In his Poetics, Aristotle outlined the ingredients necessary for a good tragedy, and he based his formula on what he considered to be the perfect tragedy, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story that is complete in itself. A good tragedy will evoke pity and fear in its viewers, causing the viewers to experience a feeling of catharsis. Catharsis, in Greek, means "purgation" or "purification"; running through the gamut
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Oedipus. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays approximately 100 years before Aristotle even defined a tragedy and the tragic hero. Aristotle’s definition of a tragedy is “… an imitation of an action of high importance, complete and of some amplitude; in language enhanced by distinct and varying beauties; acted not narrated; by means of pity and fear effecting its purgation of these emotions” (Kennedy and Gioa 2010). According to Aristotle there were six elements to a tragedy: the plot, the character, the
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Types of Drama Tragedy- a play written in a serious, sometimes impressive or elevated style, in which things go wrong and cannot be set right except at great cost or sacrifice. Aristotle said that tragedy should purge our emotions by evoking pity and fear (or compassion and awe) in us, the spectators. The tragic pattern: 1. a theme of fatal passion (excluding love) as a primary motive 2. an outstanding personality as center of conflict (classical tragedy demanded a “noble” character)
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In “Sailing to Byzantium” an old man faces the problem of old age, of death, and of regeneration, and gives his decision. Old age, he tells us, excludes a man from the sensual joys of youth; the world appears to belong completely to the young, it is no place for the old; indeed, an old man is scarcely a man at all—he is an empty artifice, an effigy merely, of a man; he is a tattered coat upon a stick. This would be very bad, except that the young also are excluded from something; rapt in their sensuality
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Types of Drama Tragedy- a play written in a serious, sometimes impressive or elevated style, in which things go wrong and cannot be set right except at great cost or sacrifice. Aristotle said that tragedy should purge our emotions by evoking pity and fear (or compassion and awe) in us, the spectators. The tragic pattern: 1. a theme of fatal passion (excluding love) as a primary motive 2. an outstanding personality as center of conflict (classical tragedy demanded a “noble” character)
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Sophocles' Oedipus is a perfect fit to Aristotle's Ideal Tragic Hero. Oedipus follows all of the rules, with a hamartia, an anagnorisis, and a peripeteia. The audience is introduced to the hamartia, or tragic flaw, of Oedipus early in the play. Oedipus believes he can dodge the oracle given to him at Delphi that he will kill his father and marry his mother. By leaving the city of Corinth and heading to Thebes, Oedipus thinks that he can outsmart the will that the gods have for him. However, the audience
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Comedy Author name University The contrast between Inferno and Purgatory First circle was Limbo. There were unbaptized and virtuous non-Christians, many wise and well-known people such as Homer, Horace, Avicenna, Cicero, Hippocrates, Socrates, Aristotle and others. In the second circle (Lust) were people, who took possession of lust. Here Dante saw Cleopatra, Semiramis, Dido, Helen of Troy. A strong wind threw their souls back and forth without a pause. The third circle (Gluttony) was for gluttons
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spark for the Persian Wars. Meanwhile, Thucydides, who lived from about 460 B.C. to 401 B.C., studied the Peloponnesian War, in which Athens, a force with growing strength, was pit against Sparta. Philosophical\3 Philosophers- Socrates, Plato, Aristotle - During the Gold Age of Greece, there was the rise of philosophers and writers. And, as known in traditional customs, Socrates (469 - 399 B.C.), a philosopher, questioned a boy on whether or not he often was thinking. The boy replied that he did
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Introduction Now god made only one real couch, whether because he so chose, or because he was under some necessity not to make more than one couch in nature. But two or more such couches never were produced by god, and never will be. --- Plato, 1965, 42
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The Glory that was Greece | |A |B |C |D |E | |1 |officially named the Hellenic |Greek messenger to the gods |founder of the Academy in |literary form that is the |tragedian who wrote Oedipus | | |Republic |Hermes |Athens |crowning glory of Athenian Age|the King and Antigone
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