A Glimpse to Aristotle’s Life

Aristotle ( the name means ‘ the best purpose’) was a philosopher and polymath from Greece.
His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle
moved to Plato’s Academy while he was 18. Aristotle’s teacher was Plato, and Aristotle was the
teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle married Pythias and she bore him a daughter, whom
they named Pythias. Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son
Alexander in 343 BC. Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon.
By 335 BC, he returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum.
Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. His wife Pythias died during
this period and Aristotle got involved with Herpyllis of Stagira, who bore him a son whom he
named after his father, Nicomachus. Towards the end of Aristotle’s life, there was a break
between him and Alexander. Following Alexander’s death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens
was rekindled. In 322 BC, the political issues made Aristotle flee to his mother’s family estate in
Chalcis. He died in Euboea of natural causes. He had left a will later that same year, in which he
asked to be buried next to his wife.

Aristotle composed most of his works between 335 and 323 BC, while he was in Athens. He had
amazing passion for learning and possessed marvelous knowledge on multi discipline. As he
learnt, he made significant contributions in the form of treatise to those disciplines. His most
important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On
the Soul) and Poetics. He studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology, geography, geology,
meteorology, physics and zoology, education, foreign customs, literature and poetry, and in
philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, economics,
psychology, rhetoric and theology. It is believed that his works if compiled can be considered as
a virtual Encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. Aristotle is considered as the first genuine Scientist.

An Introduction to Aristotle’s Poetics

What is Poetics? Poetics means the science of poetry. In Poetics Aristotle is discussing and
analyzing the concepts and art of creating poetry. The exact origins of Aristotle’s Poetics are not
known, but researchers believe that it was composed around 330 BCE and was preserved
primarily as the notes by Aristotle’s students. Despite the objections, praises and controversies,
the Poetics has been the central document in the study of aesthetics and literature for centuries,
especially during the Renaissance; and in today’s scholarly circles. One who studies Poetics will
marvel at the profound insights in the text content that attempts to explain the basic problem of
art. Aristotle here defines art and also suggests the criteria for evaluating the quality of the given
work of art. Though Aristotle is argumentative in tone in Poetics refuting the ideas of his teacher
Plato’s theory of art, the tone of the Poetics reflects the true spirit of Aristotle’s attempts to
explain the anatomy of poetry and its value to the human society. With the ‘empirical
evidence’ and concrete argument he dismisses Plato’s concept of art, and establishes that
the art is useful and good. Hence the Poetics is widely acclaimed as one of Aristotle’s most
demanding but rewarding texts offering profound returns to the diligent reader.

Poetics is the surviving earliest work of Aristotle on his Dramatic Theory and his philosophical
perception of the Literary theory. In the 26 chaptered treatise on Poetry, Aristotle dedicates the
first five chapters for a scientific analysis of poetry examining the constituent parts of poetry and
drawing conclusions from those observations. Next, he remarks that all of these kinds of poetry
are mimetic, or imitative, but there are significant differences between them. Poetics discusses
the different kinds of poetry, the structure of a good poem, and the division of a poem into its
component parts. For him Poetry is an act of imitation, but it is different from the mere
mimicking of sound. Poet is a creator, and he creates something new through imitation. The act
of imitation becomes successful based on the nature of imitation. The poet may imitate things as
they are, as they are guessed to be or as they are ought to be. He defines poetry as a ‘medium of
imitation’ that seeks to represent or duplicate life through character, emotion, or action. Aristotle
defines poetry very broadly, including epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and
even some kinds of music. According to Aristotle, tragedy came from the efforts of poets to
present men as ‘nobler,’ or ‘better’ than they are in real life. Comedy, on the other hand, shows a
‘lower type’ of person, and reveals humans to be worse than they are in average. Epic poetry, on
the other hand, imitates ‘noble’ men like tragedy, but only has one type of meter – unlike tragedy,
which can have several – and is narrative in form. The surviving part of Poetics includes the
discussions on Tragedy & Epic Poetry. Tragedy is the most refined version of poetry dealing with
lofty matters, whereas Comedy is the most refined version of poetry dealing with the base
matters. His discussions on Comedy are lost and nothing is available, whereas the discussions on
Tragedy constitute the major part of the surviving Poetics.
Aristotle’s Analysis of Tragedy

