ABSTRACT
Every undergraduate knows that scholars and literary critics have drowned in an ocean of ink the laconic remark that Tragedy ‘effects through pity and fear the catharsis of such emotions’. Aristotle seeks to defend Tragedy while retaining Plato’s criterion of justification. It does not need much argument to refute the view that Tragedy is intended to arouse emotions concerning oneself. Classical and romantic tragedians alike place their characters at a distance of time, place, and status, in order to produce an impersonal contemplation. Aristotle evidently sensed that his restricted form of pity was not enough; the appeal of Tragedy includes the evincing of a generous sympathy, which Aristotle could feel only when he was young. Oedipus Rex seems to have been Aristotle’s favourite Tragedy. There is no need now to criticize Hegel’s view of Tragedy, and unlike Aristotle he gets hisses from the fashionable first-nighters of the philosophical audience.
