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Age Of Enlightenment Classicism Versus Romanticism English Literature Essay

The age of enlightenment "classicism" which ran from 17th to 18th century had the following values: In classicism, both nature and human nature are governed by reason simply because reason is valued over mere imaginations. People are basically good and with freedom, they are capable of making a perfect society that not only guarantees freedom but also values social over individual or personal. Things are done in collection as a society and not at an individual basis. In terms of day to day life, everything is done in order, balance and harmony with a tradition consideration. Classicism actually influenced classical period in classical music.

Talking of classicism, we have a period called romanticism. This period follows classicism and it is thought as a rebellious to socio-cultural and aesthetics mode of conduct that was being practiced by then. Idealization and rationality are highly rejected with valuing of emotions and intuition over reason. Things are done in emotions and prefer the senses over the intellect. Here, personal or individual is valued over the society. The beauty as well as mystery of nature is greatly appreciated. Therefore, the focus is on the human nature taking into considerations the personality, the moods, passions as well as inner struggles. This period influenced romantic period in classical music.

Starting with aesthetic/theatrical issue, I will consider music. Music of the classical period was characterized by the following features. The music sounded light with clear textures to the ears and this was a major factor that kept people listening to the classical and neoclassical hymns. The music was composed of short melodies with clear cut pleasures. The rhymes and the structure of the music always kept attention to the balance, order and proportion as well as the importance of the structure. Sonata form development was also greatly adhered to. Examples in this context include: Mozart's Sonata No. 7 in C, K. 309 and Mozart's Concerto

Nr. 17 in G major.

Talking of music, music of the romantic period had the following features. The music emphasized on the powerful expression of emotions that not only involved love but also other types of emotions like death or hate. There is also rise of the virtuoso performer with larger orchestra, larger range of pitch as well as volume of the music. The music also entrenches rich harmonies as well as more use of chromaticism. Considering the music themes, the music gives interest in themes that relates to far off lands, nature, dreams and more so the supernatural or the mysterious. Examples of music of the romantic period include Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18.

Considering the social-cultural aspect, classicism culminated several years of western culture including politics and philosophy that were stated by Romans and Greeks that led to liberal western democracy. Socially, classicism considered men and women as socially equal with same right to life, liberty and to pursuit of happiness. Priority was given to the use of reason in solving social issues with universal ideas and principles put into consideration to create a common ground while still giving room for the individuals, religions and cultures.

Talking of social-cultural organization, Romanticism reacted to the aspect practiced in classicism in a rebellious manner. The culture of reason and universal became obsolete since the war and social injustices were on a rising edge and many societies were still oppressed. Therefore, romanticism replaced universalism with individualism (uniqueness of every culture) and reason with passion and struggle. This was now the new approach and solution to problems that occurred during classicism.

Political Analysis: Tartuffe

Letter of a Contemporary Performance

At the time I entered the theatre, all the seats were almost full. Audience from different political and social classes had already arrived and set for the play. Being a male middle class person working as a journalist, I had to find myself a seat in front in an area created for the general public to be able to focus on the event and at the same time gather some reports about the performance and other reactions. Of course the VIPs had their special arrangement set for them with a different price from the rest. In the theatre, present were audience from different social classes. I only managed to identify two classes being the high class and the general public. The high class individual had seats reserved for them in a separate compartment of the theatre from the general public. The mode of dressing could tell everything. As an audience, I went to have fun, laugh, enjoy the performance and learn some few lessons from the play. Before the event kicked off, the manager of the theatre welcomed all the audience with specific emphasis on the powerful artists and politicians who were present. This is the time I realized that even the monarch was present at the event.

As the performance kicked off, people could not tell exactly what the theme of the play was to be until some two performers came on stage to remind us that this was a play and not a real life situation. Normally, events that take place in a theatre represent real life situation and this was the expectation of most of the audience present. However, Moliere broke this convention to make the audiences believe that a theatre is merely an establishment and that whatever that was going on was a play and not a real life event.