Aristotle considers tragedy as the most refined version of poetry that deals with the imitation of
lofty matters. It is believed to have its origin from the dithyrambic hymns sung by a large choir
praising the god Dionysus. Aeschylus, an ancient Greek tragedian introduced a second actor
along with the narrator in dialogue. He also diminished the role of the choir and included more
dialogue than music. Aristotle had only one concern about Aeschylus as he didn’t develop a
distinct poetic language for tragedy. Sophocles, another ancient Greek tragedian is considered by
Aristotle as the master of Tragic play. He depicted men as they ought to be, and hence he could
create a higher view on humanity. He is compared to Homer in his approach to humanity.
Sophocles modified the existing form of tragedy by introducing a third actor and slowly
tragedy took the contemporary dramatic form with many actors into dialogues.

According to Aristotle Tragedy is an act of imitation; and he defines Tragedy as “the imitation of
an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and
pleasurable language;… in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity
and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.” (1449b Arist. Poet) Thus
according to Aristotle there are seven characteristic features for a tragedy as follow:- 1) it is
mimetic, 2) it is serious, 3) it tells a full story of an appropriate length, 4) it contains
rhythm and harmony, 5) rhythm and harmony occur in different combinations in different
parts of the tragedy, 6) it is performed rather than narrated, and 7) it arouses feelings of pity and
fear and then purges these feelings through catharsis.

Aristotle believes Tragedy as the ultimate form of our innate delight in imitation. It is in dramatic
form or its medium is drama, and hence tragedy is not to tell but to show or perform. This
dramatization aspect of tragedy makes it more philosophical than History. In History we are told
what has happened whereas in tragedy the action or incidents are performed or shown with all
the probability or possibility laws. The incidents that have happened and related in history may
be related to a particular situation and doesn’t have any cause-and-effect relation. The actions
that are imitated in the tragedy are performed with the cause-and- effect relation showing what
would have happen. Tragedy dramatizes what may happen whereas history is all about what has
happened. So tragedy is much closer to life and more appealing to the humanity than history.
History has little relevance to others but tragedy is rooted in the fundamentals of how the
human life works. It shows how an action may change or get transformed as per the possible
situations at any time or place as it happens in the normal way in the world. This explanation
also proves that tragedy deals with the universal while history deals with the specific. Since
tragedy is closer to life or the imitation of life itself, it arouses not only pity but also fear. This
is the unique feature of tragedy because the noble action imitated and the great people imitated in
tragedy have cause-and-effect chain.

Aristotle makes a scientific analysis of tragedy to establish its greatness over the other art
forms. He has great admiration to Sophacles and his tragic play Oedipus the King. Aristotle
assesses this play as the perfect tragedy and takes many examples from this play to prove his
views and arguments on Tragedy. Aristotle observes six components that constitute a successful
tragedy and they are: plot, character, thought, diction, song and spectacle. The success of a tragic
play depends upon the perfect mixing up of these six components Plot is ‘the soul’ of tragedy,
because action is paramount to the significance of a drama, and a tragedy is the imitation of
action of noble men. The rest of the elements of a tragedy can be considered subsidiary.
Aristotle gives a detailed description of each element of a tragedy with their significant role.

Plot: Plot is the soul of a tragedy. It is the first principle and the most important feature of a
tragedy because action is the most significant aspect of a tragedy. There can be tragedy without
character or music or dance; but there cannot be a tragedy without action. Plot is the arrangement
of incidents. Story gets its impact or power only when the incidents are arranged in the correct
sequence with effective link. It must have a universal significance, definite structure, unity of
theme and purpose. Following are the specifications of a successful plot of a tragedy:-
completeness, magnitude, unity, determinate structure and universality.
Completeness of the plot means the plot must be “a whole,” with a beginning, middle, and end.
The beginning or the incentive moment, must instill the cause-and-effect chain based on
something which is within the play. The middle, or climax, must be caused by earlier incidents
and itself causes the incidents that follow it. The end, or resolution, must be caused by the
preceding events but not lead to other incidents outside the compass of the play. The end should
therefore solve or resolve the problem created during the incentive moment. The cause-and-
effect chain of actions ‘tying up’ from the incentive to the Climax as desis or Complication; and
the cause-and –effect chain of actions ‘unravelling’ from the desis to the resolution are called
lusisi or denouement. There should be appropriate sequencing of incidents resulting the feel of
completeness.

