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HANNAH ARENDT AND THE POLITICS OF TRAGEDY

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Robert Pirro sets himself a difficult task in Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy. His thesis that Greek tragedy was a formative influence on her political thought is correct and illuminating. Yet to make this case he has few references in her work to rely on, and he has to overcome the common criticism that Arendt idealized the Greek polis.

A key to understanding Arendt's view of politics is her statement in The Human Condition that theater is "the political art par excellence." Her view of politics was theatrical in ways that Pirro makes clear. This is more than an analogy, and it goes deeper than the joy of appearing in public that the political actor has in common with the player on stage. Arendt's Kantian concept of judgement in terms of imaginative visiting of multiple points of view is based on the role of the spectator before whom events in history as on stage unfold.

Pirro makes his case carefully with scholarly deployment of citations and ingenious arguments, yet he never loses sight of the big picture. For those who would understand Hannah Arendt as an actor in the theater of political thought, his book is invaluable.

Hannah Arendt was a German Jewish refugee who suffered as so many others did from tremendous personal and political upheavals following the end of World War II. Arendt struggled to make sense of recent events by drawing on elements of classical tragedy in her political writing. She also found in imaginative literature a means to meld political philosophy and political commitment, the theoretical and the personal. Hannah Arendt And The Politics Of Tragedy reveals the crucial role of imaginative literature in Arendt's political thought. Author Robert Pirro has employed an admirable scholarship and attention to detail in his presentation of Hannah Arendt life, thought and writing which is highly recommended reading for Arendt's many admirers, as well as students of political philosophy.