Classical Notes on Tragedy

From Aristotle's Poetics

• Aristotles dates:  c. 347-322 B.C.E
• People are imitative.  Through imitation, people learn lessons.  Through imitation, people derive pleasure, even if the object imitated is painful in reality.  The reason for this is that learning gives pleasure.  Therefore, in contemplating an imitation, one gest pleasure because one learns.
• Epic, tragedy, comedy, and dithyrambic poetry are all forms of imitation.  They imitate people in action.
• Tragedy and comedy are dramatic forms.  Tragedy depicts people better as than they are; comedy depicts people as worse than they are.
• Origins of the word "comedy"--
• Greek words for revel, villages/villagers, and the act of wandering from village to village (as did early actors)
• Origins of the word "tragedy"--
• "tragos"--goat
• The poet's function is to relate, not what has happened (history), but what can happen (poetry)--what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.  It is okay for the poet to alter events to the probable or possible.  By altering actual events, the poet can get at what is generally true, rather than what is particularly true (facts).  Poetry (to Aristotle) is therefore superior to History.  (Plato disagrees with Aristotle.)
• A tragedy relates an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude and  in embellished language.
• Tragedy is an imitation of an action and a life--but not about a representation of character, which is secondary to the action.  The incidents and plot are more important than the characters.  Tragedy is an object of beauty (an aesthetic object).
• A tragedy has several different parts
• Plot is the term used to describe how events are ordered.  Usually, plots are not arranged chronologically, in the order events occur (referred to by Aristotle as a complex plot).  All plots have a purposeful beginning, middle, end, a complication (the action leading to the turning point), and an unravelling (denouement--the action after the turning point) of the action.  In addition, complex plots have a reversal of the tragic hero's fortunes. The worst plots are episodic.
• A perfect tragedy must have a complex plot.  It is about a virtuous man who suffers a change of fortune from good to bad.  The best ones are about a tragic hero who has suffered or done something terrible.
• Tragedy evokes pity and fear, which combined produce an effect on the audience that purges their emotions (called catharsis).  Although fear and pity may arise from spectacular means, it is better if they come from the inner structure of the plot.
• Parts of the play:  Prologue (opening), episode (everything between choric songs), exode (the last part of the play that is not followed by a choric song), and the choric song.
• The tragic hero moves through a plot, which reveals choices.