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Aristotelian analysis of oedipus the king play
Themes and structure of king oedipus
Aristotle's tragedy theory
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“Tragedy… is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions...” (Poetics, P.10) Aristotle was a great admirer of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, considering it the perfect tragedy, and not surprisingly, his analysis fits that play perfectly. Aristotle's theorizations in the Poetics were modelled on the tragedy of Oedipus, the king of Thebes. The play is adjudged as a great example of tragic drama on the basis of the following:plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and melody. The concept of tragedy applies to both ancient greek theatre and modern day …show more content…
According to Aristotle's Poetics, the tragic playwright must create a unified work. The play's running time must be the exact timespan of the tragedy, with no breaks or flashbacks; the setting must remain in one place. Most importantly, the action follows one inevitable course, and the tragic hero must be royal or highborn. In addition, this hero desires a greater good, such as the rescue or unification of his kingdom, and he places that prize at great risk with his own choices.Aristotle further elaborates that the tragic hero must, by the play's end, lose everything he has gained through hubris. Oedipus’ tragedy, is to discover his birth secret. Shakespeare carries Greek-style hubris even further, as he has Macbeth lose his soul, Lear his sanity and Hamlet his conscious identity, before robbing each character of his
The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
McManus, Barbera F. “Outline of Aristotle's Theory of Tragedy in the Poetics.” Nov. 1999. Web. 4 Nov. 2011. .
Most readers are aware of the many famous deaths or acts of death within the Shakespearean plays. And when the main characters die in Shakespeare’s plays, indeed, the readers would categorize the play as a tragedy. The problem with any tragedy definition is that most tragic plays do not define the tragedy conditions explained or outlined by Aristotle. According to Telford (1961), a tragedy is a literary work that describes the downfall of an honorable, main character who is involved on historically or socially significant events. The main character, or tragic hero, has a tragic fault, the quality that leads to his or her own destruction. In reading Aristotle’s point of view, a tragedy play is when the main character(s) are under enormous pressure and are incapable to see the dignities in human life, which Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy is based on Oedipus the King. Shakespeare had a different view of tragedy. In fact, Shakespeare believed tragedy is when the hero is simply and solely destroyed. Golden (1984) argued the structure of Shakespearean tragedy would be that individual characters revolved around some pain and misery.
Aristotle’s Poetics is a “reservoir of the themes and schemes deployed in ancient Greek tragedy and poetry” (Poetics iii). Written around 330 B.C., it was the first work of literature to make a distinction amongst the various literary genres and provide a proper analysis of them. In Poetics, Aristotle places a big emphasis on the genre of tragedy. When one hears of the word tragedy, one already assumes that something bad has occurred to an individual and an immediate emotion of sorrow occurs, but how does Aristotle see tragedy? Aristotle gives us his formal definition of tragedy on page 10: “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.” He goes on and explains all the components that make up tragedy. A tragedy must fall into two parts: complication and unraveling (also known as the denouement). Aristotle elaborates on that and speaks of four types of tragedy: “the Complex, depending entirely on Reversal of the Situation and Recognition; the Pathetic (where the motive is passion); the Ethical (where the motives are ethical). The fourth kind is the Simple.
Aristotle is the most influential philosopher in the history of Western thought. A Greek drama by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, was praised in the Poetics of Aristotle as the model for classical tragedy and is still considered a principal example of the genre. In this essay I will analyze Oedipus Rex using Aristotle's concepts praxis, poiesis, theoria.
Aristotle sees tragedy of being made of pity and fear. When tragedies occur in people’s lives it appears fear and pity is always an accompanying trait. Aristotle finds these two emotions to be staples in creating the perfect tragedy play. A tragic hero is the direct spawn of creating a tragic play.
