Provided by Dr Atal Kumar, Department of English, Gaya college, Gaya

Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy

The very word ‘tragedy’ brings to mind Aristotle and his ‘Poetics’. Tragedy is
considered by Aristotle to be the highest poetic form. His definition and theory of
tragedy presents remarkable insight and comprehension. Abercrombie opines that
it has become the type of the theory of literature.
It is necessary at the very outset, to remember that the Greek conception of
Tragedy was different from ours. In the modern age tragedy means a drama
(sometimes story) with an unhappy ending, and disastrous enough to have ‘tragic’
effect. But the origin of the term ‘tragedy’ is not too clear. Dante was of the view
that an unhappy tale was called a “tragedy” or “goat-song” because goats are
noisy. It is not certain whether the goat was a prize or whether it was sacrificed, or
whether the original dancers dressed up in goat-masks or goat-skins. However, the
Greek conception of tragedy was that it was a serious drama, not necessarily with
an unhappy ending. The essence of tragedy was that it handled serious action of
serious characters, whereas comedy dealt grotesquely with grotesque characters.
Aristotle traces the possible origin of tragedy in his Poetics. According to him,
tragedy developed from the heroic strain of poetry, which in its turn, developed
from the hymns sung in praise of gods and great men. Tragedy is considered by
Aristotle to be a higher form than the heroic or epic form of poetry, because it was
a later development. Tragedy has greater degree of concentration and coherence
than the epic, and has a greater effect. Aristotle describes the different stages in the
evolution of tragedy, from the single singer to the addition of actors and scenery.
He considers tragedy to have attained full development by the time he wrote about
it.Aristotle is of the opinion that
‘A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also as having
magnitude, complete in itself in language with pleasurable accessories,
each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic,
not in a narrative form: with incidents arousing pity and fear; wherewith
to accomplish its catharisis of such emotions’.
This definition clearly falls into two parts. The first part tells us about the nature of
tragedy, its object, manner, and medium of imitation; the second part points out the
function of tragedy.
Tragedy, like all other forms of art, is a form of imitation. It differs from other arts
in the object, manner, and medium of imitation. Its objects of imitation are ‘serious
actions’. It is always to be kept in mind that ‘imitation’ in the Aristotelian sense is
not slavish copying. It involves grasping and presenting the essence of a universal
truth. Poetic imitation is re-creation or a creative reproduction of objects. Tragedy,
then, differs from comedy, because its object of imitation is a serious action.
Comedy imitates a ‘groteseque’ action. The term ‘serious’ has aroused
controversy. Generally, critics have said that it implies ‘weighty’ or ‘important’. It
is something that matters, and hence of permanent significance.
In its manner of imitation, tragedy is different from the epic. The epic uses the
manner of narrative, while tragedy represents life through acting. It differs from
other forms of poetry in that it employs embellishments of pleasurable accessories
of different kinds. It uses, for instance, verse for dialogues, and song for the
chorus.
Aristotle does not define the word ‘action’. For convenience’s sake, it is evident
that an action shows the progress of an individual from one position to another, at
which he either dies, or becomes involved in a completely changed set of
circumstances. Action is the plot, consisting of the logical and inevitable sequence
of incidents. The action must be complete, which means that it must have a
beginning, middle and end “The beginning is that which does not itself come after
anything else in a necessary sequence, but after which some other thing does
naturally exists or come to pass.” In one sense, there is nothing that has a
beginning or an end. There is a continuous causal1 relationship between events.
What Aristotle means, however, is that a play should have good reason for
beginning where it does, and for. ending where it does. F.L. Lucas says that events
do tend to occur in clusters. A volcano, even when continuously active has
eruptions, which form episodes complete in themselves; and the events of a
tragedy are like such an eruption. T.R. Henn remarks that the beginning of an
action might be perceived to be “a sort of a momentary slack water before the turn
of the tide. At the opening of ‘Hamlet’ there is every indication that, if-it were not
for appearance of the Ghost, events in Denmark would have settled down into a
period of rest”. The end is that which naturally comes after something else, but has
nothing else following it. And a middle is that which follows something else, and
leads to something else. In every case, there is the clause of ‘inevitability’,
probability and ‘logicality’.
Besides being serious, the action must have a certain magnitude. It actually refers
to the size. A tragedy must of a correct length. It must not be so long that it cannot
be grasped in its entirety without confusion. Neither must it be so short that its
parts cannot be comprehended properly. Aristotle compares the tragic plot to a
living organism in order to bring out the importance of the correct size. The plot or
action should be of such a size that it allows human memory to encompass the
whole of it. It should, at the same time, be long enough to permit the orderly and
natural development in the change of fortune, leading to the catastrophe. The parts
and the whole should form a coherent, complete and intelligible pattern.
Furthermore, the action should be long enough for the characters to develop the
sympathy and interest of the spectator. This is specially so if the drama is about
characters who are not familiar, traditional figures. A certain amount of length is
necessary to create the impression of the plot-pattern being a complete and
‘inevitable’ story in which the events are logically and causally connected.
However, the length should be proportionate; the play should be an organic whole.
Aristotle means verse and song by the term, ‘embellishment’. Tragedy uses
different kinds of ‘embelishment’. Verse is used for the dialogues. Chorus speaks
in song. These add beauty and decor to tragedy, and their end is to please the
spectator or reader. Melody and Verse, however, are not indispensable or
absolutely essential parts of tragedy, according to Aristotle.
The most debated term in the Poetics perhaps, is ‘Catharisis’. Used only once in
the whole of the ‘Poetics’, the term has unfortunately been left unexplained. Critics
have been given scores of explanations— contradictory, controversial, and
confusing. In the main, interpretation of the term goes along three lines.
One set of critics have explained the term in the sense of ‘purgation’. Tragedy
arouses pity and fear through its painful and horrific incidents. The sight and
experience of these purge the human mind of such emotions, or rather, reduce such
emotions to a proper balance in the human psyche. There is the “homeopathic”
explanation of the ‘like curing the like’. It says that the excitement of tragedy
provides a safe outlet for our pent-up feelings, which we cannot express in actual
life. Plato has very aptly opined “When babies are restless, you do not prescribe
quiet for them; you sing to them and rock them to and fro”. The external agitation
overcomes the internal agitation, and leads to calm and peace.
Another set of critics interpret the term as ‘purification’. The emotions are purified
of their morbidity and distressing quality, which accompany them in real life. The
emotions are purified and reduced to their just measure.
The ‘clarification’ theory, of Catharsis relates the term to the structure of incidents
rather than to the emotional response of the audience. The tragedy by presenting an
integrated whole of incidents arousing pity and fear, brings about a clarification of
such events. It presents these incidents in such a way that the relation between the
particular and the universal is brought out. The poet takes his material and selects
and orders it according to probability and necessity. The incidents will be clarified
in the sense that their relation, in universal terms, will be manifest in the tragedy.
This leads to the pleasure peculiar to tragedy, and this pleasure comes out of the
representation of incidents of pity and fear.