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Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes The Purification Theory
7. Thus the critical wrangling has gone on through the ages. It is forgotten that the Greek word,
Katharsis, has three meanings. It means ‘purgation’ a medical term, and ‘purification’, and also
‘clarification’. Now Aristotle had medical leanings : his father was a doctor and he himself was
keenly interested in the science. But he had no religious leanings, and hence it has been
supposed that he used the word in the medical sense alone. Advocates of the “purgation”
theory cite the passage towards the end of Politics, referred to above, where he speaks of
religious frenzy or mania being cured by certain religious tunes. This reminds us of Plato’s
concept of internal agitation being quelled by an external agitation, as in the case of a child
whom the nurse rocks so that he may go to sleep. From all this evidence, the critics conclude
that Aristotle’s conception of ‘Katharsis’ is that of homeopathic treatment. It is a sort of mental
cure brought about by the excitation of the emotions of pity and fear, and the purgation of all
that is morbid and painful in these emotions. They are thus reduced to a just measure.
However, Humphrey House does not agree with this view. He rejects the idea of ‘purgation’
in the medical sense of the term, and becomes the most forceful advocate of the ‘purification’
theory, which involves the idea of moral instruction and moral learning. It is a kind of, “moral
conditioning”, which the spectators undergo. In his scholarly and penetrating discussion of the
whole question, Humphrey House points out, “purgation means cleansing”. Now cleansing
may be a, ‘quantitative evacuation’, or a “qualitative change” in the body brought about by a
restoration of proper equilibrium ; and a state of health depends on the maintenance of this
equilibrium. Tragedy by arousing pity and fear, instead of suppressing them, trains them and
brings back the soul to a balanced state. He refers to Aristotle’s, Nicomachean Ethics and other
works and regards Katharsis as an educative, and controlling process. In his Ethics Aristotle
writes : “Virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate. I mean moral virtue, for
it is this that is concerned with passions and actions, and in them there is excess, defect, and the
intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in
general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well;
but to feel them at the right time, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the
right motive, and in the right way, is what is characteristic and best, and this is the characteristic of
virtue.” Tragedy rouses pity and fear from potentiality to actuality through suitable stimuli, it
controls and trains them by directing them to the right objects in the right way ; and exercises
them, within the limits of the play, as the emotions of the good and the wise should be exercised.
When they subside to potentiality again after the play, it is a more trained potentiality than
before. Our emotional responses have been trained and brought nearer to the responses of the
wise and good. A qualitative change has been brought about in our system of emotional
responses, and the result is emotional health. In Milton’s phrase they have been “tempered and
reduced to a just measure”. The proper development and balance of the emotions depends
upon their habitual direction towards worthy objects. This, “controlling and educative” theory,
says Humphrey House, is in keeping with Aristotle’s entire philosophy.
Thus according to, ‘the purification’ theory, Katharsis implies that our emotions are purified of
excess and defect, are reduced to intermediate state, trained and directed towards the right objects
at the right time, and, in this way, we are made virtuous and good. Thus Katharsis is a kind of
moral conditioning. When witnessing a tragedy, the spectator learns the proper use of pity, fear,
and similar emotion. Butcher, too agrees, with the advocates of the ‘purification’ theory, when he
writes, “the tragic Katharsis involves not only the idea of emotional relief, but the further idea of
purifying the emotions to relieved”. He adds, “The poets found out how the transport of human
pity and human fear might, under the excitation of art, be dissolved in joy, and the pain escape in
the purified tide of human sympathy.”
Basic Inadequacy of the above Theories
However, neither the ‘purgation’ theory nor the ‘purification’ theory explains the whole thing.
The basic defect of these theories is that they are too much occupied with the psychology of the
audience, with speculations regarding the effect of tragedy on those who come to the theatre. It
is forgotten that Aristotle was writing a treatise, not on psychology, but on the art of poetry. He is

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