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Unit 3: Aristotle: The Poetics-Catharsis and Hamartia

will mistakenly bring about his own downfall-not because he is sinful or morally weak, but Notes
because he does not know enough. The role of the hamartia in tragedy comes not from its moral
status but from the inevitability of its consequences. Both Butcher and Bywater agree that hamartia
is not a moral failing. This error of judgment may arise form:
1. ignorance (Oedipus),
2. hasty - careless view (Othello)
3. decision taken voluntarily but not deliberately (Lear, Hamlet).
The error of judgement is derived form ignorance of some material fact or circumstance. Hamartia
is accompanied by moral imperfections (Oedipus, Macbeth). Hence the peripeteia is really one or
more self-destructive actions taken in blindness, leading to results diametrically opposed to those
that were intended (often termed tragic irony), and the anagnorisis is the gaining of the essential
knowledge that was previously lacking. Butcher is of the view that, "Oedipus the king - includes
all three meanings of hamartia, which in English cannot be termed by a single term…. Othello is
the modern example, Oedipus in the ancient, are the two most conspicuous examples of ruin
wrought by characters, noble, indeed, but not without defects, acting in the dark and, as it seemed,
for the best."
Hamartia is Modern plays: Hamartia is practically removed from the hero and he becomes a
victim of circumstance - a mere puppet. The villain in Greek plays was destiny, now its
circumstances. The hero was powerful, he struggled but at the end of the day, death is inevitable.
Modern heroes, dies several deaths - passive - not the doer of the action but receiver. The concept
of heroic figures in tragedy has now become practically out of date. It was appropriate to the ages
when men of noble birth and eminent positions were viewed as the representative figures of
society. Today, common men are representative of society and life.

3.4 Major Themes
Cathartic Reversal

Aristotle argues that the best tragedies - and thus the best plays, since Aristotle considers tragedy
to be the highest dramatic form - use reversal and recognition to achieve catharsis. He writes that
reversal works with a story's spine or center to ensure that the hero comes full circle. Oedipus is
his exemplar of a hero who undergoes such a reversal and thus has cathartic self-recognition.
Aristotle considers catharsis to be a form of redemption. For instance, even though Oedipus'
recognition is tragic it still redeems him: he is no longer living in ignorance of his tragedy but
instead has accepted fate.
And redemption is not the only result of catharsis; the audience too undergoes a catharsis of sorts
in a good drama. The hero's catharsis induces both pity and fear in the audience: pity for the hero,
and fear that his fate could happen to us.
Complication and Denouement
There are only two parts to a good drama, says Aristotle - the rising action leading to the climax,
which is known as the complication, and the denouement, or the 'unraveling' that follows the
climax. This twofold movement follows Aristotle's theory of poetic unity. The complication leads up
to the revelation of the unity at the heart of the work. After this revelation, a play naturally turns to
the denouement, in which the significance and ramifications of the unity are explored and resolved.
The Imitative Nature of Art
There are two common ways to think of art: some consider it to be an expression of what is
original and unusual in human thinking; Aristotle, on the other hand, argues that that art is

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