The Theory of Catharsis by Aristotle

Assignment

Theory of Catharsis by Aristotle

Name: Tadha Vanita P.

Class: M.A.-1

Semester: 1

Roll No. : 31

Paper: 3[The Literary Theory and Criticism]

Topic:  The Theory of Catharsis by Aristotle

Submitted to: Department of English

Guided by: Dr Dilip Barad

Batch: 2014-16

Year: 2014-15

Theory of Catharsis by Aristotle

As the exact meaning and concept of Catharsis, there has been a lot of controversy among scholars and critics down the centuries. Therefore deserved separate treatment. Let us consider it in detail.

Definition of Catharsis

A Catharsis is an emotional and discharge through which one can achieve astute of moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a stases of libration from anxiety and stress. Catharsis is a Greece word and it means cleansing. In literature it is used for the cleansing of emotional of the characters. It can also be any other radical change that leads to emotional rejuvenation of a person.

John Morley has rightly said;

“The immense controversy carried on in books, pamphlets, sheets and flying article, mostly German, as to what is was that Aristotle really meant by the famous words in the sixth chapter of the poetics, about tragedy accomplishing the purification of our moods of pity and disgrace of the human intelligence, a grotesque of the monument of sterility”.

Function of Catharsis: Dramatic uses

In dramatic art the term Catharsis the impact of tragedy, comedy or any other form of art on the audience and in some cases even on the performer himself or herself.  Aristotle did not elaborate on the meaning of “Catharsis” and the way he used it in defining tragedy in the poetics.

According to G.F.Else, the conventional and the most prevalent explanation of Catharsis as “purgation” or “cleansing” does not have a basic in the poetics. It has rather stemmed from other non- Aristolian and Aristolian contexts. Such confusing regarding the origin of the term has led to assorted interpretation of its meaning.

“Pity, fear and Catharsis”, are the different shades of meaning and aspects inherent in the interpretation of the word.

The most common interpretation of the term purgation and purification, are still widely used. The most recent interpretation of the term Catharsis is “intellectual clarification”.

Aristotle’s Conception of tragic catharsis in poetics:-

1.   The term ‘Catharsis’ is a controversial term

The ‘Catharsis’ is used only once in the course of Aristotle’s in the fourth chapter. It has many different interpretations and controversial. The fact that Aristotle does not define or explain the term… perhaps, he did so in the second book of the poetics, which is lost. The term has been explained by critics in the light of it use in Aristotle’s other works, such as his Poetics and Ethics. It has also been noted that the term ‘Catharsis’ has three meaning

[1] “Purgation”

[2] “Purification” OR

[3] “Clarification”

Only one thing has been agreed upon - that tragedy should arouse pity and fear.

2. The place of Catharsis is the definition of Tragedy.

Tragedy then is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in the language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being Found in separate parts of the play in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation catharsis of these and similar emotions.

 3.   The place of pity and fear in Catharsis

The terms ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ are closely connected in Aristotelian theory. There are different types of fear. Fear can be centered on an individual, in the form of some vague feeling of insecurity and anxiety. It could possibly derive from a feeling for others, even for society or the state. Fear may also arise out of feelings of guilt in ourselves, when we see it portrayed in someome else.

Pity, we are told by Aristotle is occasioned by undeserved misfortune and fear by that of one like ourselves. In the Rhetoric, fear is defined as “a kind of pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some destructive or painful evils in the future”.

4.   ‘Catharsis’ taken as a Medical Term: purgation theory

In Medical terms purgation meant the partial removal of excess “humors”. The health of the body depended on a true balance of the humors. Thu purgation of the emotions, of pity and fear does not mean the removal of these emotions, but that the passion on emotions is reduced to a healthy, balanced proportion.

F.L.Lucas in his tragedy: Serious drama in relation to Aristotle’s poetics asks three pertinent questions, and answers very illuminatingly. The question is:

A] What was really Aristotle’s view?

B] How far is it true?

C] What let him to adopt it?

Let us consider the answers one by one.

1.   The meaning of Catharsis

According to F.L.Lucas

“First, there has been age-long controversy by about Aristotle’s meaning through it has almost always been accepted that whatever he meant was profoundly catharsis as  Purification’, ‘correction or refinement’, ‘Ringing’, or the like. It has been suggested’ in the theater by becoming disinterested’ timid, It is bad to be selfishly sentimental, timid, and querulous; but it is good to pity Othello or to fear for Hamlet. Our selfish emotion has been sublimated. All this is most edifying; but it does not appear to what Aristotle intended”.

Only specific kinds of fear are to be moderated. Aristotle does not seem to have in mind the fears of horrors on the stage which as Lucas suggest are “supposed to have made women miscarry with terror in the theater”, Aristotle specifically mentions ‘sympathetic fear for the characters’. “And by allowing free vent to this in the theater, men are to lessen in facing life therefore, their own fear of… the general dread of destiny.”

There are besides fear and pity the allied impulses which also are to be moderated. “Grief, weakness, contempt, blame - these I taken to be the story of thing that Aristotle meant by ‘feeling of that sort’.

