CATHARSIS
"The immense controversy carried on in books, pamphlets
and articles, mostly Getman, as to what is 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
sympathetic fear is one of the disgraces of the human intelligence,
a grostesque monument of sterility". John Morley, quoted in F'L'
Lucas, Tragedy.
CATHARSIS IS A MEDICAL METAPHOR, IT MEANS:
l. Purgation in the older sense means removal of impure blood
from the system by means of bloodletting
2.ltmeansalsoapartialrernovalofexcess"humours"based
on the theory ofthe old school ofhippocrates that on a dye
balance of these humours depended the health of the body
and the mind alike.
3. In the modern sense purgation means complete evacuation
of waste products, a clearing of the bowelsystem'
4. Purification in the religious sense'
5. In Creek medicine any organism could be purged of any
undesirableproductbyadministration,injudiciousdoses,
ofsomethingsimilar."similiasimilibuscurantur"or"like
cures like" as in HomeoPathY'
6. Itroculation as a method of preventing illnesses'
7. Excess of anything is unwholesome' The excess has to be
tevelled down. Catharsis is a means for it' In this sense
Catharsi is a dilution of the tragic feelings'
I
g. catharsis is rnltaphor in the religious sense also. In that sense it means purifiction. Emotions aroused by the spectacle of
evil in ife, moral evil, evil og destruction, wastp and
misfortune are deprived of their evil effect and even made
beneficial. Themagnitude of evil witnesses prompts us to
give up our own, evil tendincies.
g. In the purificatory role catharsis creates a situation in which
' the spectators and readers forget themselves and become
other centered in relation to the tragic characters'
10'Psychologicallyitprovidesasafetyvalvefordisturbing
feeling accumulated in the mind'
11. Catharsis means correctio.n of our crude feelings,
refinem6nt of passions and sublimation of our psyche'
Tragedy effects purgation of prty and fear by its administration
of these very emotions, either because they are unwholesome or
tend to be excess. This is confirmed by Aristotle's remark
elsewhere. ..Exciting music calms those who are already excited".
The process is accompanied by feelings of pleasure'
Milton supports the ideas in his preface to Samson Agonistes'
"To purge the mind of these and similar emotions, to temper and
reducethemtojustmeasurewithakindofdelight,stirredupby
reading or seeing those passions well imitated; for in physic' things
of melancholic quality are used against melansholia". Pity and fear
are the doses by which the tragedian homeopathically purges his
audience into emotional health'
Catharsisisthefunctionoftragedyresrrlting.fromthe
essential nature of tragedy. This is his answer to Plaio's charge
that poetry hhd a radically vicious efect.
The idea of catharsis was
so familiar to hirn and his pupils that he never stopped t' explain it'
Let us see how pU is aroused' A virtuous rnan brought fircm
prosperity to adversity does not excite pity' tt merely shocks'A bad man hecorning prosperous is ,ot tragic, does not satisfy lhe morar sense,
does not excite pity or I'ear. The lall ol'the villain, on [he other hand.
merely satisfies our moral sense.
Pity is aroused by seeing unmerited or undeserved misfbrtune;
f'ear, seeing the misfbrtune of a man rike us. The tragic hero arouses
our emotions by making us admire him when he endures mislbrtune
witliout compraining. "The whole effect of tragedy tends to the de_
bility of its spirit, reason releases its hold on conduct, emotion takes
charge." Aristotle agrees that it is characteristic of tragedy to arouse
emotions which in themserves are dangerous and unwholesome. yet
we know that tragedy produces rove and admiration which ue as
important as pity and fbar in tragedy.
Aristotre answers plato by saying that tragedy not onry rouses these emotions but by the way it
rouses them, effects a catharsis of them a purgation of them.
At one level ofperception the medical anarogy fails. For, tragedy,
in order to be curative, must f*st produce the disease ,o ,urr. irugedy produces emotions which in rear life wourd be unpleasant and
perhaps dangerously disturbing.
According to some scholars, "catharsis of such passions does not
mean that they are purified and ennobled or that men are purged of
their passions; it means that the passions themselves ur, ,.Ju..d to u
healthy, balanced proportion. pythagoreans practised catharsis of the
body by medicine, of the soul by music.
The pity that tragedy produces is of3 kinds; useful pity, useless
pity and rc11'-piry
