In tragedy the terrible side of human life is presented to us, the wail of humanity, the reign of chance and terror, the fall of the just, the triumph of the wicked; thus the aspect of the world which directly strives against our will is brought before our eyes.

At this sight we feel ourselves challenged to turn away our will from life, no longer to will it or love it. But just in this way we become conscious that then there still remains something over to us, which we absolutely cannot know positively, but only negatively, as that which does not will life. As the chord of the seventh demands the fundamental chord; as the colour red demands green, and even produces it in the eye; so every tragedy demands an entirely different kind of existence, another world, the knowledge of which can only be given us indirectly just as here by such a demand.

-- ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 'The World as Will and Idea'