This classic work examines the nature of tragedy in philosophy, drama and literature, ranging from Aristotle to Nietzsche, from Chaucer to Brecht, from Tolstoy to Sartre. Tracing the evolution from hero to victim in the typical figures of the liberal imagination, it also explores the elements of tragic experience in the socialist revolutions of the twentieth century. In a new Afterword written for the Verso edition, Williams delineates the changing characters of tragedy in the culture and politics of the 1970s.