Page 49 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 3: Aristotle: The Poetics-Catharsis and Hamartia

(iv) Tragic beauty and tragic delight which tragedy evokes constitutes the aesthetics of balance Notes
as propounded for the first time by Aristotle in his theory of Catharsis.
(a) True (b) False
(c) Cannot say
(v) Hamartia in the Aristotelian sense of the term is a mistake or error of judgement and the
deed done in consequence of it is an erratum.
(a) True (b) False
(c) Cannot say
(vi) Othello is the Greek example, Oedipus in the renaissance, 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.
(a) True (b) False
(c) Cannot say

3.5 Summary

• Aristotle’s conception of Catharsis is mainly intellectual. It is neither didactic nor theological,
though it may have a residual theological element, as tragedy had its basis in religious ritual.
Aristotle’s Catharsis is not a mortal doctrine requiring the tragic poet to show that bad men
come to bad ends, nor a kind of theological relief arising from the discovery that God’s laws
operate invisibly to make all things (even suffering) work out for the best. In the Church
Mass, a part of the pleasure arises from learning, but much of it is the result of transcendental
causes which cannot be explained in rational terms. Some of the ritual experience of the
Catholic Mass is duplicated in the experience of tragedy, and hence cannot be explained in
rational terms. The tragic pleasure is, “no doubt, the pleasure of learning, but there is also, no doubt,
that learning does not explain the whole thing. There are many conflations of the experience which are
not covered by Aristotle’s treatment and which cannot be rationally explained. But the clarification
theory comes closer to defining the essential quality of the tragic experience than didactic and theological
explanations.”
• The various events must have logical unity ; they must also have another unity, i.e. the unity
which results from the aim or purpose of the dramatist, that of arousing the tragic emotions.
• Plots may be fatal or fortunate. For tragedy, fatal plots are the best.
• Simple plots, and plots in which the dramatist has failed in properly linking up the various
episodes, are rated very low by Aristotle.
• Complex plots are the best, for they are characterised by the element of surprise. They have
Peripeteia and Anagnorisis.
• In the end, Aristotle advises tragic dramatists to take great care of their denouements, of the
resolution of complications. Poetic Justice is not necessary, and there should be no double-
ending.

3.6 Key-Words

1. Nemesis ("retribution") : The inevitable punishment or cosmic payback for acts of hubris.
2. Peripateia ("plot reversal") : A pivotal or crucial action on the part of the protagonist that
changes his situation from seemingly secure to vulnerable.

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