Elucidate Aristotle's definition of Tragedy

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University Bhavnagar

Smt. S. B. Guardy Department of English

Topic: Elucidate Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy

Paper: 3: Literary Theory and Criticism

Written by: Poojaba G. Jadeja

Roll No.: 25

Year: 2013, Semester: 1^st

‘’Elucidate Aristotle’s definition of tragedy’’

                           To know something about Aristotle, we must know about Plato whose disciple he was.

Plato

              Plato was the first systemic critic, great poet, and philosopher.  He inquired into the nature of imaginative literature and put forward theories which are both illuminating and provocative. He was the most distinguished disciple of Socrates. He belonged an age of inquiry the 4^th century B.C. His great works are in form of Dialogues. Not in any single book but lie scattered in seven  of his dialogues more particularly in ‘THE ION’, ‘THE SYMPOSIUM’, ‘THE REPUBLIC’, ‘THE LAWS’.

                              Aristotle was his disciple. Now, we see some information about Aristotle.

Aristotle:

                                Aristotle, one of the greatest students, was born in 384 B.C. His father was a Physician to the king of Macedonia. He seemed to adopted and developed platonic ideas and expressed them in dialogue form. Alexander - the great is Aristotle’s disciple. He also opened academy in Athens. Because of some reasons, presidency of that academy not given to Aristotle. In 323 B.C., Alexander died and in Macedonia hegemony seethed and riots broke out. Aristotle was accused of impiety, and his life become in serious jeopardy. He left Athens and went to his mother estate where he died in 323B.C.

                      Aristotle is known for his critical works, ‘The Poetics’ and ‘The Rhetoric’. He was honoured as a law-giver and legislator. His critical theories remain largely relevant, and for this, he certainly deserves our admiration and esteem. Thus Aristotle was a great philosopher, scholar, critic, logician, who critics like to evaluate even today.

Poetics:

                  ‘The Poetics’ is Aristotle’s significant work. It is not merely commentary or judgement on the poetics art. Its conclusion is firmly rooted in the Greek literature and is actually illustrated from it. Aristotle was a codifier; he derived and discussed the principles of literature as manifest in the plays and poetry existing in his own day.

                    In ‘The poetics’, Aristotle gives comments on Plato’s views of poetry. He replied the changes of Plato against poetry, wherein he partly agrees and partly disagrees with his teacher.   

                 Aristotle classifies various art forms like tragedy, comedy, epic, poetry. He also differentiates these forms. His theory of imitation according to its object, medium and manner is very real and worthy to study.

                   But his main concern appears to be tragedy, which in his day was considered to be the most developed form of poetry.

Aristotle’s ‘tragedy’:

                     Aristotle’s ‘poetics’ is studied for his views, ideas, criticism on ‘Tragedy’ still today.

                     A philosopher looks for ideal forms of and tries to explain the nature of reality. The search for ideal forms of led Aristotle to explore many subjects. His analysis of the ideal forms of tragedy plays became a guideline for later play wrights in western civilization. For centuries, European playwrights in like Shakespeare tried to write play that would match the ideals of Aristotle’s model. The Greeks believed that tragedy was the highest form of drama and Aristotle’s ideas about tragedy were based on this belief. 

Aristotle defines nature and function of tragedy. He also elucidate, explain the meaning, the definition of the tragedy he gives the theory of catharsis; psychological truth, different parts of tragedy.

Definition of ‘Tragedy’:

                    Now we are going to see definition of ‘Tragedy’ given by Aristotle,

                   “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation-catharsis of these and similar kind of emotion.” 

                  This is the definition of tragedy, given by Aristotle. Every word has multiple meaning and its own definition. So, we must elucidate every word of this definition. In easy language we can explain that, ‘tragedy is the imitation of an serious action, having certain magnitude, complete in itself, in appropriate and pleasurable language in dramatic rather than narrative form with incidents arousing pity and fear, where with to accomplish catharsis of these emotions.’

Explanation:

                  We can explain the definition with parted it in small sentences.

“An imitation of an action”

                All art is representation of life. Imitation is twice removed from reality and illusion of truth but there is natural pleasure in imitation which is in-born instinct in men. So, every art is imitation of life but none can represent life in its totality. Therefore, an artist has to be selective in representation. He must aim at representing an aspect of life or a fragment of life.

                 Action comprises of all human activities including deeds, thoughts, and feelings. Tragedy is the imitation of an action, which means human behaviour, deed shown in tragedy. An action implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of character and thought from which the action springs and on action all success and failure depends. Here, Aristotle says, plot is the imitation of an action.

                 There is a 3 style of imitation object, which object is imitated, medium, what sort of medium is used to imitate – music, word ..., then manner, in what manner is imitation of life- action or narration.

                Tragedy is imitation of action, it is an imitation not of men but of an action of life, and life consists in action, and its end is mode of action, not of a quality. Character determines men’s quality. But it is by their action that they are happy or sad. Thought and character both are important for imitation of an action. For it is by these that we qualify actions themselves, and thought and character are depended upon plot. Plot – Aristotle calls it imitation of an action – is arrangement of the incidents.

                    That’s way tragedy is imitation of an action which shown by characters with the help of plot.

  “...that is serious, complete...”

                     The writer of tragedy seeks to imitate the serious side of life just as writer of comedy seeks to imitate only the shallow and superficial side.

                      That means that a good tragedy deals with one issue that is very “serious”. We cannot have tragedy about something trivial like breaking a fingernail. The issue has to be very serious and very important. That’s why a lot of tragedies deal with someone’s death.

                       ‘Complete’ in itself, means that the play must stick to the one issue; otherwise the audience will get lost in the plot. The tragic section presented on the stage in a drama should be complete or self contained with beginning, middle, and an end, which is called ‘completeness’.

                       A beginning is that before which the audience or the reader does not need to be told anything to understand the story. If something more is required to understand the story than the beginning gives, it is unsatisfactory.   

                       From beginning follows the middle. In their turn the events from the middle lead to the end. Thus the story becomes a compact & self sufficient one. It must not leave the impression that even after the end the action continues or that before the action starts certain things remain to be known. It must have close knit unit with nothing that is superfluous or unnecessary. Every episode, every character and a dialogue in the play must carry step by step the action that is set into motion to its logical denouement. It must give the impression of wholeness at the end. Unities of time, place and action also give perfection to completeness. Any events or episodes must be necessary to main issue and also must be probable or believable, possible. Beginning middle downfall, peripetia, climax, all these things make good plot which brings completeness in drama or tragedy.

“...And of a certain magnitude...” 

                      The play must have, a definite magnitude, a proper size or a reasonable length such as the mind may comprehend fully. The play must in certain length, not too long like epic or not too short like short stories. That is to say that it must have only necessary duration, not longer than about three hours, or shorter than that.

                     If the play is long, it may tire audience’s patience and shorter one cannot make effective presentation. If the play is short, audience may not feel catharsis without involving the atmosphere of the play because shorter play cannot express the whole story beautifully. Besides, a drama continuing for hours indefinitely may fail to keep the various parts of it together into unity and wholeness in the spectator’s mind.

                       The play with certain magnitude helps the spectator to view the drama as a whole, to remember its various episodes and to maintain interest.        

“...In the language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament;”

                     By ‘language embellished’, Aristotle means that language into which rhythm, ‘harmony’ and song enter. Ancient Greek tragedy had a chorus whose role was to comment on the action of the play. The chorus sometimes sang their part. It should have good rhythm and harmony for the lines that were sung.

                   The language employed, should be duly embellished and beautified with various artistic ornaments like rhythm, harmony, song and figures of speech. The language of our daily affairs is not useful here because tragedy has to present a heightened picture of life’s serious side, and that is possible only if elevated language of poetry is used. According to need, the writer makes use of songs, poetry, poetic dialogues, simple conversation etc. in various parts of tragedy.

                   Ornamental language beautifies the play, gives it poetic touch and pleasure to spectator.

“The several kinds being found in separate parts of the play, in the form of action, not of narrative...”

                     By ‘the several kinds in separate parts’, Aristotle means that some parts are rendered through the medium of verse alone, others again with the aid of song.

                    Play’s manner, as we saw earlier, of imitation should be action not narration- as in epic. For it is meant to be dramatic representation not a mere story – telling. In the play the story must be acted or performed. The form is in dialogues but not in narration.

“Through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation – catharsis of these similar emotions.”

                 Main aim of the tragedy is to shake up in the soul the impulses of pity and fear, to achieve catharsis. The emotions of pity and fear find a full and free out – let in tragedy. Their excess is purged and we are lifted out of our self and emerged nobler than before.

                 In a tragedy, the events or episodes in the play should lead the audience to feel very sorry for the main character – the tragic hero, the protagonist. The audience should feel afraid for the tragic hero as he moves toward a destructive end. As play moves along, the events build up the emotions of pity and fear, and audience may feel relief for doing purgation of these emotions.

                 ‘Catharsis’ is the aim of tragedy. Aristotle gives this concept of purification of mind. Catharsis means purgation, correction, purification or refinement. After seeing tragedy we can feel relief from tension. We purified our mind from emotions which generally we cannot express in our daily life like pity and fear. Thus, tragedy is the way where we can feel catharsis, we can express our emotions, we can feel free from our emotions, and we can purify our mind and feel relief.

Conclusion:

                   Aristotle’s definition of tragedy is very relevant even today. And his theory of catharsis is also very real. Aristotle’s all theories are worthy to remember, and it also helps students for better understanding. Each word of definition of tragedy can become separate essay itself and with this definition we can see how genius Aristotle was!

                   That is the way; we can elucidate Aristotle’s definition of tragedy. And we can study thoroughly about his views on tragedy and its important parts. But Aristotle’s this definition of tragedy can very well defines it and enough to know tragedy and its style and its important rules to become tragedy.