Catharsis
conceptThe concept of emotional purification through experiencing pity and fear in Greek tragedy.
The Myth
Aristotle gave catharsis its enduring definition in the Poetics: tragedy, through arousing pity and fear, achieves the catharsis of such emotions. What exactly he meant has been debated for twenty-three centuries. The word itself predates Aristotle — katharsis was a medical term for purging the body of harmful substances and a religious term for ritual purification after contact with pollution. A murderer needed catharsis before re-entering society. A woman needed catharsis after childbirth. A city needed catharsis after plague. Aristotle appears to have combined both senses. Watching Oedipus discover his crimes or Medea murder her children, the audience experiences intense emotion in a controlled setting, and leaves the theatre somehow cleansed. The Pythagoreans had already claimed that music could produce catharsis of the soul. Greek healing sanctuaries used drama as therapy — the theatre at Epidaurus was built next to the temple of Asclepius. The concept passed through Roman rhetoric, Christian confession, and Freudian psychoanalysis, each tradition adapting the same Greek insight.
Parents
Greek tragic tradition
Symbols
Fun Fact
Freud borrowed catharsis directly from Aristotle — his early "cathartic method" of therapy was explicitly modelled on the Greek tragic experience.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth:
Explore Further
Oedipus Prophecy
conceptThe Delphic prophecy that Oedipus would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta, which...
Catharsis (Purification)
conceptAristotle's concept that tragedy purifies the audience by arousing and then releasing pity and fear.
Asclepius
heroThe legendary physician who could cure any illness and even raise the dead. Son of Apollo, his...
Asclepius (God)
godAsclepius began as a mortal hero trained by Chiron who became so skilled at medicine that he could...
Asclepius (Healer God)
godThe divine physician whose healing art grew so powerful that he could resurrect the dead — forcing...
Epidaurus
placeEpidaurus was the most famous healing sanctuary in Greece, sacred to Asclepius, where patients...
Medea
heroA powerful sorceress and princess of Colchis who betrayed her family to help Jason win the Golden...
Medea (Sorceress)
heroMedea was a granddaughter of Helios and priestess of Hecate whose sorcery saved Jason — and whose...
Oedipus
heroThe tragic king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, fulfilling a...
Epidaurus Theatre
placeSanctuary of Asclepius with the most acoustically perfect theatre in the ancient world.
Eleos
conceptThe Greek concept of mercy and compassion, personified as a god and central to Athenian civic...
Katharsis
conceptKatharsis was both a ritual purification from miasma and — in Aristotle's famous definition — the...