Magnitude of the plot refers to the length. Usually the length of the play should be what the
viewers can wind up in their memory. At the same time the lengthy plot with many incidents
make it a complex one. Aristotle recommends complexity of the plot by the inclusion of as many
incidents revolving around one theme. The more the number of incidents included in the plot,
that make the play richer and improves its artistic value. A brief plot will reduce the scope for
artistic value. At the same time too many incidents without any coherence or sequence will
indeed mar the quality of tragedy. Hence the magnitude of the play is very important. It should
be complex, compact and comprehensive.

Unity in the plot refers to the unity of action. Whatever the number of incidents or situations
discussed in the plot must have an organic unity. The whole action and incidents must be
revolving around the central action. .The plot may be either simple or complex, although
complex is better. Simple plots have only a “change of fortune” (catastrophe). Complex plots
have both “reversal of intention” (peripeteia) and “recognition” (anagnorisis) connected with the
catastrophe. Both peripeteia and anagnorisis turn upon surprise. Aristotle explains that a
peripeteia occurs when a character produces an effect opposite to that which he intended to
produce, while an anagnorisis “is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate
between the persons destined for good or bad fortune.” He argues that the best plots combine
these two as part of their cause-and-effect chain (i.e., the peripeteia leads directly to the
anagnorisis); this in turns creates the catastrophe, leading to the final “scene of suffering”.

Well determinate structure of the plot means the effective linking of the various events and
incidents in the plot with a remarkable coherence. It is the expertise of the poet to prune or avoid
all the irrational and irrelevant details from the plot. Action is the paramount of a tragedy; so the
action should be shown as a complex one, and this complexity increases the artistic value of the
play. There should be a perfect sequencing of the events or incidents happening in the play.
Whatever the turmoil, the link with which the actions are held together should not be affected.
The whole body of the play must be able to stand as a unit.

Universality of the plot refers to the fact that whatever that is imitated or shown in the
tragedy should be closer to the real life. The way the action is shown in the play should remind
us that anywhere in the real life a human being will be acting in the same way how the
hero has acted..

Inclusion of theme and the associated actions of universal nature will give more significant value
to the play enabling the dramatist catch the attention of more number of people.

A simple plot fails to create artistic value whereas a complex plot is rich with incidents linking to
the major action or theme of the play. These incidents are in definite sequence leading to the
cathartic effect of tragedy. A complex plot has the following elements: reversal, recognition, and
catharsis. The hero of the play reaches to the peak of his glory or status and then surprising all,
his fortune is reversed due to an error in judgment. He falls from a happy state to a state of
misery. Since the hero of a tragedy is a person of noble status, this sudden reversal in his status
makes an ironic twist. As the play progresses, there is a recognition of the true identities or a shift
from ignorance to knowledge making people aware of the hidden truth or true identities. This
reversal a nd recognition result in sufferings by arousing the feelings of pity and fear in the
audience. Pity on the sad plight of the tragic hero and fear at the anxiety of the thought whether
that fate of the tragic hero would befall on us. According to Aristotle this sufferings undergone
by the audience while watching a tragic play is the greatest merit of a good tragedy and it
decides the true value of the play.

