Poetics: Aristotle's views on tragic pity and fear

While defining Tragedy, Aristotle says, “ Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, in the 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 emotions”.

Catharsis is the purification and purgation of emotions—particularly pity and fear—through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. It is a metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics, comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of a spectator to the effect of a cathartic on the body. In order for plot to function, it not only needs the basic concepts, but the following components as well: astonishment, reversal, recognition, and suffering.

       Astonishment, according to Aristotle, refers to a tragedy's ability to inspire 'pity and fear. Both pity and fear are elicited from an audience when the events come by surprise, but not by chance. The surprise that drives the tragedy must feel like it is part of a grander design.
       Reversal is the change by which the main action of the story comes in full-circle. For example, in Oedipus, the messenger who comes to free Oedipus from his fears of his mother produces the opposite effect with his news.
        Recognition is the change from ignorance to knowledge, usually involving people coming to understand the identities of one another or discovering whether a person 'has done a thing or not'. The best forms of recognition are linked with a reversal and, in tandem, will produce pity and fear from the audience.
      Suffering is a destructive or painful action, which is often the result of a reversal or recognition. Aristotle points out that a 'simple' plot omits a reversal or recognition, but a 'complex plot has one or the other - or both, if it is truly transcendent. All tragedies, however, depend on suffering as part of its attempt to elicit pity and fear from the audience.

       The feelings of pity and fear, according to Aristotle, are the distinctive mark of tragic imitation. It therefore follows that the change of fortune in tragedy must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man falling from prosperity to adversity because this kind of thing would merely shock us and would excite neither pity nor fear. Similarly, a bad man must not be shown in tragedy as passing from adversity to prosperity because this sort of thing would be absolutely alien to the spirit of tragedy.