44 This is one of the claims of Hamilton (1982).
45 T. Mann,Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull(Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag: Frankfurt am Main,
2007), p. 32.
46 There may also be cases, as there were with Houdini, in which the‘illusionist’really doesdo
something highly difficult or unusual and the audience believes truly that he has done it and
admires this feat; in the context of the illusionist’s performance (as opposed to the official,
record-breaking attempt), not knowing what is real and what is not adds to the pleasure.
47 Frayn (2010: xi).
48 Quoted in Fogle (1960: 35).
49 See Chapter 1. If stand-up comedy is a kind of theatre, then that might be one candidate.
50 Stendhal (1962), Fogle (1960: 40) and McCollom (1947: 185–6) discuss these phenomena.
51 Lessing (1962: Section 42, p. 28) argues that they are: tragedy relies much more on the spell than
comedy; breaking the spell can have comic effects.
52 Ibsen quoted in Booth (1995: 299); Bruisov (2001: 74).
53 Lessing (1962: Section 42, p. 128).
54 See Fogle (1960: 34).
55 Quoted in Fogle (1960: 36).
56 Brinker (1977: 191–6) agrees that asking spectators whether they really believed is pointless.
Note that, unlike me, he uses‘under the spell’to indicate those moments when the spectator
really believes in the action.
57 Quoted in Fogle (1960: 36).
58 McCollom (1947: 184).
59 See Chapter 6.
60 Hence, to take a standard (but non-theatrical) example, I might fear stepping into the shower
after seeingPsycho; more generally, I might feel sad or emotionally drained after seeing a tragedy.
But this is not a matter of entertaining false beliefs. Gendler (2003) discusses this phenomenon.
The doctor-spectator atThe Elephant Man,discussed above, does not (as I argued) believe
everythinghe saw on stage–he carries over one rather major illusion.
61 Rousseau (2004: 268).
62 Schiller (1979: 169).
63 Although we think of Nietzsche as a philosopher, he was also professor of classical philology with
relatively little formal philosophical training.
64 Or rather,The Birth of Tragedyis best explicated in the light of Schopenhauer’s views. Nietzsche
had already expressed severe reservations about Schopenhauer’s metaphysics and some com-
mentators takeThe Birth of Tragedyto be intelligible apart from any commitment to Scho-
penhauer. See Janaway (1998), in which Nietzsche’s remarks are reprinted and discussed.
References toThe Birth of Tragedy(henceforth: BT) will give the section and, where appropriate,
the page number in the listed translation.
65 See‘Additional Remarks on the Suffering of the World’and‘On Suicide’in Schopenhauer (2000).
Schopenhauer’s view of death is more complicated than I’ve suggested: individuals die, but they
neverreallyexisted in the first place; the will, which creates (the illusion of) individuals, is
unchanging and eternal. For Schopenhauer’s own, rather different account of tragedy, see the
third book of hisThe World as Will and Representation.
66 Sophocles (2006: 97); for Nietzsche’s view of the significance of this thought, see the discussion
of the story of Silenus at BT 3.
67 Schopenhauer, of course, does not have a monopoly on thoughts of this kind; but one can see
how they are easily subsumable under his metaphysical framework.
68 BT 1, p. 17.
69 BT 2, p. 19.
70 BT 4.
71 The connection between Dionysus and intoxication is clear enough, in that he was the god of
wine.‘Schein’(illusion, semblance) means‘illusion’, but is also related to light (i.e.‘shining’). Hence
the connection with Apollo, god of the sun.
72 BT 7, p. 40.
Truth and illusion 73