Tragic suffering

The concept of the tragic is a consequence of accepting the individual as an autonomous being and of the insoluble social and historical conflict arising from the individual's free actions under self-determination. The suffering of the hero manifests his dignity and nobility as he is not reconciled to fate even in defeat. Aristotle demonstrated the tragic aspects of human life - its changing nature where sorrow follows joy - as the necessary result of the [nous]

, eternal and self-contained, surrendering to its other being and becoming temporal and subject to necessity. As this is recognized by the mind, the contrast between the present state of guilt, crime and gloom and the earlier, beatific innocence leads to tragic pathos; but this recognition is then followed by cathartic retribution when the passions are purged and the mind's equilibrium restored. This is similar to the interpretation (Schelling) of the tragic as the struggle and defeat by fate when the hero voluntarily atones for his predetermined guilt through acceptance of punishment, this acceptance constituting freedom.

Suffering and death are always necessary if there is to be rebirth, whether in romance, in mysticism or in religion. The pain arises in giving birth to the divine world in one's life. This is the price for transformation, inevitably arising on the way to consciousness. Conscious, voluntary acceptance of suffering, living through the death of the ego, one ceases to seek for the divine world in another and finds one's own inner life. This is a psychological and a religious act.