Character: Character comes of second importance next to plot in a tragedy. Tragedy is the
imitation o f action or thought or emotions, and these aspects belong to the man who is the object
of imitation. Aristotle explains four qualities for the character of the tragic hero whose actions
are imitated to bring about reversal, recognition and catharsis – the elements that constitute the
success of a tragic play. The tragic hero should be good, renowned and prosperous; he should be
courageous and dear to everyone, he should be true to life that any one of the audience should be
able to identify himself or herself with the feelings or emotions undergone by the hero because
whatever is depicted in the play about the hero must make the viewers feel that they are closer to
life or real life situations itself; and then the hero should be a consistent person in the se nse
whatever qualities or weakness assigned to him should be consistently there with him
throughout. The adversities that happen to him shouldn’t be an artificially created one as a
miracle. All the adversities that he Is facing or experiencing due to a reversal of his fortune must
be due to some weakness or flaw in his character. The hero is neither an ideal nor a virtuous
man, but he is a good man and any one of the viewers can easily identify the hero with any
other man among them, that is he must be so much closer to life. His fall doesn’t happen all on
a sudden as a shock but it is due to a flaw or frailty in his character which makes the hero
more credible in his sufferings. The consistency in the character makes the people identify with
the hero in a more convincing manner because any other person in such a situation would do the
same as what the tragic hero has done. It is the reversal of the character from his prosperous
position to a pitiful status due to an error in judgement resulted from a flaw or weakness in his
character that arouses the feeling of pity in the play. The tragic flaw in the character is known as
hamartia. The intensity of the tragedy increases as the character causes some destructions or
damages to his kith or kin due to his ignorance of truth, and finally by the pitiful condition of the
hero when the truth is informed to him.

Thought: The third important component of a tragic play is thought. Thought is important
because actions spring out from thoughts. A tragedy is the imitation of action or imitation of men
in action. Everything that are supposed to be brought out through the effect of speech or action
are included under thought. The verbal and the nonverbal impact of a tragic drama may be
assigned to its action or speech; but both these action and speech are the co-existing components
of thought. The cathartic effect of the tragic play by arousing the feelings of pity and fear is
ultimately the product of thought. In the case of action, no verbal explanation is needed for the
intended effect because the action itself is independent to achieve the aim; whereas in the case of
speech, the aimed effect has to be achieved by the speech itself which is ultimately depending
upon how the character delivers that speech. Dramatic incidents and dramatic speech should be
analysed with the same perception since both aim at the same objective.

Diction: Diction takes the 4th place in the sequence of the importance of the components that
constitute a tragedy. Diction is in fact the metrical arrangement of words in the play. It includes
the verba” expression of the content or the subject matter of the tragic play. The nature, type,
quality and aptness of vocabulary used in a tragedy should be proper and appropriate to the
character, plot and obje ctive of the tragedy. Embellishments are welcome in the language used,
and the use of appropriate metaphors is considered to be an intellectual approach to diction.
Whether the diction is rich, intellectual or decorative, the objective is achieved through the
manner that text or script is delivered by the character. In this situation, the character must have a
deep awareness about the tone of the content. The character must be able to discriminate
between a command, request, advice, threat, query and a prayer. When the poet writes a script in
which the character is intended to command the Goddess, and the character delivers the script as
a prayer, the whole intended purpose of the situation is damaged.

Song: Aristotle calls the musical elements of the chorus as song or melody. Song is a splendid
aspect of tragic play because it makes sense to everybody and the viewer appreciates the artistic
form with sheer pleasure. Chorus creates and keeps the melody of the play and Aristotle strongly
insists that chorus s hould be an integral part of the play as an actor or action is to a play. Song
that is incorporated to the play should be taking a serious role in contributing to the unity of the
plot.

Spectacle: Spectacle is the last component of a tragic play. It is of lowest importance because it
has very little to do with literature. The poet who creates an artistic work gives primary attention
to the inner structure of the work. All his effort will be to give life to the work and to achieve the
artistic value. Usually no creator does the creation thinking about the spectacle. The spectacular
beauty arises when the play is brought out with the artistic value. So it is an automatic byproduct
of a good play. The poet who focus on the spectacle fails to achieve the artistic beauty of the
play.
There four specific components in addition to the above mentioned ones that make tragedy a
unique work of art. They are anagnorisis, hamartia, peripeteia & catharsis.

