Comprehensive Guide to Tragedy: Aristotle, Hegel, and Revenge Types

Tragedy

In essence, tragedy is the mirror image or negative of comedy, depicting the downfall of a once prominent and powerful hero.

Aristotelian Tragedy

The most influential theorist of the genre is Aristotle, whose Poetics has guided the composition and critical interpretation of tragedy for more than two millennia.

Pity and Fear

According to Aristotle, pity and fear are the natural human response to spectacles of pain and suffering, especially to the sort of suffering that can strike anybody at any time.

Catharsis

Aristotle goes on to say that tragedy affects 'the catharsis of these emotions'—arousing pity and fear only to purge them.

Tragic Hero

The tragic hero must be essentially admirable and good; the downfall of an essentially good person disturbs us and stirs our compassion.

Personal Error

In a true tragedy, the hero's demise must come as a result of some personal error or decision; there is no such thing as an innocent victim of tragedy.

Anagnorisis

According to Aristotle, a moment of clairvoyant insight or understanding in the mind of the tragic hero as he suddenly comprehends the web of fate that he has entangled himself in.

Hamartia

A fatal error or simple mistake on the part of the protagonist that eventually leads to the final catastrophe; it literally refers to a shot that misses the bull's-eye.

Hubris

The sin par excellence of the tragic or over-aspiring hero, better understood as a sort of insolent daring, a haughty overstepping of cultural codes or ethical boundaries.

Nemesis

The inevitable punishment or cosmic payback for acts of hubris.

Peripateia

A pivotal or crucial action on the part of the protagonist that changes his situation from seemingly secure to vulnerable.

Hegelian Tragedy

Defined by G.W.F. Hegel as a dynamic contest between two opposing forces, a collision or conflict of rights.

Conflict of Rights

In Hegelian tragedy, the most tragic events occur when two esteemed values or goals are in opposition and one must give way.

Revenge Tragedy

A type that originated in ancient Greece, dramatizing the predicament of a wronged hero seeking justice.

Aside

Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience that are not 'heard' by the other characters on stage during a play.

Dionysian Ceremony

The origin of tragedy, where dancers dressed as goats or animals pantomimed the suffering or death/rebirth of a god or hero.

Fatal Choice

In authentic tragedy, the tragic hero must always bear at least some responsibility for his own doom through a personal error or decision.

Shakespeare's Hamlet

An example of Hegelian tragedy where Hamlet is torn between his duties as a son and citizen and his obligations as a Christian.

Catastrophe

The action at the end of a tragedy that initiates the denouement of a play.

Comic relief

The use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments.

Deus ex machina

A god who resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention.

Fourth wall

A term to describe the invisible wall between the audience and the actors on-stage.

Gesture

The physical movement of a character during a play.

Implied Stage Action/Direction

Actions in a play suggested within the dialogue itself.

Monologue

A speech by a single character without another character's response.

Psychomachia

A Latin phrase that means spirit war; the conflict in every human heart between good and evil.

Recognition (Anagnorisis)

The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is.

Reversal (Paripateia)

The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist.

Soliloquy

A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage.

Stage direction

A playwright's descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (and actors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play.

Staging

The spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position of actors on stage, the scenic background, the props and costumes, and the lighting and sound effects.

Subplot

A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot.

Tragic flaw

A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero.