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Unit 4: Aristotle: The Poetics: Ideal Tragic Hero, Comedy

depravity, but because of Hamartia or “miscalculation” on his part. Hamartia is not a moral failing, Notes
and hence it is unfortunate that it has been translated rather loosely as, “tragic flaw” as has been
done by Bradley. Aristotle himself distinguishes hamartia from moral failing, and makes it quite
clear that he means by it some error of judgment. He writes that the cause of the hero’s fall must
lie, “not in depravity, but in some error or Hamartia on his part.” Butcher, Bywater and Rostangi,
all agree that “Hamartia” is not a moral state; but an error of judgment which a man makes or
commits. However, as Humphrey House tells us, Aristotle does not assert or deny anything about
the connection of hamartia with moral failings in the hero. “It may be accompanied by normal
imperfection, but it is not itself a moral imperfection, and in the purest tragic situation the suffering hero is
not morally to blame.”
Hamartia : Its Three Sources
Thus Hamartia is an error or miscalculation, but the error may arise in three ways. It may arise
from “ignorance of some material fact or circumstance”, or secondly, it may be an error arising
from hasty or careless view of the special case, or, thirdly, it may be an error voluntary, but not
deliberate, as in the case of acts committed in anger or passion. Else and Martin Ostwald, both
critics of eminence, interpret Hamartia actively and say that the hero has a tendency to err, created
by lack of knowledge, and he may commit a series of errors. They further say that the tendency to
err characterises the hero from the beginning—(it is a character-trait)—and that at the crisis of the
play, it is complemented by the recognition scene (Anagnorisis), which is a sudden change, “from
ignorance to knowledge”.
Hamartia : Its Real Meaning and Significance
As a matter of fact, Hamartia is a word which admits of various shades of meaning, and hence it
has been differently inter-preted by different critics. However, all serious modern Aristotelian
scholarship is agreed that Hamartia is not moral imperfection— though it may be allied with moral
faults—that it is an error of judgment, whether arising from ignorance of some material
circumstance, or from rashness and impulsiveness of temper, or from some passion. It may even
be a character-trait, for the hero may have a tendency to commit errors of judgment, and may
commit not one, but a series of errors. This last conclusion is borne out by the play Oedipus
Tyrannus to which Aristotle refers again and again, and which may be taken to be his ideal. In this
play, the life of the hero is a chain of errors, the most fatal of all being his marriage with his
mother. If King Oedipus is Aristotle’s ideal hero, we can say with Butcher that, “his conception of
Hamartia includes all the three meanings mentioned above, which in English cannot be covered by a single
term.” Hamartia is an error, or a series of errors, ‘Whether morally culpable or not,” committed by
an otherwise noble person, and these errors derive him to his doom. The tragic irony lies in the
fact that hero may err innocently, unknowingly, without any evil intention at all, yet he is doomed
no less than those who are depraved and sin consciously. He has hamartia, he commits error or
errors, and as a result his very virtues hurry him to his ruin. Says Butcher, “Othello in the modern
drama, 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.”
The Ideal Hero : His Eminence
Aristotle lays down another qualification for the tragic hero. He must be, “of the number of those
in the enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity”. In other words, he must be a person who
occupies a position of lofty eminence in society. He must be a highly placed individual, well
reputed. This is so because Greek tragedy, with which alone Aristotle was familiar, was written
about a few distinguished, royal families. Aristotle, basing his qualification of the tragic hero on
what he was familiar with, considers eminence as essential for the tragic hero. Modern drama,
however, has demonstrated that the meanest individual can serve as a tragic hero as well as a
prince of the blood royal, and that tragedies of Sophoclean grandeur can be enacted even in
remote country solitudes.

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