What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course.
In the Poetics, Aristotle's notorious study of Greek
dramatic art, Aristotle (384-322B.C.) compares tragedy to similar other
rhythmic forms as comedy and epic. He determines that tragedy, like all poetry,
is a kind of reproduction (mimesis), but adds that it has a serious purpose and
uses direct action rather than narrative to achieve its ends. What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. He says that
lyrical mimesis is reproduction of effects as they could be, not as they're —
for illustration, of universals and ideals — therefore poetry is a more philosophical
and exalted medium than history, which simply records what has actually happed.
The end of tragedy,
Aristotle writes, is to bring about a"catharsis"of the observers — to
arouse in them sensations of pity and fear, and to purify them of these
feelings so that they leave the theater feeling sanctified and upraised, with a
heightened understanding of the ways of gods and men. What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. This catharsis is brought
about by witnessing some disastrous and moving change in the fortunes of the
drama's promoter (Aristotle honored that the change might not be disastrous,
but felt this was the kind shown in the stylish tragedies — Oedipus at Colonus,
for illustration, was considered a tragedy by the Greeks but doesn't have an
unhappy ending).
According to
Aristotle, tragedy has six main rudiments plot, character, diction, study,
spectacle (scenic effect), and song (music), of which the first two are
primary. Utmost of the Poetics is devoted to analysis of the compass and proper
use of these rudiments, with elucidative exemplifications named from numerous
woeful dramatizations, especially those of Sophocles, although Aeschylus,
What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. Euripides, and some playwrights whose works no longer survive are also cited.
Several of
Aristotle's main points are of great value for an understanding of Greek woeful
drama. Particularly significant is his statement that the plot is the most
important element of tragedy
Tragedy is an reproduction, not of men, but of action and life, of happiness and misery. And life consists of action, and its end is a mode of exertion, not a quality. Now character determines men's rates, but it's their action that makes them happy or wretched. What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. The purpose of action in the tragedy, thus, isn't the representation of character character comes in as contributing to the action. Hence the incidents and the plot are the end of the tragedy; and the end is the principal thing of all. Without action there can not be a tragedy; there may be one without character.... The plot, also, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy character holds the alternate place.
Aristotle goes on to
bandy the structure of the ideal woeful plot and spends several chapters on its
conditions. He says that the plot must be a complete whole — with a definite
morning, middle, and end — and its length should be similar that the observers
can comprehend without difficulty both its separate corridor and its overall
concinnity. What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. Also, the plot requires a single central theme in which all the
rudiments are logically related to demonstrate the change in the promoter's
fortunes, with emphasis on the dramatic occasion and probability of the events.
Aristotle has fairly lower to say about the woeful idol
because the incidents of tragedy are frequently beyond the idol's control or
not nearly related to his personality. The plot is intended to illustrate
matters of cosmic rather than individual significance, and the promoter is
viewed primarily as the character who experiences the changes that take place.
What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. This stress placed by the Greek tragedians on the development of plot and
action at the expenditure of character, and their general lack of interest in
exploring cerebral provocation, is one of the major differences between ancient
and ultramodern drama.
Since the end of a
tragedy is to arouse pity and sweat through an revision in the status of the
central character, he must be a figure with whom the followership can identify
and whose fate can spark these feelings. Aristotle says that" pity is
aroused by unmerited mischance, fear by the mischance of a man like
ourselves."He surveys colorful possible types of characters on the base of
these demesne, also defines the ideal promoter as
... a man who's largely famed and prosperous, but one who
isn'tpre-eminently righteous and just, whose mischance, still, is brought upon
him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment or frailty; a name
like Oedipus.
In addition, the idol
shouldn't offend the moral sensibilities of the observers, and as a character
he must be true to type, true to life, and harmonious.
The idol's error or frailty (harmartia) is frequently misleadingly
explained as his" woeful excrescence,"in the sense of that particular
quality which inescapably causes his downfall or subjects him to retaliation.
Still, overemphasis on a hunt for the decisive excrescence in the promoter as
the crucial factor for understanding the tragedy can lead to superficial or
false interpretations. It gives further attention to personality than the
dramatists intended and ignores the broader philosophical counteraccusations of
the typical plot's denouement. What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. It's true that the idol constantly takes a step
that initiates the events of the tragedy and, owing to his own ignorance or
poor judgment, acts in such a way as to bring about his own downfall. In a more
sophisticated philosophical sense though, the idol's fate, despite its
immediate cause in his finite act, comes about because of the nature of the
cosmic moral order and the part played by chance or fortune in mortal affairs.
Unless the conclusions of utmost tragedies are interpreted on this position,
the anthology is forced to credit the Greeks with the most primitive of moral
systems.
It's worth noting
that some scholars believe the" excrescence" was intended by
Aristotle as a necessary corollary of his demand that the idol shouldn't be a
fully applaudable man. Harmartia would therefore be the factor that delimits
the promoter's fault and keeps him on a mortal aeroplane, making it possible
for the followership to sympathize with him. What do you think Aristotle meant when he said, ‘pleasure proper to tragedy’? Explain with reference to the essays in your course. This view tends to give the"
excrescence"an ethical description but relates it only to the observers'
responses to the idol and doesn't increase its significance for interpreting
the tragedies.