The Greek word anagnorisis means ‘recognition’. Aristotle describes it as an essential

component of tragic plot that results the striking recognition resulted due to the change in the
status from ignorance to knowledge, resulting the revelation of the hidden truth. Hamartia is
described by Aristotle as the ‘error in judgment’. The tragic hero is a man of noble status; still he
faces misfortune not because of his villainy but due to an error in judgment. His sufferings are
due to a moral flaw which makes the impact of sufferings all the more intense. Catharsis is a
medical term that means ‘purgation’. Aristotle uses this term in tragedy for describing the real
aesthetic pleasure of tragedy resulted by catharsis, the purgation of the feelings of pity and fear.
Peripeteia is an ironic twist in a tragedy that projects the fall of the hero from a higher status to
the meanest level and into the intense sufferings. Peripeteia is resulted due to hamartia. These
four components are essential for a tragedy to fulfill its objectives.

Aristotle concludes his discourse on Tragedy by discussing the aesthetic pleasure of tragedy. As
pointed out earlier, a complex plot leads to a reversal, recognition and catharsis. Reversal is the
sudden change in the status or position of the tragic hero from a better or high status to a lower
status due to an error in his judgment caused by a flaw or weakness in his character. Since the
tragic hero is a good and courageous person loved by all faces a fall due to his own folly, and is
subjected to lot of sufferings. Then he realizes his folly or the truth hidden from him. This
particular situation arouses the feelings of pity and fear in the viewers. Catharsis is a medical
metaphor used by Aristotle with the meaning ‘purging’. The viewers who watch the fall of the
tragic hero due to his own error or flaw in character, and the realization of the truth and the
sufferings undergone by the hero, identify themselves with the tragic hero. This empathizing
gesture makes the viewers give an out let to their suppressed emotio ns like fear, anger, hared etc.
and feel relieved mentally by the purgation effect. This is the cathartic effect of the play which
enables the viewers to het purged and experience a unique pleasure of light heartedness. This is
the biggest objective and the true artistic pleasure of a tragedy.
A Well- formed plot must have a beginning, which is not a necessary consequence of any
previous action; a middle, which follows logically from the beginning; and an end, which
follows logically from the middle and from which no further action necessarily follows. The plot
should be unified, meaning that every element of the plot should tie in to the rest of the plot,
leaving no loose ends. This kind of unity allows tragedy to express universal themes powerfully,
which makes it superior to history, which can only talk about particular events. Episodic plots
are bad because there is no necessity to the sequence of events. The best kind of plot contains
surprises, but surprises that, in retrospect, fit logically into the sequence of events. The best kinds
of surprises are brought about by peripeteia, or reversal of fortune, and anagnorisis, or discovery.
A good plot progresses like a knot that is tied up with increasingly greater complexity until the
moment of peripeteia, at which point the knot is gradually untied until it reaches a completely
unknotted conclusion.
 Thus Aristotle concludes his discourse on tragedy by establishing it as the most refined form of
poetry with qualities superior to that of epic poetry. He also convincingly proves the artistic
value of tragedy through its aesthetic pleasure enjoyed by the viewers or readers as they visualize
the dramatic form. Aristotle highlights the basic instinct of human beings to imitate, and thus
develops his theory of poetry as an act of imitation of action. He emphasizes on the imitation
of actions true to life. This real representation of life with its universal elements makes
tragedy the most appealing art form. It is this realistic aspect of the action imitated and the
character make the people accept the hero one among them and identify his feelings and
emotions resulting catharsis – the aesthetic pleasure. Our pity and fear is aroused most when it is
family members who harm one another rather than enemies or strangers. In the best kind of plot,
one character narrowly avoids killing a family member because anagnorisis reveals the family
connection. The hero must have good qualities appropriate to his or her station and should be
portrayed realistically and consistently. S ince both the character of the hero and the plot must
have logical consistency, Aristotle concludes that the untying of the plot must follow as a
necessary consequence of the plot. Aristotle presents a scientific analysis of the various
components of a tragedy establishing its superiority over other art forms.

