Catharsis is Aristotle's term for the effect of tragedy, usually understood as a purgation, clarification, or release of the emotions of pity and fear aroused in the audience by the tragic action.

Hamartia is the tragic protagonist's error or flaw—often a mistake in judgment rather than a moral vice—that precipitates the reversal of fortune central to tragedy.

Tragedy and Comedy

Tragedy and comedy are the two foundational dramatic genres, and their theory addresses what makes an action tragic or comic, the emotions they arouse, and how each has been reimagined across history.

Definition

The study of the dramatic genres of tragedy and comedy, their defining features, emotional effects, and historical transformations.

Scope

This topic examines the theory and criticism of tragedy and comedy: Aristotle's account of tragic plot, hamartia, and catharsis; theories of the tragic from Hegel and Nietzsche to modern critics; the nature of the comic, laughter, and the social function of comedy from Aristophanes and the New Comedy onward; and debates over whether tragedy remains possible in the modern world. It treats both genres as evolving forms rather than fixed essences.

Core questions

What makes a dramatic action tragic, and what is catharsis?
What produces the comic, and why do we laugh?
How have conceptions of tragedy and comedy changed historically?
Is tragedy still possible in a modern, secular world?

Key concepts

catharsis
hamartia
the tragic hero
the comic and laughter
New Comedy
tragicomedy

Key theories

Tragic catharsis and hamartia: Aristotle's account of tragedy as the imitation of a serious action that, through pity and fear, accomplishes a catharsis of these emotions, with the protagonist's fall arising from hamartia.
The comic as the mechanical encrusted on the living: Henri Bergson's theory that laughter arises when human behavior becomes rigid and automatic, functioning as a social corrective against inelasticity.

History

Theories of tragedy and comedy descend from Aristotle's analysis of Greek drama, are reworked by German idealist and Romantic thinkers such as Hegel, Schelling, and Nietzsche, and continue in modern criticism that asks whether tragedy survives modernity; comic theory likewise runs from antiquity through Renaissance and Enlightenment accounts to modern theories of laughter and the social functions of comedy.

Debates

The death of tragedy thesis: Critics debate George Steiner's claim that authentic tragedy depends on a shared metaphysical order and so cannot survive in the modern secular world, against Raymond Williams's view that modern social life sustains its own forms of tragedy.

Key figures

Aristotle
Henri Bergson
Raymond Williams
George Steiner

Seminal works

aristotlepoetics
williams1966
steiner1961

Frequently asked questions

What is catharsis?: Catharsis is Aristotle's term for the effect of tragedy, usually understood as a purgation, clarification, or release of the emotions of pity and fear aroused in the audience by the tragic action.
What is hamartia?: Hamartia is the tragic protagonist's error or flaw—often a mistake in judgment rather than a moral vice—that precipitates the reversal of fortune central to tragedy.