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Our deepest fears are the subject matter of tragedy . . .
Aristotle says: "[T]he plot ought to be constructed so that, even without seeing the incidents arise, those who hear them will shudder and pity because of what happens, these indeed being what one would suffer upon hearing the plot of the Oedipus."
Source:
Kenneth A. Telford. Aristotle's Poetics: Translation and Analysis. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1961.
Othello is Shakespeare's most perfect tragedy when viewed in the light of Aristotle's theories & Aristotle's theories do a good job of explaining its power (which I can attest to by personal experience)
Here's my understanding of what Aristotle tells us about tragedy:
--It's emotionally good for us: "Tragedy . . . is an imitation of . . . an action . . . achieving through pity and fear a catharsis of such affections."
--It does its good by telling this story: A man like ourselves--better rather than worse--makes a great mistake and falls until he recognizes the truth about his situation and embraces/accepts/submits to the truth about himself.
The "great mistake":
[The tragic hero] "is the sort of man who does not differ [from most men] in virtue or justice, and who changes to misfortune, not because of badness or wickedness, but because of some mistake, he being a man held in high opinion and of good fortune."Telford's note: "In the most complete sense the tragic mistake or hamartia (literally, a missing of the mark), as Aristotle himself indicates throughout chapter 14, is an action, not a suffering or a flaw of character."The Fall: "It is necessary . . . that the beautiful plot [represent a] change . . . from good fortune to misfortune, not through wickedness but through the great mistake of a man who is either such as we have mentioned or better rather than worse."
[Plot is the most important element of tragedy because] "tragedy is imitation, not of men, but of action or life, . . . and the end of life is a certain action, not a quality."
-- The most important "misfortune" is the change in the character of the tragic hero: Oedipus is, when we first see him, regarded as the savior of his people, but . . .The recognition/reversal:
"But of all forms of recognition the best is that which arises from the incidents themselves, the astonishment coming to pass through likelihoods, e.g. the recognition in the Oedipus by Sophokles . . . ."