Pity, Fear, and the Power of Plot Within Aristotle’s Understanding of Tragedy and Drama
After reading Aristotle's Poetics, I discovered it was lost to common thought and academic spaces for some time before being restored in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Yet, even contemporaneously, Aristotle and his followers did not consider Poetics a work as they did Politics and Rhetoric. Instead, it was a collection of Aristotle’s talks on lessons imparted in The Lyceum.
Written on papyrus in two separate parts with the first handling poetic forms of Tragedy and Epic while the second focuses on Comedy (lost to us now), what matters to us now, is it's a quasi-dramatic form of art. By focusing solely on Tragedy (drama) and Epic (poetry), the terse, fragmented narrative style provides an intoxicating lesson into the depth and nuance of Aristotle’s thoughts on plot construction and emotional expression.
Poetics offers an insight into why we are drawn to dramatic representations. It is the imitation (mimesis) of something instinctive and pleasurable, even when involving painful or disturbing subjects. But, this is a paradox, surely? To enjoy sorrow. To take pleasure in suffering.
Or, is it simply irresistible to enjoy agony when it's presented artistically?
This is the heart of Aristotle’s exploration of tragedy.
So, how does he deduce an audience can be moved emotionally and psychologically well? Well, and excuse the repetition here, in Poetics, Aristotle categorises plots into simple (haplos) and complex (peplegmenos). For example, in Chapter 7, Aristotle emphasises structural unity as a clear beginning, middle, and end and unified time and action. All events should be connected, with each action being the necessary result of what came before. The plot is a complete and coherent action, not just a series of random events in a character’s life.
On the other hand, a complex plot provides peripeteia (reversal of fortune) and anagnorisis (recognition). Aristotle regards these as essential for an effective tragedy. In Chapter 10, he explains how this type produces the most significant emotional impact within readers.
Interesting to note is how terms necessary and probable appear throughout Poetics because they highlight the universal nature of poetry when it should show what could logically happen in a given scenario. Obviously, these words are translated from the original Attic dialect of Ancient Greek and so these are:
Necessary – ἀνάγκη (anánkē): by necessity or necessarily
Probable – εἰκός (eikós): the likely things
Aristotle constantly focuses on the logical order or coherence of plot in relation to readability and audience comprehension. One key element in both plot types is a change of fortune, usually from good to bad, especially in tragedies. It is ἀνάγκη and εἰκός. However, Aristotle also praises those plots where disaster is averted through recognition. This shift in fortune typically unfolds through a complication (desis) and resolution (lusis).
In Chapter 11, Aristotle defines a complex plot as one in which the change in fortune is accompanied by either a reversal (peripeteia), a recognition (anagnorisis), or both. For Aristotle, peripeteia is a reversal of intention, whereby a character has a goal but achieves the opposite due to misunderstanding.
One famous example he puts forth is from Oedipus Rex, when the messenger arrives to free Oedipus of his fear about marrying his mother but ends up revealing his true identity instead. The reversal and recognition are tightly interwoven.
British literary critic, Frank Kermode provides some insight into this narrative device, calling peripeteia a disconfirmation followed by a consonance. This is challenging to our expectations of tragedy and what to expect because, naturally, we seek resolvement through in a meaningful, though unexpected, way. Thereby, the reversal contributes to the pleasure of surprise or wonder (thaumaston), which Aristotle sees as central to tragedy.
So, this thaumaston is therefore linked to recognition. On an emotional level and as deduced in Chapter 11 of Poetics, characters must undergo a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing either friendship or some enmity. Quite rightly, Aristotle praises such recognitions as natural arisons. The events themselves are as ἀνάγκη and εἰκός as the reactions and transformations of the plot. For example, Oedipus’ realisation of his true parentage, over those that rely on tokens or external contrivances.
Recognition isn’t just regarding characters' experience, but also how it resonates with the audience. When a tragic plot surprises a reader through peripeteia and thaumaston, our responses are intense and reactive. We are gripped by the surprise, yet also comforted by the familiarity that it was bound to occur, even if it is the pity and fear central to the tragic experience.
Moving forward, in Chapter 13, Aristotle addresses the kind of character most effective in evoking pity and fear. The ideal tragic hero is neither wholly good nor evil, but familiar. They are like us. And, like us, they fall into misfortune through familiar error (hamartia). When this occurs, the character evokes pity because their suffering is undeserved, yet so resonating that we want to protect them from the future of their narrative. Because their future is our future. We see ourselves reflected in the character’s tragedy, in their vulnerability.
However, what is most intriguing is put forth in Chapter 14. Aristotle explains that the best tragedies evoke these emotions not through spectacle but through the structure of the plot itself. He critiques plays where emotions are solely gruesome visuals like mutilation and torture. Yet, he admires plays like Oedipus Rex, in which terror arises through unfolding action.
In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defines such terror and fear as painful emotions. When experiencing such emotions in a narrative, we are brought to catharsis (perhaps the most debated term in the entirety of Poetics). While traditionally interpreted as a form of emotional purging, some scholars see it as emotional clarification or moral education. The emotional balance reached through catharsis may be compared to Aristotle's concept of the mean in Nicomachean Ethics, where virtue lies in moderating extremes of feeling.
We can read in Politics how Aristotle returns to catharsis in the context of music and education. He suggests that emotional release can serve a therapeutic purpose, helping people to process powerful feelings in a safe and aesthetic context. This same idea underlies the power of tragedy and plotting a narrative through this lens.
One enduring example I am always drawn to is Medea by Euripides. While it predates Aristotle, it is so enlightening to read how its narrative progression fits many of his prescriptions. And so Medea murdering her children as an infliction of revenge upon her husband for marrying the princess of Corinth, and then fleeing and abandoning their corpses in would've been shocking and morally reprehensible act of infanticide in Greek society, particularly for a mother and so the horror and terror evoked here...
Well, we are also forced to wrestle wth her logic and pain. Those experiencing the play would've recognised her ruin and agony, resonated with elements of her rage and betrayal. Even now, we do. So, our shock is catharsised from shock to tragic understanding of passion transformed.
So, why do we, as an audience, continue to watch the narrative unfold? As Chapter 17Â explains, effective plots need to be constructed in such a way where the audience foresees the likely outcome yet is still moved by its inevitability. In Medea, we watch her vengeance unfold and we dread its arrival. Yet, we continue to view her and we continue to remain powerless to stop her.
Are we not prisoners to our own catharsis? Are we not shackled by need for emotional release. It's almost pleasurable. How sweet pain is.
Still, catharsis isn’t the only source of pleasure in tragedy. In Chapter 4, Aristotle distinguishes between the emotional satisfaction of poetry and its intellectual pleasure. Our joy actually comes from recognising patterns, moral insights, and truths through imitation. This is called a philosophical delight, whereby it is a reflective pleasure rooted in understanding rather than just expectation.
To conclude, and as expected of my conclusion and as I imitate a thousand other writers before me, I return to Aristotle. The ribs of tragedy are the pleasure evoked from pity and fear, and the beating heart of all this is imitation. Our emotional response is heightened through a complex plot, despite unexpected turns, reversals, and recognitions, and compelling action.
We take pleasure in the familiarity of tragedy.