The aspect of the performance that made a great impact on me and also to the audience was the theme of the performance. Focusing on the theme of the performance which was "this is a play and not real life", the audiences were often reminded that this was a play and not a real life. This idea gathered support from other things including the presence of two men who were wearing masks and actor's performance dressed in black dresses and capes. They acted a role of separating the play scenes by sometimes hiding performers and also acting as a door to separate the performance. Personally, I think there presence on stage was to give support to the idea that this was a play and not a real life event. The idea was also supported by various gestures and mimes which sounded exaggerated. What I did not like about the play was actually the subject which was related to the present society. Despite being in its originality, it sounded ordinary and did not make me remember it and think of it after the play. However, there was totally no boredom among the audience and I could tell this from the sounds, cheering and the facial expression from the audience. This was because of the tempo which was kept constant and took the attention of the audience at all times me included. Other things that kept the audience away from bored were the lighting up system during the performance which kept on changing and the background music whose speed was directed as the acting went on. The dressing mode of the actors was also another appealing feature of the day.

Generally, I enjoyed the performance, laughed a lot and from the facial expression, cheering and reaction of other spectators, I believe they also enjoyed the play. It was wonderful.

Psychological Analysis: Character "Subtext" or Motivation for Passion

Life is a dream

Life is a dream is a Spanish age play set during the mythical version of the Poland's kingdom. The play reveals the story of Basilio who decides to send his son, Segismundo to prison at birth with a reason that the astrological studies he has been undertaking has given him a fear that this son might grow up and become rebellious or be a tyrant to his authority. Calderon gives a first hand consideration to two forces of free will and determinism which appears to contrast each other in this fable as the forces responsible and required to shape human character as well as destiny. Considering the subplot, we find Rosaura who seeks to look for Astolfo for dishonoring her after the marriage promise. The problems examined by Calderon are mostly related to vengeance and honor.

In this paper, I will narrow down to the psychology of one character in this play called Segismundo and his struggle for his passions. The issue I will be focusing on is his struggle to overturn his destiny and liberty. Segismundo being the son of the king of Poland, Basilio, lived a life of not even knowing his identity due to his father's fear that he might turn his back on him following the astrological studies. At birth, he was imprisoned after his father's charting with his horoscope which revealed to him that his son will grow up and be a treacherous son as well as a savage ruler. After some time, his father devised rules that eventually freed his son from prison and gave him the power of a king just for a day. But because of the brutality and the cruelness of his son, the father finally confirmed his fear and ordered him to be returned back to the prison.

However, after his liberation from the tower for the second time, he struggles a lot and overcomes his brutality as well as his earlier predestined identity. This is what we call struggle for passion. The culture of the Hispania at that particular time lied in the horoscopes revealing. But we see Segismundo struggling to overturn his destiny and his predestined identity. According to how he describes himself and also how other people describes him, Segismundo is actually a beast or simply force of nature. He is normally clothed with things like animal skins and he is fond of contrasting himself with fish and other animals like snakes, streams as well as volcanoes. Just before he is taken to court, Clotaldo comes in and fills his mind to become an image of an eagle. Considering the meaning of his name, it stands contrary to the predatory imagery and the happenings that are surrounding him and signifies his triumph for his unchangeable fate that is written in the stars. His name Segismundo which means victory and protector according to the Germans justifies his ending when Rosaura comes in his picture and awakens new perception in him. Through her, Segismundo gets to understand the meaning of honor. Rosaura completely parallels Segismundo's actions and serves as his guide eventually succeeding in converting him. Therefore, Segismundo eventually succeeds in fulfilling his struggle for passion and liberty with conversion into a loyal person unlike the Hispania's horoscope predetermined his destiny. Personally, I consider this as a fight and struggle for passion and overturn of nature.

POETRY TERMINOLOGY BY SISRANA

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Poetry Terminology
________________________________________
Meter and Rhythm

meter - the number of feet (i.e. usually equals the number of stressed syllables, but not always) per line, as in monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, and octameter

iambic foot - unstressed followed by stressed syllable

trochaic foot - stressed followed by an unstressed

anapestic foot - 2 unstressed followed by a stressed

dactylic foot - stressed followed by 2 unstressed

spondaic foot - 2 stressed

verse - number of feet in each line (dimeter-2, trimeter-3, tetrameter-4, pentameter-5, etc.)

iambic pentameter - contains 5 iambic feet (an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable)

alexandrine - 6 iambic feet

sprung rhythm - a poetic rhythm designed to approximate the natural rhythm of speech, developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins. In it, a foot may be composed of one to four syllables; because stressed syllables often occur one after another (rather than in alteration with unstressed syllables) the rhythm is said to be "sprung."

