characterizing the modern "crisis-mentality" of literature and existentialism. Gide, Kafka, and Melville, are contrasted with D. H. Lawrence, Camus, Dostoevsky, and others in a very illuminating manner.--D. C. B.