According to Aristotle, a tragedy must be an imitation of life in the form of a serious story that is complete in itself among many other things. Oedipus is often portrayed as the perfect example of what a tragedy should be in terms of Aristotle’s Poetics. Reason being that Oedipus seems to include correctly all of the concepts that Aristotle describes as inherent to dramatic tragedy. These elements include: the importance of plot, reversal and recognition, unity of time, the cathartic purging and evocation of pity and fear, the presence of a fatal flaw in the “hero”, and the use of law of probability.
The tale of King Oedipus is well known. An enraged Oedipus unknowingly slays his father (Laiusq, King of Thebes) and supplants him as monarch and as husband to his own mother (Queen Jocasta). As each successive "layer of the onion" is unpeeled, Oedipus is brought a step closer to realizing the true nature of his actions. Foretold in prophecy and initiated by his anger, the downfall of Oedipus comes to fruition as all facts gradually come to light.
Here in lie's the real tragedy of this play. Oedipus was ignorant of the fact that his father had discarded him at birth because of another prophet's predictions, but the twist of fate reveals all, condemning him to loose all things dear to him and to be pitied by the his loyal followers and the audience.
Oedipus is depicted as a “marionette in the hands of a daemonic power”(pg150), but like all tragic hero’s he fights and struggles against fate even when the odds are against him. His most tragic flaw is his morality, as he struggles between the good and the evil of his life. The good is that he was pitied by the Shepard who saved him from death as a baby. The evil is his fate, where he is to kill his father and marry his mother. His hubris or excessive pride and self-righteousness are the lead causes to his downfall. Oedipus is a tragic hero who suffers the consequences of his immoral actions, and must learn from these mistakes. This Aristotelian theory of tragedy exists today, as an example of what happens when men and women that fall from high positions politically and socially.
Greek Drama had three main categories The Comedy, Satyr Plays, and The Tragedy. The most popular of the three is The Tragedy, its themes are often such as loss of love, complex relationships between men and the gods, and corruption of power. These dramas taught the people of the city the difference between good and bad behavior and the ramifications of going against the gods. According to Aristotle, the perfect tragedy consisted of the downfall of the hero through a great misunderstanding, causing suffering and awareness for the protagonist meanwhile making the audience feel pity and fear. The prominent writer who Aristotle based his perfect tragedy theory was Sophocles, his drama Oedipus the King had all the elements of a perfect tragedy.
Sophocles play would fit the criteria of Aristotle’s definition of a tragedy and Oedipus fits the criteria of a tragic hero. Oedipus the King was written during the ancient era of Greece around the time of 430 B.C. and this era was mainly known for their prophecies, mythical creatures and plays, Sophocles was one of the authors of his time who was able to incorporate all of these things that ancient Greece was famous for and turn it into a production. An article titled “The Tragic Hero of the Classical Period” states, “Just as tragic heroes and heroines have been identified with different eras and cultures, the classical ideal of the tragic hero will be incomplete if the concept of tragedy is not focalized.” (Ahenkora, pg. 1).
“Oedipus the King” by Sophocles is a tragedy of a man who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother. Aristotles’ ideas of tragedy are tragic hero, hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and catharsis these ideas well demonstrated throughout Sophocles tragic drama of “Oedipus the King”.
Oedipus the King is an excellent example of Aristotle's theory of tragedy. The play has the perfect Aristotelian tragic plot consisting of paripeteia, anagnorisis and catastrophe; it has the perfect tragic character that suffers from happiness to misery due to hamartia (tragic flaw) and the play evokes pity and fear that produces the tragic effect, catharsis (a purging of emotion).
In Aristotle’s book, Poetics, he defines tragedy as, “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear” (Aristotle 1149). Tragedy creates a cause and effect chain of actions that clearly gives the audience ideas of possible events. The six parts to Aristotle’s elements of tragedy are: Plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. According to Aristotle, the most important element is the plot. Aristotle writes in Poetics that, “It is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have” (Aristotle 1150). Plots should have a beginning, middle, and end that have a unity of actions throughout the play making it complete. In addition, the plot should be complex making it an effective tragedy. The second most important element is character. Characters...