Classical Tragedy

Tragedy is a dramatic genre that normally involves death. It

originated in ancient Greece. Classic tragedies focus on one time, one
setting and one story, in which one royal or powerful character loses.
Examples of the earliest Classical tragedies:

The Persians, Seven against Thebes, The Suppliants, Agamemnon, The

Libation Bearers and The Eumenides - Aeschylus (c. 525 - c. 456 BCE)
Antigone, Oedipus the King and The Women of Trchis - Sophocles (c. 496406 BCE)
Medea, Hippolytus and The Bacchae - Euripides (c. 484-407 BCE)

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher who studied under the Philosopher
Plato and was a tutor to Alexander the great.
Aristotle wrote his study on tragedy, Poetics, in 335 BCE.
He believed that the aim of tragedy is to bring about a "catharsis" of
the spectators to arouse in them sensations of pity and fear, and to
purge them of these emotions so that they leave the theatre feeling
cleansed and uplifted, with a heightened understanding of the ways
of gods and men.
According to Aristotle, tragedy has six main elements:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Plot
Character
Diction
Reasoning
Spectacle
Lyric poetry

He says that the plot have a definite beginning, middle, and end, its
length should be suitable so that the spectators can understand it as
a whole and as separate parts easily. The plot should have a single
central theme in which all the elements are logically related to
demonstrate the change in the protagonist's fortunes, with emphasis
on the dramatic causation and probability of the events.
Aristotle believed that because the aim of a tragedy is to arouse pity
and fear through an alteration in the main character (the tragic hero)
, he must be a figure who the audience can identify and whose fate
can trigger these emotions. This hero should not offend the

Hamartia
Tragic flaw
Hubris
Peripeteia
Recognition

Catharsis

(Greek for "error.") An offense

committed in ignorance of some
material fact; a great mistake made
as a result of an error by a morally
good person.
A fatal weakness or moral flaw in the
protagonist that brings him or her to a
bad end. Sometimes offered as an
alternative understanding of hamartia,
in contrast to the idea that the tragic
hero's catastrophe is caused by an
error in judgment.

Overweening pride, outrageous

behaviour, or the insolence that
leads to ruin, the antithesis of
moderation or rectitude.
Peripeteia (Anglicized as peripety;
Greek for "sudden change.") A reversal
of fortune, a sudden change of
circumstance affecting the protagonist.
According to Aristotle, the play's
peripety occurs when a certain result is
expected and instead its opposite
effect is produced. In a tragedy, the
reversal takes the protagonist from
good fortune to catastrophe.

In tragic plotting, the moment of

recognition occurs when
ignorance gives way to
knowledge, illusion to disillusion.
(Often translated from Greek as
purgation or purification.) the feeling of
emotional release or calm the
spectator feels at the end of tragedy.
The term is drawn from Aristotle's
definition of tragedy, relating to the
final cause or purpose of tragic art.
Some feel that through catharsis,
drama taught the audience
compassion for the vulnerabilities of
others and schooled it in justice and
other civic virtues.