"Tragedy," both in what the author calls the strict and nuclear ancient Greek sense of the term (which does not imply that tragedy is clearly and distinctly defined, even in ancient Greece) and in the looser, derived sense of the word, has a long and compelling history. It is not only true that tragedy as practice and performance has a long and rich history; the study of tragedy has an equally long and rich history. The idea of tragedy has attracted, tantalized, frustrated, and exercised some of the best minds in the history of philosophy and literary criticism. As the writers of tragedy form a constellation of superstars in literature, the many commentators on tragedy are superstars in their own right. In this article, the author sketches the thinking of Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche about tragedy. He presents summaries of their writing on tragedy in order to drive home the sense that tragedy plays a crucial role in the history of the arts. These summaries on tragedy offer a sample of the many angles from which tragedy has been attacked. Then, the author tries to explain what is ultimately appealing and haunting about tragedy. He argues that the metaphysical, psychological, moral, and aesthetic details of the discussions of tragedy rest on an unacknowledged foundation. Here, the author discusses tragedy in the strict sense--that is, ancient Greek tragedy, or what Nietzsche calls "Attic tragedy." (Contains 40 notes.)