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Unit 1: Literary Terms: Classical and Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy and Tragic Hero

However, it is uncharacteristic of Aristotle to define tragedy in terms of audience psychology; Notes
throughout the Poetics he focuses on dramatic form, not its effects on viewers. Therefore,
commentators such as Else and Hardison prefer to think of catharsis not as the effect of tragedy on
the spectator but as the resolution of dramatic tension within the plot. The dramatist depicts incidents
which arouse pity and fear for the protagonist, and then during the course of the action, he resolves
the major conflicts, bringing the plot to a logical and foreseeable conclusion.
This explanation of catharsis helps to explain how an audience experiences satisfaction even from
an unhappy ending. Human nature may cause us to hope that things work out for Antigone, but,
because of the insurmountable obstacles in the situation and the ironies of fate, we come to expect
the worst and would feel cheated if Haemon arrived at the last minute to rescue her, providing a
happy but contrived conclusion. In tragedy things may not turn out as we wish, but we recognize
the probable or necessary relation between the hero’s actions and the results of those actions, and
appreciate the playwright’s honest depiction of life’s harsher realities.

Aristotle’s definition does not include an unfortunate or fatal conclusion as a necessary
component of tragedy. Usually we think of tragedy resulting in the death of the protagonist
along with several others. While this is true of most tragedies (especially Shakespeare), Aristotle
acknowledges that several Greek tragedies end happily.

We should remember that Aristotle’s theory of tragedy, while an important place to
begin, should not be used to prescribe one definitive form which applies to all tragedies past
and present.

1.1.4 Development of Classical Tragedy

The Greek view of tragedy was developed by the philosopher Aristotle, but it was the Roman Seneca
(whose works were probably intended to be read rather than acted) who influenced the Elizabethan
tragedies of the English dramatists Marlowe and Shakespeare. French classical tragedy developed
under the influence of both Seneca and an interpretation of Aristotle which gave rise to the theory
of unities of time, place, and action, as observed by Racine, one of its greatest exponents. In Germany
the tragedies of Goethe and Schiller led to the exaggerated melodrama (Sturm und Drang), which
replaced pure tragedy.
Tragedy was always intended to have a beneficial effect on its audience. The classical catharsis (the
audience’s experience of emotional purification when watching tragedy) was replaced by Brecht’s
concept of alienation, in which the audience is intellectually (as opposed to emotionally) involved.
Brecht’s contention was that an emotional audience accepts what happens as inevitable, whereas
they should be angered and leave the theatre bent on preventing such tragedies happening again.
Despite the general division of tragedies into classical (dealing with noble characters) and modern
(dealing with ordinary people), there has been a consistent, but less well known, genre of tragedy
that has dramatised contemporary events. Even the Elizabethan theatre staged works inspired by
contemporary events. The German dramatist Piscator dramatized German political controversies
between World War I and II. Thus the genre moved from the merely sensational to the realm of
agitprop.

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