Q.Chorus

Among the ancient Greeks the chorus was a group of people, wearing masks, who sang or
chanted verses while performing dance-like movements at religious festivals. A similar chorus
played a part in Greek tragedies, where (in the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles) they served
mainly as commentators on the dramatic actions and events who expressed traditional moral,
religious, and social attitudes; beginning with Euripides, however, the chorus assumed primarily
a lyrical function. The Greek ode, as developed by Pindar, was also chanted by a chorus. In The
Birth of Tragedy (1872) the German classicist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche speculated
that, at the origin of Greek tragedy, the chorusconsisting of goat-like satyrs-were the only figures
on the stage. They were presented as attendants and witnesses of the suffering, death and self-
transformation of their master, the god Dionysus. Later, in Nietzsche’s view, actors were
introduced to enact the event that had originally been represented only symbolically, and the
chorus was reduced to the role of commentator.

The chorus in Oedipus Rex represents the Theban elders. The chorus’ interest lies purely in
protecting the city and with this interest in mind, the chorus shows great respect and admiration
for their king, Oedipus; and also great reverence for the gods. Also, with the interests of the city
in mind, they serve the role of portraying a far greater understanding of humanity than Oedipus
does. The chorus is well aware that the citizens of Thebes need the gods’ protection in order to be
healed from their current plague. Not only does the chorus call upon the gods for the city's
protection, the chorus is also far quicker to recognize irrational behavior than Oedipus is, which
also stems from the chorus’ drive to heal and protect the city. In its ability to recognize irrational
behavior, the chorus is better able to perceive the weaknesses of human nature than Oedipus is.
One example is seen when Oedipus reacts to Tiresias’ horrible prophecy. Oedipus becomes
furious and even accuses both Creon and Tiresias of a treasonous plot. The chorus is very quick
to recognize that Oedipus is behaving irrationally and that the most important thing is learning
how to heal the city.

Roman playwrights, such as Seneca took over the chorus from the Greeks, and in the mid-
sixteenth century some English dramatists (For example, Norton and Sackville in Gorboduc)
imitated the Senecan chorus. The classical type of chorus was never widely adopted by English
dramatic writers. John Milton, however, included a chorus in Samson Aganistes (1671), as did
Shelley in Prometheus Unbound (1820) and Thomas Hardy in The Dynasts (1904-8); more
recently, T. S. Eliot made effective use of the classical Chorus in his religious tragedy Murder in
the Cathedral (1935). The use in drama of a chorus of singers and dancers survives also in operas
and in musical comedies.

The Chorus In Eliot’s drama have assembled in the Archbishop’s Hall, adjoining the Canterbury
Cathedral, drawn by some irresistible power to anticipate the coming events. An impulse of
grave concern has dragged them there to witness something fatal which remains yet unknown to
them: “Some presage of an act / Which our eyes are compelled to witness, has forced our feet /
Towards the Cathedral. We are forced to bear witness”. The second part of the play also begins
with the chorus sung by the Women of Canterbury, who are sensing a premonition: “Between
Christmas and Easter what shall be done?” This time the Chorus gives a clear indication of the
murder of the Archbishop. When the Knights exit for the first time the Women of Canterbury
reappear. In their opinion everything is predestined. Thomas also warns the Women about there
being something painful in the womb of futurity. As the moment of martyrdom approaches the
Chorus has a vision of horror beyond all horrors that life can bring. After the final doom the
Chorus that calls Death as ‘God’s silent servant’ calls their Archbishop’s murder as beastly and
inhuman.

During the Elizabethan Age the term “chorus” was applied also to a single person who, in some
plays, spoke the prologue and epilogue, and sometimes introduced each act as well. This
character served as the author’s vehicle for commentary on the play, as well as for exposition of
its subject, time, and setting, and the description of events happening off stage; examples are
Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and Shakespeare‘s Henry V. In Shakespeare‘s The Winter’s
Tale, the fifth act begins with “Time, the Chorus,” who requests the audience that they “impute it
not a crime / To me or my swift passage that I slide / O’er sixteen years” since the preceding
events, then summarizes what has happened during those years and announces that the setting for
this present act is Bohemia. A modern and extended use of a single character with a choral
function is the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (l938).

Modem scholars use the term choral character to refer to a person within the play itself who
stands apart from the action and by his or her comments provides the audience with a special
perspective (often an ironic perspective) through which to view the other characters and events.
Examples in Shakespeare are the Fool in King Lear, Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra and
Therstes in Troilus and Cressida; a modern instance is Seth Beckwith in O‘Neill‘s Mourning
Becomes Electra (1931).

