The syntagm "paradox of tragedy" denotes a philosophical problem the roots of which go back to Greek Antiquity. At the beginning of his Poetics, Aristotle asks why we take delight in the imitation of objects "which in themselves we view with pain," and he answers in terms of our delight in "learning". While speaking of tragedy itself, Aristotle implies the paradox by saying both that tragedy arouses emotions of "pity and fear," and that the tragic experience is one of pleasure though "only that" kind of pleasure "which is proper to tragedy".

The paradox of tragedy might be seen as the paradigm of such experiences afforded by our interactions with works of art, which arouse negative emotions, such as: the sublime, terror, horror, and disgust, and yet people feel a desire to see horror movies or watch tragedies. These intriguing problems will be studied during the course by using illustrations from various texts.