Aristotle's Concept of Catharsis

Aristotle's Concept of Catharsis

  • Submitted By: youzou
  • Date Submitted: 11/04/2013 10:12 PM
  • Category: Miscellaneous
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Aristotle's Concept of Catharsis

Human tragedy dominates the world every day because it is televised and printed in books and newspapers. Evil men and women kill innocent citizens for power, status and prestige making it challenging for peace to coexist alongside ambitions and hopes. In dramatic art, according to Aristotle, feeling emotions is imperative in order to empathize and sympathize with the downtrodden without power to control their fates and destinies. He calls it a cathartic process of letting out emotional feelings such as fear or pity to help in attaining the didactic goal of learning from other’s errors. This is exemplified in famous Greek tragedies such as Antigone and The Persians. Despite Aristotle’s call for human beings to profess emotions in the face of pain and suffering in understanding human nature as a didactic purpose to control evil, modernization continues to render individuals emotionless, resulting in poor cathartic skills of enjoying drama.

Catharsis, as a concept developed by Aristotle, entails the element of purification of emotions, particularly pity or fear, achieved through art. This concept always serves various didactic purposes of tragedy intended to evoke feelings as noted in the Ancient tragedies with emphasis on Antigone. In the famous Greek tragedy, The Persians, Aeschylus narrates the story of Xerxes and his invitation of the gods during his planned war against Greece. Located in Susa, Iran, the play begins with a chorus from old men together with Atossa, the Queen Mother. The concept of fear emanates from the graphic message and description rendered by a fatigued messenger to stunned people caught singing. Explaining the Battle of Salamis, the messenger laments at the death of Persian generals while beseeching everyone to act against the land of Greece. Notably, Atossa is not seriously moved by the tragic news that Persian generals are dead. Instead, she explains her dream sequence and later heads to the tomb of...

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