Q.Tragic Hero

A tragic hero should be good, but not too good or perfect, for the fall of a perfectly good man
from happiness into misery, would be odious a repellant. His fall will not arouse pity, he is not
like the normal audience, and his undeserved fall would only shock and disgust. Similarly, the
spectacle of an utterly wicked person passing from happiness and misery may satisfy our moral
sense but is lacking the proper tragic qualities. Such a person is not like us and his fall should be
felt as well deserved and in accordance with the requirement of justice. It excites neither pity nor
fear. Thus according to Aristotle, perfectly good as well as utterly wicked persons are not suitable
to be heroes of tragedies. However, Elizabethan tragedy has demonstrated that with the help of
necessary skill and art even villains like Macbeth can serve as proper tragic heroes and their fall
can arouse the specific tragic emotions.

Similarly, according to Aristotelian canon a saint (a character perfectly good) would be

unsuitable as a tragic hero. He is on the side of the moral order and not opposed to it; hence his
fall shocks and repels. And his martyrdom is a spiritual victory and the sense of moral triumph
drowns the feeling of pity for his physical suffering. Moreover the saint is self-effacing and
unselfish and so he tends to be passive and inactive. Drama, on the other hand, requires for its
effectiveness a militant and combative hero. However, in more recent times Bernard Shaw,
T.S.Eliot (Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T.S.Eliot that portrays the assassination of
Archbishop Thomas Becket (he represents the church and he resists Temptation) in Canterbury
Cathedral in 1170. The antagonist is the state (or King Henry II) who thinks that the priest should
be taken out of king’s way. So, the conflict exists between the King and the Pope; that is between
temporal power and spiritual power) and Christopher Fry have achieved outstanding success
with saints as their tragic heroes.

The hero must be true to life. They must have virtues and wickedness, joys and sorrows, loves
and hatreds, likes and dislikes of average humanity. It is essential to arouse pity and fear in the
spectators. If they are not true to life, they would not be able to arouse pity and fear. So, “the
ideal there must be an intermediate kind of person, a man not primarily virtuous or just, whose
misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity, but by an error of
judgement”. The ideal tragic hero is a man who stands midway between the two extremes. He is
not good or just, though he inclines to the side of goodness. He is like us but, as Butcher points
out, raised above the ordinary level by a deeper vein of feeling or heightened powers of intellect
or will.

The hero’s misfortune Is brought upon him by some faults of his own. He falls not because of the
act of some outside agency or vice of depravity but because of hamartia or miscalculation on his
part. Example of hamartia in Greek tragedy is Antigone. Although she has been presented with
the decree from her Uncle not to bury her brother and her obsession with her dead family ties
initially gets her in trouble, the true hamartia or “error” in this tragedy rests on Creon. It occurs
when he orders his men to properly bury Polynices before releasing Antigone which can be
identified as the mistake or error. Creon’s own ignorance causes the hamartia that results in
Antigone’s death. Creon believed himself to be acting rightly in the interests of the city. But at
last he himself (post eventum) realises that he is in fact mistaken.

Aristotle lays down another qualification for the tragic hero. He must be “of the number of those
in the enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity”. In other words, he must be a person who
occupies position of lofty eminence in society. But modern drama has demonstrated that the
meanest individual can serve as a tragic hero as well as a prince of the royal blood and that
tragedies of Sophoclean grandeur can be enacted even in remote country solitude.

So, Aristotle’s concept of tragic hero does not apply fully to the Elizabethan and modern
tragedies. Modern literature has proved that Aristotle is too rigid. Even the plays of Shakespeare
have revealed new meanings in the ideas of the tragic hero. Its dramatic possibilities have been
enlarged and deepened. In Hamlet, Othello and Julius Caesar we have the ruin of noble natures
through some defect of characters. The heroes of the tragedies of Arthur Miller (in his Death of a
Salesman Willy Loman is a lower class immoral character who never treats his family rightly;
but at the end his suicide for the future security of his family makes him a noble character to his
relatives), Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill are not of higher strata; they are very
ordinary and common people. Yet they arouse the feelings of pity and fear. In this connection, it
would be pertinent to remember first that Aristotle’s conclusions are based on the Greek drama
with which he was familiar and secondly that he is laying down the qualification of an ideal
tragic hero in general. So, on the whole, his views are justified, for it requires the genius of a
Shakespeare or a Shaw or a Miller to arouse sympathy for an utter villain or for a saint or for a
lower class people as successful tragic heroes and it is extremely rare.

