Catharsis (Purification)
conceptAristotle's concept that tragedy purifies the audience by arousing and then releasing pity and fear.
The Myth
Catharsis was Aristotle's term for the emotional purification that tragedy achieves in its audience. In the Poetics, he argues that tragedy, through arousing pity (eleos) and fear (phobos), accomplishes the catharsis of such emotions. Scholars have debated for centuries what exactly this means: does tragedy purge dangerous emotions like a medical treatment? Does it purify them, refining crude feeling into moral understanding? Or does it clarify them, helping the audience understand what is truly pitiable and fearful? The concept had medical roots — katharsis in Hippocratic medicine meant the purgation of harmful substances from the body. Aristotle may have been deliberately using a medical metaphor to defend poetry against Plato's attack: where Plato argued that tragedy inflames dangerous passions, Aristotle countered that it safely discharges them. The concept influenced every subsequent theory of art's psychological function, from Renaissance drama to Freudian psychoanalysis.
Fun Fact
Catharsis was originally a medical term for purging — Aristotle borrowed it to explain why watching tragedy feels good.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth:
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