Aristotle: Architect of the Ideal Tragedy

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION The great philosopher Aristotle was born in 384 BC and he was well known for formalizing the model of what he believed to be the perfect tragedy. Plato was his teacher and he was the tutor of Alexander the Great. He managed to produce almost a thousand books and pamphlets, from which only a few have survived. He was also well known as a peripatetic philosopher, from the verb peripateo, that is, to walk around since he really liked giving lectures while he was walking. An important subject in his thought is that happiness is the real goal of life. The Greeks used to believe that tragedy was actually the uppermost form of drama and Aristotle’s ideas were based on this belief. He pointed out that tragedy should

With the word “magnitude” he means of great importance. The subject has to be both serious and very significant. This is actually the reason that many tragedies deal with someone’s death. By “complete in itself” he actually means that the play must have only one issue or else the audience will get lost in the plot. With “in appropriate and pleasurable language” Aristotle means that the Ancient Greek tragedy had a chorus that has its own role in the tragedy such as to make comments on the action of the play while there were times that it sang their part. The philosopher believed that the language should be listened to easily while it should also have both rhythm and good harmony for the singing lines. When he refers to the narration of a story he means just simply to tell the story while in a play this story must be either dramatized or acted out. This is actually pointed out by “in a dramatic rather than

According to him the last four elements are not as important as the other two but he believed they are necessary for the play to succeed. Starting with the “thought” he said that is the power of saying whatever not only can be said but also should be said at each moment of the plot. The “diction” is the definite composition of the lines which are recited. There is also a difference between the “thought” which deals with what is said and “diction” which deals with how it is said. The main accessories of the tragedy are “melody” and “spectacle” while Aristotle claimed that the music has to be unified with the play appropriately since Greeks had in their tradition to use musical accompaniment. The “spectacle” mainly deals with the staging of the play and it should be suitable to the subject of the play. The “character” is one of the most important elements of tragedy. Each character has a vital quality or nature which is revealed in the plot. The important thing is that the moral purpose of each character must be obvious to the audience while it should have four qualities. First of all, the characters must be good. Second, they should act properly for their own gender and their class. Third, they have to be authentic. Finally, each character must act always during the play. Nothing should have be done or even