Henrique Rievers

Reading with Tragic Eyes: Nietzsche's the Birth of Tragedy, José Saramago and Samuel Beckett Henrique Rievers

This book attempts to develop a line of interpretation based on Niezsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy. After reading Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, the question came: Is it possible to bring this view into life? In the same manner, the answer presented itself: Let us try it. This is what will be developed here, an attempt to bring forth, to conjure such an experimentation. Two works of literature will be analysed here: José Saramago's O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo e Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. In a first moment, the theoretical scope of the research is delineated. This includes not only The Birth of Tragedy but also Aristotle's Poetics and Schopenhauer 's The World as Will and Representation. Based on this theoretical background, a tragic view is built. This view is then used as a guide to a reading of Saramago's and Beckett's work.