The Concept of Tragedy

Aristotle, in the Poetics, speaks of the tragic hero as a man evoking ‘Pity and fear’ in us. The suffering of a man of noble family, says he, would excite pity in us by presenting an uncommon sight. The tragic hero, therefore, ought to be “highly renowned and prosperous like Oedipus, Thysestes, or other illustrious men of such families”. He is a man of high rank belonging essentially to an upper class family. His fall from ‘prosperity to adversity’ is the proper material for tragedy. Ae such, no man of ordinary rank progressing from adversity to prosperity, according to Aristotle, is fit to be tragic hero, for he will evoke no pity in us.

The tragic hero, Aristotle believes, is a legendary figure like Hercules or Prometheus who embodies ‘manly valour’. It is the suffering of a valiant man that fills us with pity. Aristotle feels that “valour in a woman or unscrupulous cleverness is inappropriate” he does not think, therefore, that a woman may be a tragic heroine.

Aristotle also believes that the spectacle of an absolutely virtuous man brought from ‘prosperity to adversity’ would neither move pity nor fear; it would merely shock us. “Nor, again, that of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity; for nothing can be more alien to the spirit of tragedy, it possesses no single tragic quality, it neither satisfies the moral sense nor calls forth pity or fear”. In other words, neither the wholly good man nor the utter villain is fit for the tragic role. If the suffering of a good man, says Aristotle, shocks us, the down fall of a bad man would inspire neither nor fear in us in the absence of appropriate human attributes. Hence, there remains “the character between these two extremes-that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty”. As such, the tragic hero, according to the Aristotelean doctrine, ought to be a synthetic figure of virtue and vice, of...