Source: http://www.cssforum.com.pk/css-optional-subjects/group-i/english-literature/388-aristotles-concept-catharsis.html
Aristotle writes that
the function of tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear, and to
affect the Katharsis of these emotions. Aristotle has used the term Katharsis
only once, but no phrase has been handled so frequently by critics, and poets. Aristotle
has not explained what exactly he meant by the word, nor do we get any help
from the Poetics. For this reason, help and guidance has to be taken from his
other works. Further, Katharsis has three meaning. It means ‘purgation’,
‘purification’, and ‘clarification’, and each critic has used the word in one
or the other senses. All agree that Tragedy arouses fear and pity, but there
are sharp differences as to the process, the way by which the rousing of these
emotions gives pleasure.
Katharsis has been
taken as a medical metaphor, ‘purgation’, denoting a pathological effect on the
soul similar to the effect of medicine on the body. This view is borne out by a
passage in the Politics where Aristotle refers to religious frenzy being cured
by certain tunes which excite religious frenzy. In Tragedy:
“…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, pride 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 Katharsis is a medical metaphor, and says that:
“The theatre is not a hospital.”
Both Lucas and Herbert
Reed 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. I. A.
Richards’ approach to the process is also psychological. Fear is the impulse to
withdraw and pity is the impulse to approach. Both these impulses are
harmonized and blended in tragedy and this balance brings relief and repose.
The ethical
interpretation is that the tragic process is a kind of lustration of the soul,
an inner illumination resulting in a more balanced attitude to life and its
suffering. Thus John Gassner says that a clear understanding of what was
involved in the struggle, of cause and effect, a judgment on what we have
witnessed, can result in a state of mental equilibrium and rest, and can ensure
complete aesthetic pleasure. Tragedy makes us realize that divine law operates
in the universe, shaping everything for the best.
During the
Renaissance, another set of critics suggested that Tragedy helped to harden or
‘temper’ the emotions. Spectators are hardened to the pitiable and fearful
events of life by witnessing them in tragedies.
Humphrey House rejects
the idea of ‘purgation’ and forcefully advocates the ‘purification’ theory
which involves moral instruction and learning. It is a kind of ‘moral
conditioning’. He points out that, ‘purgation means cleansing’.
According to ‘the purification’
theory, Katharsis implies that our emotions are purified of excess and defect,
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 Katharsis involves not only the idea of
emotional relief, but the further idea of purifying the emotions so relieved.”
The basic defect of
‘purgation’ theory and ‘purification’ theory is that they are too much occupied
with the psychology of the audience. Aristotle was writing a treatise not on
psychology but on the art of poetry. He relates ‘Catharsis’ not to the emotions
of the spectators but to the incidents which form the plot of the tragedy. And
the result is the “clarification” theory.
The paradox of
pleasure being aroused by the ugly and the repellent is also the paradox
involved in tragedy. Tragic incidents are pitiable and fearful.
They include horrible
events as a man blinding himself, a wife murdering her husband or a mother
slaying her children and instead of repelling us produce pleasure. Aristotle
clearly tells us that we should not seek for every pleasure from tragedy, “but
only the pleasure proper to it”. ‘Catharsis’ refers to the tragic variety of
pleasure. The Catharsis clause is thus a definition of the function of tragedy,
and not of its emotional effects on the audience.
Imitation does not
produce pleasure in general, but only the pleasure that comes from learning,
and so also the peculiar pleasure of tragedy. Learning comes from discovering
the relation between the action and the universal elements embodied in it. The
poet might take his material from history or tradition, but he selects and
orders it in terms of probability and necessity, and represents what, “might
be”. He rises from the particular to the general and so is more universal and
more philosophical. The events are presented free of chance and accidents which
obscure their real meaning. Tragedy enhances understanding and leaves the
spectator ‘face to face with the universal law’.
Thus according to this
interpretation, ‘Catharsis’ means clarification of the essential and universal
significance of the incidents depicted, leading to an enhanced understanding of
the universal law which governs human life and destiny, and such an
understating leads to pleasure of tragedy. In this view, Catharsis is neither a
medical, nor a religious or moral term, but an intellectual term. The term
refers to the incidents depicted in the tragedy and the way in which the poet
reveals their universal significance.
The clarification
theory has many merits. Firstly, it is a technique of the tragedy and not to
the psychology of the audience. Secondly, the theory is based on what Aristotle
says in the Poetics, and needs no help and support of what Aristotle has said
in Politics and Ethics. Thirdly, it relates Catharsis both to the theory of
imitation and to the discussion of probability and necessity. Fourthly, the
theory is perfectly in accord with current aesthetic theories.
According to Aristotle
the basic tragic emotions are pity and fear and are painful. If tragedy is to
give pleasure, the pity and fear must somehow be eliminated. Fear is aroused
when we see someone suffering and think that similar fate might befall us. Pity
is a feeling of pain caused by the sight of underserved suffering of others.
The spectator sees that it is the tragic error or Hamartia of the hero which
results in suffering and so he learns something about the universal relation
between character and destiny.
To conclude,
Aristotle's conception of Catharsis is mainly intellectual. It is neither
didactic nor theoretical, though it may have a residual theological element.
Aristotle's Catharsis is not a moral doctrine requiring the tragic poet to show
that bad men come to bad ends, nor a kind of theological relief arising from
discovery that God’s laws operate invisibly to make all things work out for the
best.
