quote · Legacy record
Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.
Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.
Approximate author period: c. 1807 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1807 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1792–1822)
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 345233; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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