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Tragedy: Imitation of An Action That Is Serious and Also, As Having Magnitude

The document discusses Aristotle's definition of tragedy and its key elements. Tragedy imitates a serious action that elicits pity and fear and results in catharsis. The most important element is plot, which involves a change in fortune from happiness to misery. Other key elements are character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle.

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Haris Sultan
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154 views3 pages

Tragedy: Imitation of An Action That Is Serious and Also, As Having Magnitude

The document discusses Aristotle's definition of tragedy and its key elements. Tragedy imitates a serious action that elicits pity and fear and results in catharsis. The most important element is plot, which involves a change in fortune from happiness to misery. Other key elements are character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle.

Uploaded by

Haris Sultan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Tragedy

“A TRAGEDY IS THE IMITATION OF AN ACTION THAT IS SERIOUS AND DALSO, HAVING


MAGNITUDE, COMPLETE IN ITSELF IN AN APPROPRIATE AND PLEASURABLE
LANGUAGE IN A DRAMATIC RATHER THAN NARRATIVE FORM, WITH INCIDENTS
AROUSING PITY AND FEAR WHEREAS WITH TO ACCOMPLISH A CATHARSIS OF THESE
EMOTIONS.”
Let’s discuss this definition in detail.

 Imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude,


complete in itself:
This means that a good tragedy deals with one issue that is very “serious”. You can’t have a tragedy about
trivial like breaking a fingernail.
“Magnitude”, here means great importance. The issue has to be serious and most important. That’s why a
lot of tragedies deals with someone’s death.
Complete in itself means that the play must stick to one issue, otherwise, the audience will get lost in the
plot.

 In appropriate and pleasurable language:


Ancient Greek tragedy had a chorus whose role was to comment on the action of the play. The chorus
sometimes sang their part. Aristotle said that language should be easy to listen to, it should have rhythm
and also good harmony for the lines that were sung.

 In dramatic rather than in narrative form:


To narrate a story is simply to tell the story, like telling a friend what happened over the weekend. In a
play, the story must be dramatized or acted out.

 With incidents arousing pity and fear:


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 audience should also feel afraid for the hero as he moves towards a
destructive end.

 Wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions:


As the play moves along, the events should build up the emotions of pity and fear. A catharsis is a
purging, or cleansing of the emotion – a release of tension. In a tragedy, this is often a moment of
revelation when the tragic hero “falls flat on his face” and the audience can finally explode.
Aristotle’s elements of Tragedy
Aristotle said that tragedy has six main elements:
1. Plot
2. Character
3. Thought
4. Diction
5. Melody
6. Spectacle
These will be described from least important to most important.

 Thought:
Thought is the power of saying whatever can be said and should be said at each moment of the plot. Do
the lines spoken by the actors make sense? Are they saying what should be said at each particular moment
in play?

 Diction:
Diction is the actual composition of the lines that are recited. Thought deals with what is said and diction
deals with how it is said. There are many ways to say something. A good playwright composes lines that
say something extremely well. In a good play, some lines are so well constructed that the audience can
leave the play quoting the lines exactly.

 Melody and spectacle:


These both are accessories. The Greeks sometimes used musical accompaniment. Aristotle said the music
(melody) has to blend in with the play appropriately. Spectacle refers to the staging of the play. Again, as
with melody the spectacle should be appropriate to the theme of the play.

 Character:
Second most important element is character. Character has a special quality which reveals in the plot.
Moral purpose of character should be clear. Character should have four qualities.
o No matter who they are, they must be good in some way
o Should act appropriately for their gender and station in life.
o Should have believable personalities
o Should act consistently throughout the play. Nothing could be seen as “acting out of
character.”
 Plot:
It is the most important part of a tragedy. Here is a saying of Aristotle about plot in a tragedy:
“All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of
activity, not a quality. Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actions—what we do—what we are,
happy or miserable—a tragedy impossible without action, but there may be one without Character.”
1. There must be unity of plot.
2. A good plot has “Peripety” or “Discovery” and sometimes both.
Peripety
It is the change from one state of thing at the beginning of the play to the exact opposite state by the end
of the play. This could be something like the change from being rich to being poor, or from being a ruler
to being a beggar. The change that takes place in a tragedy should take the main character from the state
of happiness to the state of misery.
Discovery
It is a change from ignorance to knowledge. This often happens to the tragic hero who starts out
“clueless” and slowly learns how he himself created the mess he ends up at the end of play.

3. Change by itself is not enough. Character should have some characteristics to arouse the emotions
of pity and fear. Therefore, Aristotle said that there are 3 forms of plot that should be avoided.

 A totally good man must not pass from happiness to misery. This will make
audience angry. They will not feel pity for him.
 A bad man must not pass from misery to happiness. This will now appeal to the
audience at all.
 A bad man must or you can say can’t pass from happiness to misery. Audience
will not feel sorry for him.

“The true tragic hero cannot be too good or too bad, but he must end up in misery.”

4. The plot of tragedy also involves some horrible or evil deeds. The tragic hero either does it
consciously, does it in out of ignorance or mediates it. For the audience to be horrified by the evil
deeds, the evil has to be done to someone important to the tragic hero. If the hero kills his enemy,
the deed won’t seem so bad. On the other hand, if the hero kills someone he doesn’t care about,
the audience won’t care much either. To make it really horrible for the audience, Aristotle
suggested that the evil deed should be done to a family member.

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