27/2/07 - Classical Literature - Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy

Aristotle's Poetics is a very strange and difficult book. It was not written for a public audience. Surviving Aristotelean works were designed as lecture notes. Esoteric writings were aimed at wider audiences, but these are lost.

The sentence of the Poetics defining the subject and aim of the book
"Let us discuss the art of poetry in general and its species - the effect which species of poetry has and the correct way the construct plots if the poetry is of high quality, as well as the number and nature of its component parts, and any other questions that arise within the same field of enquiry."

The Poetics are divided into:
1. Poetical Foundation (ch. 1-5)
2. Poetics of Tragedy (ch. 6-22)
3. Poetics of Epic (ch. 23-26)
[4. Poetics of Comedy, possibly never written or lost]

Some fundamental considerations
- The Poetics as a part of Aristotle's philosophical enterprise, as phenomenological enquiry and as teleological reconstruction.
- The Poetics as normative, prescriptive literary theory. The subject is not Attic tragedy of the fifth century BC, but the ideal tragedy according to Aristotle's theoretical postulates and philosophical presuppositions. Despite the paradigmatic role played by Sophocles' Oedipus the King in the Poetics, not a single surviving Greek tragedy fulfils all postulates of Aristotle's theory.
- The Poetics is centred on the notion of the pre-eminence of the (emotional) effect of poetry. The best tragedy is the one that serves best to arouse the specific tragic emotions of pity and fear in the audience.

The emotional effect of tragedy: the problem of Aristotle's notion of tragic katharsis
Definition of tragedy: "Tragedy is a mimesis of an action which is elevated, complete, and of magnitude; in language embellished by distinct forms in its sections; employing the mode of enactment, not narrative; and through pity and fear accomplishing the catharsis of such emotions."
[6.1449b21-31]

Giorgias' theory of the emotional power of tragedy: "I both deem and define all poetry as speech with meter. Fearful shuddering and tearful pity and grievous longing come upon its hearers, and at the actions and physical sufferings of others in good fortunes and evil fortunes, through the agency of words, the soul experiences a suffering of its own."
[Helen, DK 82 Fr. 11,9]

Plato's theory of the emotional (and destructive) power of tragic poetry: Resp. 10.605c6-606d7.

Katharsis in Aristotle's Politics, 1342a4-15: "The emotion which affects some minds violently exists in all, but in different degrees, e.g. pity and fear, and also enthusiasm; for some people are prone to this disturbance, and we can observe the effect of sacred music on such people; whenever they make use of songs which arouse the mind to frenzy, they are calmed and attain as it were healing and katharsis. Necessarily, precisely the same effect applies to those prone to pity or fear or, in general, any other emotion, and no others to the extent that each is susceptible to such things: for all there occurs katharsis and pleasurable relief."

Tragic plot
Tragedy as mimesis not of persons but of action and life:
- The resulting primacy of action. The Poetics and Aristotle's theory of action.
- The resulting primacy of the plot as 'the first principle and the soul' of tragedy. Tragic plot (muthos) as the construction (sustasis) of the events (and actions).
- The emotional effect of tragedy as resulting from the structure of the tragic plot and dramatic action.

Reversal (peripéteia): "is a change to the opposite direction of events and one in accord, as we insist, with probability and necessity: as when in the Oedipus the person who comes to bring Oedipus happiness, and intends to rid him of his fear about his mother, effects the opposite by revealing Oedipus' true identity." (ch. 11)

Recognition (anagnôrisis): "is a change from ignorance to knowledge, leading to friendship or to enmity, and involving matters which bear on prosperity or adversity. The finest recognition is that which occurs simultaneously with reversal, as with the one in the Oedipus." (ch. 11)

The plot of the ideal tragedy and the problem of Aristotle's notion of tragic hamartia
"Next, after forgoing discussion, we must consider what should be aimed at and avoided in the construction of plots, and how tragedy's effect is to be achieved. Since, then, the structure of the finest tragedy should be complex not simple, as well as representing fearful and pitiable events (for this is the special feature off such mimesis), it is, to begin with, clear that
a) neither should virtuous man be shown changing from prosperity to adversity, as this is not fearful nor yet pitiable but repugnant,
b) nor bad man changing from adversity to prosperity, because this is the least tragic of all, possessing none of the necessary qualities, since it neither satisfies our human feeling not arouses fear and pity.
c) Nor, again, should tragedy show the very wicked person falling from prosperity to adversity: such a pattern might satisfy our human feeling, but it would not arouse pity or fear, since the one is felt for the undeserving victim of adversity, the other for one like ourselves (pity for the undeserving, fear for the one like ourselves); so the outcome will be neither pitiable nor fearful.
d) This leaves, then, the person in between these cases. Such a person is someone not pre-eminent in virtue and justice, and one who falls into adversity through evil and depravity, but through some kind of error [hamartia], and one belonging to the class of those who enjoy great renown and prosperity, such as Oedipus, Thyestes, and eminent men from such families.
The well-made plot then, ought to be single rather than double, as some maintain, with a change not to prosperity from adversity, but on the contrary from prosperity to adversity, caused not by depravity but by a great error or a person neither like stated, or better rather than worse ...
So the finest tragedy of which the art permits follows this structure." (ch. 13)

- Tragic hamartia and Aristotle's theory of action: cf. Aristotle, EN V 8.1135b11-25 & III 1-3.

The rediscovery of Aristotle's Poetics in the Italian Renaissance and its consequences. The influence of the Poetics on European theories of tragedy based on its misunderstanding as the authoritative descriptive analysis and thus the key to the understanding of Greek tragedy and the ultimate Book of Rules for playwrights.