Aristotle_and_Oedipus

Aristotle and Oedipus Oedipus is a prime example of a tragidy, according to Aristotle’s definition in the “poetics”. Aristotle’s Poetics is considered the first work of literary criticism in our tradition. The couple of pages in the book mainly describe tragedy from Aristotle’s point of view. He defines tragedy as being an imitation of an action that is a whole and complete in itself and of a certain magnitude. Aristotle also points out terms such as catharsis, which can be said that is the purification of one’s soul. He argues in his Poetics that catharsis is achieved through emotions of pity or fear, which is created in the audience as they witness the tragedy of a character who suffers unjustly, but is not entirely innocent. Then he moves on to describing the main elements of tragedy. Such elements are: plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. Then he classifies these in three parts, the media, the manner and the objects. The language and melody constitute the “media”, in which they effect the imitation. Then there is the spectacle, which is the “manner”, and the remaining three, the plot, character and thought are the “objects” that are imitated. Aristotle considers the plot to be the most important of these elements. He describes the plot as oedipus, tragic, plot, one, miller, aristotle, tragedy, hero, character, actions, should, must, about, teiresias, sophocles, says, reversal, recognition, poetics, love, happens, fate, destiny, born, birth, because, therefore, self, person, parents, out, makes, laius, fortune, elements, change, blind, beyond, being, been, according, which, unity, truth, three, media, terrible, stature, sphinx, spectacle