This article is concerned with the philosophical concept of the tragic and its affinity withancient Greek tragedy. It investigates this notion from two different perspectives. First, itfocuses on the revival of the idea of the tragic in the - mainly German - philosophy ofthe late modern era, namely those of Kant, Schelling, Hegel and their critics. Secondlythis notion is used as a stepping stone towards a general cultural-historical perspective onthe nature of Greek tragedy. This trajectory leads to the conclusion that the traditional gapbetween abstract, philosophical reflection on the tragic and concrete, philologicalresearch on Greek tragedy is not as big as commonly supposed.