Verse and Stanza Forms

blank verse -- unrhymed iambic pentameter

rhyme royal -- 7 lines, iambic pentameter, ababbcc (Chaucerian)

ballad stanza -- a quatrain in which the odd-numbered lines use iambic tetrameter and the even-numbered lines us iambic trimeter. The rhyme scheme is abcb.

free verse - does not have a fixed metrical foot or a fixed number of feet in its lines

heroic couplet - rhymed iambic pentameter closed couplets (ending with a terminal mark of punctuation-period, semicolon, quesiton mark, etc.) used in heroic tragedies--principal form of neoclassical style in early 17th Century

terza rima - aba, bcb, cdc, ded....rhyme scheme. Used in Divine Comedy.

ballad stanza - quatrains alternating tetrameter (4 ft.) and trimeter (3 ft.) rhyming abcb

rhyme royal - 7 line iambic pentameter stanza consisting of a quatrain dovetailed into two couplets (ababbcc), as in Chaucer's "Trolius and Criseide"

ottava rima - 8 lines rhyming abababcc, closing with a witty couplet, as in Wyatt

Spenserian stanza - 9 lines rhyming ababbcbcc; 1st 8 are pentameter, last is an alexandrine, as in Keat's "Eve of St. Agnes", or Shelley's "Adonais"

Petrarchian sonnet - 14 lines, explores the contrary states of feeling a lover experiences over an unattainable lady, (i.e. fire of love vs. ice of chastity)

English sonnet - 14 lines consisting of 3 quatrains and a couplet (Shakespeare and Surrey), with rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg, iambic pentameter

Spenserian sonnet - abab bcbc cdcd ee rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter

verse paragraphs - divisions of sense where stanzaic divisions do not exist (as in Milton's Paradise Lost)

Types / Genres of Poetry

ode -- a lyric or song-like poem that is dignified, serious, and elaborate in stanzaic structure

elegy -- a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's meditations on death or another solemn theme

pastoral -- a conventional, artificial form that often expresses a city poety's nostalgic view of the peace and simplicity of rural life, but behing it lies the sentiments and issues of the poet's society

pastoral elegy -- an elegy in which the author and the one he mourns are presented as shepherds. Conventions often found in the pastoral elegy are: (1) invoking the muses (2) making reference to classical mythology (3) having nature itself mourn the death (4) charging the dead man’s guardians with negligence (5) presenting a procession of mourners (6) raising questions about divine justice and condemning the corruption of contemporary times (7) including passages in which flowers are brought to deck the coffin or hearse, and (8) issuing a closing consolation

epic -- literary form that must at least meet these criteria: (1) long narrative poem (2) on a great and serious subject (3) related in an elevate style and (4) centered on a heroic figure on whose actions hang the fate of a tribe, nation, or race

dramatic monologue -- a poem written in the form of a speech of an individual character; it reveals the character's psychology, history, and motivation in a subtle way, perfected by Robert Browning

epithalamium - a lyric ode in honor of a bride and groom

Other Terms Used in Poetry

enjambment - one line flows into the next without an end stop

invocation -- calling on a Muse or God for inspiration, usually occurs at the beginning of the poem (Milton, Paradise Lost)

assonance - relatively close juxtaposition of similar vowel sounds: "For 'tis to that high title I aspire"

alliteration - repetition of initial consonant sounds: "careful, curious cats"

masculine rhyme - rhyme is last syllable (found--rebound)

feminine rhyme - rhyme is followed by an unaccented syllable (founding--bounding)

catalog -- a list in poetry

carpe diem -- seize the day; generally, a genre of poetry encouraging sex while one is still young and beautiful

Forms of literature by SIRRANA

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Forms of Literature
1. #POETRY

● Poetry, form of literature, spoken or written, that emphasizes rhythm, other intricate patterns of sound and imagery, and the many possible ways that words can suggest meaning.
● The word itself derives from a Greek word, poesis, meaning “making” or “creating.”
● poetry in its simplest definition is organized in units called lines as well as in sentences, and often in stanzas, which are the paragraphs of poetry
● The way a line of poetry is structured can be considered a kind of garment that shapes and clothes the thought within it.
● The oldest and most longstanding genres for classifying poetry are epic, a long narrative poem centered around a national hero, and lyric, a short poem expressing intense emotion.

