Page 54 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes 4.3 The Ideal Tragic Hero

Aristotle first lays down the general rule that characters in a tragedy should be “good” or, if
possible, ‘better’ than the ‘good’. Like the painter, the dramatist sketches his characters to that the
quality of ’goodness’ shines out more clearly than in life. Then he proceeds to examine the qualities
which the ideal tragic hero must have. No passage in the Poetics, with the exception of the Catharsis
phrase, has attracted so much critical attention as his ideal of the tragic hero.
Not an Utter Villain
The function of a tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear, and Aristotle deduces the
qualities of his hero from this function. He should be good, but not too good or perfect, for the fall
of a perfectly good man from happiness into misery, would be odious and repellent. His fall will
not arouse pity, for he is not like us and his undeserved fall would only shock and disgust.
Similarly, the spectacle of an utterly wicked person passing from happiness to misery may satisfy
our moral sense, but is lacking in the proper tragic qualities. Such a person is not like us, and his
fall is felt to be well-deserved and in accordance with the requirements 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,
given the necessary skill and art, even villains, like Macbeth, can serve as proper tragic heroes and
their fall can arouse the specific tragic emotions. “There is, no doubt, that there is something
terrible and sublime in mere will-power working its evil way, dominating its surroundings with
the superhuman energy” (Butcher). The wreck of such power excites in us a certain tragic sympathy:
we experience a sense of loss and regret over the waste or misuse of gifts so splendid.

Not Perfectly Good or Saintly
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, and hence his fall
shocks and repels. Moreover, his martyrdom is a spiritual victory and the sense of his moral
triumph drowns the feeling of pity for his physical suffering. 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 quite recent times, both Bernard Shaw and T.S. Eliot
have achieved outstanding success with saints as their tragic heroes. 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 qualifications of an ideal tragic
hero; he is here discussing what is the very best, and not what is good. On the whole, his views are
justified, for it requires the genuis of a Shakespeare to arouse sympathy for an utter villain, and
saints as successful tragic heroes have been extremely rare.
An Intermediate Sort of Person
Having rejected perfection as well as utter depravity and villainy, Aristotle points out that the ideal
tragic hero, ‘‘must be an intermediate kind of person, a man not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose
misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment.” The
ideal tragic hero is a man who stands midway between the two extremes. He is not eminently
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. He is idealised, but still he has so much of common humanity as to enlist our interest and
sympathy.
“Hamartia” : Various Interpretations
The tragic hero is not depraved or vicious, but he is also not perfect, and his misfortune is brought
upon him by some fault of his own. The Greek word used here is, “hamartia”. The root meaning of
Hamartia is, “missing the mark”. He falls not because of the act of some outside agency or vice or

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