Note 80 — Chapter V · THE ENJOYMENT OF PAIN
Reading edition
Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 175, on the Tangi feasts in New Zealand; Welcker, Kleine Schriften, i. pp. 26-31; Sittl, Gesch. d. griech. Literatur, i. p. 24. For a sympathetic interpretation of such feasts of sorrow see Réclus, Les primitifs, pp. 239, 240. Cf. also the remarks of Lobeck, Aglaophamus, i. pp. 688-690, and Groos, Die Spiele der Menschen, p. 38.
The above adduced instances show us that even the art of primitive man does not bear out the views recently brought into prominence by Herckenrath and Faguet (Faguet, Drame ancien, drame moderne, pp. 2, 7, 12), and so ably stated by Mr. Walkley (Frames of Mind, pp. 1-7), according to which the enjoyment of tragedy as well as that of comedy can be reduced to a malevolently pleasurable consciousness of our own security in contrast to the sufferings of others. Comparative psychology tends far more to support those authors who contend that in tragedy we enjoy that pleasure which inherently exists in sorrow itself. Cf. Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, p. 35.