#Elements:
#Stanza
•A unit of lines grouped together
•Similar to a paragraph in prose

#Couplet
A stanza consisting of two lines that rhyme

#Quatrain
A stanza consisting of four lines

#Mood
The feeling a poem creates for the reader

#Tone
The attitude a poet takes toward his/her subject

#Imagery
•Representation of the five senses: sight, taste,touch, sound, and smell
•Creates mental images about a poem’s subject

#Metaphor
An implied comparison between two objects or ideas

#Personification
Giving human traits or characteristics to animals or inanimate objects

#Simile
A direct comparison between two objects orideas that uses the words “like” or “as”

#Symbol
A word or object thathas its own meaningand represents anotherword, object or idea

#Alliteration
The repetition of aninitial (beginning)sound or consonant intwo or more wordsnext to each other in aline of a poem

#Assonance
The repetition of avowel sound in two ormore words in the lineof a poem

#Onomatopoeia
A word that imitates anoise or action

#Refrain
The repetition of one or more phrases or line sat certain intervals,usually at the end of each stanza

#Repetition
A word or phrase repeated within a line or stanza

#Rhyme Scheme
The pattern in which end rhyme occurs

2. FICTION

● literary works of imagination: novels and stories that describe imaginary people and events
● The latin word fingere “to make, shape,” from which fiction is derived, is also the spurce of English effigy, feign, figment and figure.

Elements:
#Plot
Events that form a significant pattern of action with a beginning, a middle and an end. They move from one place or event to another in order to form a pattern. The plot is also called a narrative.

#Author's Role in Plot
1. Plot grows out of the characters.
2. The author is always in control of what happens; fiction manipulates events; it is created.
3. Central focus of the story has to be intriguing

#Plot Techniques
1. Suspense: Frequently involves dilemma.
2. Flashback: The author waits until the story is moving and then flashes back to reveal biographical data or deep psychological reasons why a character acts as s/he does. It focuses more on why things happen, rather than on what happens.
3. #Telescoping: It's a matter of economy. The author can't describe every motion of the character or event during the time the story covers. S/he has to choose the significant and merely suggest the others by saying they happened, without much description
4. #Foreshadowing: The outcome of a conflict is often hinted at or "foreshadowed" before the climax and resolution. These clues are usually very subtle; you don't realize they are foreshadowing clues until you've finished the story.

#Conflict in #Plot
Plot usually involves one or more conflicts, which are problems that need to be solved. The "movement" towards a solution is what drives the narrative forward, and is what occupies most of the protagonist's time. Here are the major types of conflict:
1. Man's struggle against nature
2. Man against man
3. Man against society
4. Man against himself (i.e. a portrayal of an inner struggle)
The first three types are said to be "external conflicts", while the last is "internal conflict".

#Setting
Setting is defined as the physical location and the time of a story. In short stories, one or both of these elements are often not defined.

#Mood or #Atmosphere
The mood is the feeling the reader gets while reading the story. The author helps to create the mood by using carefully chosen descriptive or evocative words. It can be compared to the use of music in films. Examples of mood are: hostile, optimistic, threatening, ominous, bitter, defiant, etc..

#Theme
The theme is a recurring social or psychological issue, like aging, violence, alienation or maturity. The author or poet weaves the theme into the plot, which is used as a vehicle to convey it. The title of the story or poem is often of significance in recognizing the theme.

#Symbolism
In literature, a symbol is an object, event or a character that's used to represent an abstract idea; it is something which stands for something else. Symbols are clues to what's going on in the story and often stand for key parts of the theme. A symbol is related to metaphor and simile insofar as it's a type of figurative (indirect/dual) language. The key thing to remember is that readers aren't told that something is a symbol, unlike a metaphor (the flower ofmy love) or a simile (my love is like a flower). A symbol just sits there inside the story... readers are simply expected to understand its symbolic existence.

#Point of View
Different points of view allow for different ways of understanding the characters' motives and events.

#Characters and Irony

3. #DRAMA

● Drama is a type of literature usually written to be performed.
● it concerns the written text, or script, for the performance
● Many of the most honored and influential works of literature around the world have been dramas.

#Elements:
Focus
“The frame that directs attention to what is most significant and intensifies the dramatic meaning”.
There are 4 closely related areas of focus:
1. the focus of the scene
2. the focus of the audience
3. the focus of the character
4. the focus of the actor.