2.   How far is Aristotle’s view of Catharsis true?

We may feel after witnessing a tragedy that certain tension in course of the hour’s traffic upon the stage are built up and relaxed. We may feel release when certain emotions are worked up in the mind and are rinsed out as it were at the end which is more or less positive by implication, for death or calamity is explained and accounted for as arising from certain avoidable weakness or miscalculation of the hero. This sort of relaxation or release after a prolonged lesion that is built up and maintained during the drama, through a welcome feeling, is not a purgation or moderation but fulfillment or satisfaction with the conclusion which is not only logical but also reasonable, which is not outrageously pessimistic but sadly positive and corrective of tragic error to the spectators. Certain moral ends of catharsis might be incidentally achieved. But it is not the chief end of tragedy.

F.L.Lucas observes:

“One could of course, argue that these good folks were instinctively craving a catharsis. But I should have thought they were suffering in their daily lives, not from excess of emotion, but from deficiency; that they wanted’ not to be ‘purge’, but to be fed - that they were hungry and thirsty for emotions that the dull round of their days denied.”

And again, he observes

“Aristotle stands in the position of a person arguing with a fanatical puritan about wine or dancing. The advocate of moderate indulgence is naturally driven to plead that wine is good medicinally and dancing as exercise; but, in fact, man do not usually drink wine as medicine, and only Socrates dances alone in his house for exercise.”

3.   What led Aristotle to adopt this theory?

“Poetry, said Plato, makes men cowardly by its picture of the afterworld. N, replies Aristotle, it can purge men’s fears. Poetry, said Plato, encourages men to be historical and uncontrolled. On the contrary, answers his pupil, it makes then less, not more, emotional by giving a periodic healthy outlet to their feelings. In short, Aristotle’s definition of tragedy is half a defense.”

But it is only half a defense. That is to say that the other half of the theory is possibly the result of a serious,  analytical inquiry of Aristotle’s in to the nature of tragic delight and its psychological effects. His catharsis forms the most important port of his concept of tragedy as a positive, not pessimistic, drama which leaves wholesome effect, not mere disturbance, in the minds of the spectators.

Catharsis established tragedy as a drama of balance. Sorrow alone would be ugly and repulsive. Beauty pure world be imaginative and mistrial. These together constitute what may be called tragic beauty

Pity alone would be sentimentality. Fear alone would make us cowards, But pity and fear, sympathy and terror together constitute the tragic feeling which is most delightful through it is tearfully delightful.

Such tragic beauty and tragic feeling which is evokes constitutes the aesthetic of balance as propounded for the first time by Aristotle in his theory of catharsis. Therefore, we feel, reverence which Aristotle has enjoyed through ages has not gone to him undeserved. His insight has rightly earned it.

Examples of Catharsis

A] “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare

This play presents a great example of catharsis. The audience and readers of Macbeth usually pity and tragic central figure of the play because he was blind by his destructive preoccupation with ambition.

In act 1he is made the thane of Cawdor by king Duncan, which makes him a prodigy, well-regarded for his valor and talent. However, the era of his doom starts when he like most people, gets carried away by ambition and the supernatural world as well. Subsequently, he loses his wife his veracity and eventually his life. The temptation of ambition robes him of the essence of his existence as a human being and leaves behind nothing but discontent and a worthless life. In act 5, Macbeth gathers this idea in his soliloquy. He says while speaking of his life.

“…a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing”

B]. “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare

“Here to my love! (Drinks) O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. (Falls)”

In “Romeo and Juliet”, Romeo commits suicide by drinking the poison that he erroneously thinks Juliet had tasted too. The audience usually finds themselves crying at this particular moment for several reasons Primarily because losing a loved  one is a feeling that all of us share. Watching or reading such a scene riggers the memories of someone we have lost (either by death or by mere separation) and because we are able tonrelate to it, we suddenly release the emotions that we have been repressing.

“…pity and fear, artificially stirred the latent pity and fear which we bring with us from real life.”

In the Neo-Classical era, catharsis was taken to be an allopathic treatment with the unlike curing unlike. The arousing of pity and fear was supposed to bring about the purgation or ‘evacuation’ of other emotions, like anger, pried etc. As Thomas Taylor holds;

“We learn from the terrible fates of evil men to avoid the vices they manifest.”

F.L.Lucas rejects the idea that catharsis is a medical metaphor, and says that:

“The theater is not a hospital.”

Both Lucas and Herbert regard it as a kind of safety valve. Pity and fear are aroused; we give free play to these emotions which is followed by emotional relief.

According to the purification’ theory catharsis implies that our emotions are reduced to intermediate state, trained and directed towards the right objects at the right time. The spectator learns the proper use of pity, fear and similar emotions by witnessing tragedy. Butcher writes.

“The tragic Catharsis involves not only the idea of emotional relief, but the further idea of purifying the emotions so relieved.”

Conclusion

Aristotle is a great critic, and what he said centuries ago will continue to influence thinking as it has done all this time. It is unfortunate that he has not explained some of the terms which seem so very significant to his central thesis. The term ‘catharsis’, for instance, has been interpreted so variously that it is difficult to come to an agreement as to what Aristotle really meant of the theories advanced to explain catharsis, the clarification theory appears to be the most acceptable, perhaps, for it tends to relate catharsis to the psychology of the audience. And, after all Aristotle was writing on the art of poetry. All the same, the last word on catharsis has not yet been said.