Survivals of the Tragic: Pathos and Tragedy

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate how the formulation of pathos, as understood by Aby Warburg, shows constellations of phenomena articulated in images (Agamben, 2008). Manifestly, this could be seen in the resurgence of the tragic spirit in the 2018 Brazilian campaign for national elections, that led Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency. Warburg's methodological model is thus here understood as a tool free from the linear spatiotemporal axis and conceptions restricted to the form, which limit the conceptualization of what the image is and can symbolically communicate. Hence, this attempt looks for representations taken from life in motion (Warburg, 2012), amid the emergence and persistence of contradictory, plural and independent forces (Michaud, 2013) in uninterrupted and insoluble conflict; points out the recurrence of disproportionate passions in dispute; and focuses on the dread of the horror and fear of annihilation that persist in the history of Brazilian culture and images.