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Aristotle’s Definition Tragedy is a representation of a serious, complete action which has magnitude, in embellished speech, with each of its elements used separately in the various parts of the play and represented by people acting and not by narration, accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions. • Aristotle’s Poetics
The Genres of Mimesis (Representation) • Narrative • Drama • Lyric
Dramatic Exposition Our last king, Whose image even but now appear’d to us, Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride, 100 Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet— For so this side of our known world esteem’d him— Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal’d compact, Well ratified by law and heraldry, 104 Did forfeit with his life all those his lands Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror; Against the which, a moiety competent Was gaged by our king; which had return’d 108 To the inheritance of Fortinbras, Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant, And carriage of the article design’d, His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras, 112 Of unimproved mettle hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes, For food and diet, to some enterprise 116 That hath a stomach in ’t; which is no other— As it doth well appear unto our state— But to recover of us, by strong hand And terms compulsative, those foresaid lands 120 So by his father lost. And this, I take it, Is the main motive of our preparations,
Aristotle’s Six Elements Mythos or Plot Ethos or Character Dianoia or Thought Lexis or Diction Melos or Melody Opsis or Spectacle
Peripeteia andAnagnorisis “Reversal is a change to the opposite direction of events, . . . and one in accord, as we insist, with probability or necessity. . . . Recognition, as the very name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, leading to friendship or to enmity, and involving matters which bear on prosperity or adversity. The finest recognition is that which occurs simultaneously with reversal.”--Aristotle, Poetics
Christian vs. Classical Tragedy "Greek tragedy is the tragedy of necessity, i.e., the feeling aroused in the spectators is 'What a pity it had to be this way': Christian tragedy is the tragedy of possibility, 'What a pity it was this way when it might have been otherwise.'” --W. H. Auden hamartia