Q. Catharsis

‘Katharsis’ or ‘catharsis’ is a word of Greek origin. In the Greek language it has three meanings -
-- ‘purgation’, ‘purification’ and ‘clarification’. Aristotle uses this word in Poetics only once.
While dealing with the function of tragedy Aristotle says, “…through pity and fear effecting the
proper Katharsis or purgation of these emotions.” He did not say much about the true purpose of
catharsis, but in modern world it is popularly known as combination of pity and fear.

Aristotle said that the downfall of the tragic Hero should come suddenly like a shock at the end
of the drama so that the audience feels pity and fear for the hero. Catharsis can be aroused by
spectacular means i.e. by showing torture and violence on the stage, but Aristotle was against this
idea. He thought bad poets create such dramas because of their lack of wit. He listed out a few
ways that can be used for creating catharsis. If a person is killed by his enemy, or if two
unknown persons fight out of compulsion, the incidents scarcely create any moving effect in the
mind of the audience. For example, when MacDonwald was killed by the eponymous hero in
Macbeth, that created neither pity nor fear. But if a person is murdered or suffered because of his
near and dear ones, the audience gets moved instantly. For example, in King Lear, when the old
king was suffering at the hand of his cruel daughters Goneril and Regan, pity and fear were
aroused instantly.

If the plot demands the dramatist might make the protagonist kill his dear ones consciously just
like what Euripides did in Medea. To take revenge on her husband Jason’s immorally abandoning
her, she killed their children as well as Jason’s new wife Glauce. So, Jason lost his existing
children along with his possibility of having future ones with Glauce. The shocking situation is
perfect for catharsis, according to Aristotle. Similarly, if necessary, the dramatist might let the
protagonist kill his favourites without his knowledge only to make a future recognition happen.
In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, after enjoying a long happy marital life, the eponymous hero came
to know that he had actually married his mother after unwittingly killing his father. Oedipus
creates the highest level of catharsis in the mind of the audience. Aristotle charted out few other
situations to create catharsis like the protagonist might recognise the victim as his near one just
before the murder and still act on it, or protagonist might refuse to murder the victim because the
recognition occurs. These criteria are very uncommon in tragedy.

According to some Renaissance critics and later on critics like Twining and Barney, catharsis is a
medical metaphor; it denotes purgation, a pathological effect on the soul similar to the effect of
medicine on the body. Just as the purgatives purge the body of the dirt and dross, similarly
tragedy purges the mind of the unpleasant emotions of pity and fear by first exciting them and
then by providing them an emotional outlet. Milton also had explained this theory of Katharsis in
his preface to Samson Agonistes. In the neo-classical era, catharsis was taken to be an allopathic
treatment with the unlike curing unlike. The arousing of pity and fear was supposed to bring
about the purgation or evacuation of other emotions like anger, pride etc. The spectacle of
suffering arouses our pity and fear and we are purged of the emotions that caused the suffering. If
the emotion is caused by emotions like anger, hatred or impiety towards the gods, audiences are
purged of such undesirable emotions because we realise their evil consequences.

F.L.Lucas rejects the idea that Katharsis was used by Aristotle as a medical metaphor and says,
“Theatre is not a hospital”. Both Lucas and Herbert Read regard it as a kind of safety valve.
When pity and fear are aroused, audience give free play to these emotions as they cannot do in
real life, and this safe and free outlet of these emotions is followed by emotional relief. In real
life they are repressed and in the theatre the free indulgence of these emotions, aroused by the
suffering of the hero, is safe and brings relief to their pent up souls. I.A.Richards also approaches
this issue from a psychological angle. Fear is the impulse to withdraw and pity is the impulse to
approach. Both of these emotions are harmonized and balanced in tragedy, and this balance
brings relief and repose.