#Tension
“The force that engages the performers and audience in the dramatic action”.

#Space
“The personal and general space used by the actors. It focuses on the meaning of the size and shape of
distances between actor and actor, actor and objects (props and sets) and actor and audience.”

#Mood
“The atmosphere created. Mood concentrates the dramatic action and moves the audience in emotionally appropriate directions.”

#Contrast
“The use of difference to create dramatic meaning.”
Contrast is an effective means to emphasise, heighten or intensify. Contrasting colours stand out on the
stage. Contrasting sizes, shapes and sounds draw attention.

#Symbol
“The use of objects, gestures or persons to represent meaning beyond the literal.”

#Role
Taking on a role requires performers to accept the physicality, attitudes and beliefs of the characters they are playing.

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👉🏻👉🏻Aristotle argues that, among the six formative elements, the plot is the most important element. He writes in The Poetics. The plot is the underlying principle of tragedy’. By plot Aristotle means the arrangement of incidents. Incidents mean action, and tragedy is an imitation of actions, both internal and external. That is to say that it also imitates the mental processes of the dramatic personae. In answering a question once he said that a tragedy could be written without a character but not without a plot. Though his overstatement on plot, he accepts that without action there cannot be a tragedy. The plot contains a beginning, a middle and an end, where the beginning is what is “not posterior to another thing,” while the middle needs to have something happened before, and something to happen after it, but after the end “there is nothing else.”
The characters serve to advance the action of the story, not vice verse. The ends we pursue in life, our happiness and our misery, all take the form of action. Tragedy is written not merely to imitate man but to imitate man in action. That is, according to Aristotle, happiness consists in a certain kind of activity rather than in a certain quality of character. As David Daiches says: ‘the way in which the action works itself out, the whole casual chain which leads to the final outcome.’ Diction and Thought are also less significant than plot: a series of well-written speeches has nothing like the force of a well-structured tragedy. Lastly, Aristotle notes that forming a solid plot is far more difficult than creating good characters or diction. Having asserted that the plot is the most important of the six parts of tragedy, he ranks the remainder as follows, from most important to least: Character, Thought, Diction, Melody, and Spectacle. Character reveals the individual motivations of the characters in the play, what they want or don't want, and how they react to certain situations, and this is more important to Aristotle than thought, which deals on a more universal level with reasoning and general truths. Diction, Melody/ Songs and Spectacle are all pleasurable accessories, but the melody is more important in tragedy than spectacle.

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Aristotle 's Concept of catharsis in tragedy....

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👉🏻👉🏻👉🏻👉🏻👉🏻Aristotle 's Concept of catharsis in tragedy....

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👉🏻Aristotle describes catharsis as the purging of the emotions of pity and fear that are aroused in the viewer of a tragedy. Debate continues about what Aristotle actually means by catharsis, but the concept is linked to the positive social function of tragedy...

👉🏻👉🏻One of the most difficult concepts introduced in the Poetics is catharsis, a word which has come into everyday language even though scholars are still debating its actual meaning in Aristotle's text. Catharsis is most often defined as the "purging" of the emotions of pity and fear that occurs when we watch a tragedy.

👉🏻👉🏻🌹Catharsis (from Greek κάθαρσις katharsis meaning "purification" or "cleansing") is the purification and purgation of emotions—particularly pity and fear—through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration.

👉🏻👉🏻👉🏻🌹It is a metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics, comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of a spectator to the effect of a cathartic on the body.

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Aristotle's concept of catharsis
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.

👉🏻👉🏻👉🏻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....

👉🏻👉🏻👉🏻Social catharsis Edit

Emotional situations can elicit physiological, behavioral, cognitive, expressive, and subjective changes in individuals. Affected individuals often use social sharing as a cathartic release of emotions. Bernard Rimé studies the patterns of social sharing after emotional experiences. His works suggests that individuals seek social outlets in an attempt to modify the situation and restore personal homeostatic balance.

Rimé found that 80–95% of emotional episodes are shared. The affected individuals talk about the emotional experience recurrently to people around them throughout the following hours, days, or weeks. These results indicate that this response is irrespective of emotional valence, gender, education, and culture. His studies also found that social sharing of emotion increases as the intensity of the emotion increases.

The ESL ACADEMY BY SIRRANA......