Aristotle and Tragedy

Aristotle, Tragedy and Antigone

• Tragedy, as a form of mimesis, has a purpose according to Aristotle which is “the arousal of pity and fear, effecting the katharsis of such emotions.” (Poetics p. 492)
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• It is important to remember the context of the word “catharsis” when Aristotle talks about it, which is a clarification of emotions. Aristotle tells us that through the observation of mimetic objects someone “takes his first steps in understanding […] great pleasure is derived from exercising the understanding […] It is for this reason that men enjoy looking at images, because what happens is that, as they contemplate them, they apply their reasoning and understanding to each element.” (Poetics p. 490-1)
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• The themes of balance and the Platonic concept of conflict built into human beings between emotions and rationality which is mirrored in the relationship between Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ play Antigone
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• Antigone can be seen as representing emotions – she claims her actions are in line with divine law, when she is addressing Creon: “Nor did I think that your edict had such force that you, a mere mortal, could override the gods, the great unwritten, unshakeable traditions […] These laws – I was not about to break them.” (Antigone p.82)
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• This is interesting when viewed in relation to the Platonic concept of inspiration and creativity as the opposite of knowledge and rather as a state of divine possession, which is when a person is not in possession of their intellect and thus acting irrationally. Remember the quote from Plato’s The Ion “A poet […] is not able to make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his mind and his intellect is not in him […] it’s not by mastery that enables them to speak those verses but a divine power […] That’s why the god takes their intellect away from them when he uses them as his servants.” Antigone invokes divine law to justify her actions, which is akin to saying she wasn’t in her right mind or she was possessed by her emotions.
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• Still, this can be seen as cognitive to Aristotle because she appeals to the arousal of pity-one of the key purposes of Tragedy. She acts in a way that she feels is morally right, in accordance with divine laws and propelled by emotions for her brother. This leads to her ruin, although what she does is something people can relate to and could conceivably act in a similar way if put in her position.
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• Creon represents the State, or man-made law. This is supposed to be an instrument of reason, wielded by man to be protected by laws and established by leaders who, by most conceptions of Western society, should be rational and act in the interest of the common good. Creon makes his position clear in the beginning of the play: “Whoever places a friend above the good of his own country, he is nothing […] Remember this: our country is our safety.” (Antigone p.67-8) The common good’s primary interest is stability, so Creon making a law which would set an example for his subjects to discourage rebellion is seen as the rational decision of a ruler seeking to maintain order. He is also enforcing this law though it hurts his loved ones because in his mind it is in the interest of the greater good. Again, Creon makes himself very clear when talking to his son Haemon: “Why, if I bring up my own kin to be rebels, think what I’d suffer from the world at large. Show me the man who rules his household well and I’ll show you someone fit to rule the State.” (Antigone p.94)
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• It is ironic to note Haemon’s line from p.95 of the play to Creon: “Only the gods endow a man with reason, the finest of all their gifts, a treasure.” Plato would argue that reason is not Divine in its origin, but the fruit of wisdom and knowledge. Aristotle would probably agree with Haemon if, by “gods”, he understood it as passions and their agency. But the reason Hamemon mentions, and its implicit knowledge, is a gift bought dearly - Aristotle acknowledges the act of recognition in the Tragedy as the moment of “the change from ignorance to knowledge […] the finest recognition occurs in direct conjunction with reversal […] such a combination […] will produce pity and fear (and it is events of this kind that tragedy, on our definition, is a mimesis of).” (Poetics p.497)
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• Creon is symbolic of man’s law, attempting to achieve stability despite the agency of the cosmos and fate. Although his actions are what he believes to be rational, he is still brought to ruin through this, which serves to underline the theme of Fate and the insignificance of man’s laws or concepts of justice in the workings of the universe. This creates the second emotional power of tragedy: FEAR. There is a feeling of vulnerability when seeing that no matter a person’s intentions; fate will have its way- for better or worse.
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• When Pity and Fear are elicited we also see the essential third element to Tragedy, which is suffering, an important part of the plot structure. Aristotle defines it as “a destructive or painful action, such as visibile deaths, torments, woundings, and other things of the same kind.” (Poetics p.497) We see the suffering of Antigone who acts on her emotional urges and her sense of moral righteousness and is thusly put to death. We see the suffering of Creon who acts out of his sense of Kingly righteousness for the benefit of the greater good, which causes his son and wife to both kill themselves one after another in overwhelming grief- Haemon for the loss of his fiancée Antigone, Iradece for the loss of her son Haemon.
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• The cognitive value of Antigone is that through affective mimesis a subject can learn ways to deal with and understand suffering and their emotions. According to Nickolas Pappas in his essay “Aristotle” in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics: “Aristotle appears to equate the subsequent catharsis with the essential tragic pleasure that pity and fear induce” (p.17) He elaborates: “By rousing powerful emotions with a simpler train of events than life provides, tragedy teaches how fear and pity feel and where they are appropriate. That understanding forms part of the groundwork for ethical behavior, since Aristotle’s ethics connects ethical behavior to well-trained emotions […] The emotions that Plato deplored are granted to exist in tragedy, but they benefit ethical action instead of subverting it. Where Plato gloomily rushed to the conclusion that tragedy’s emotions overpower our capacity to reason, Aristotle presumes us able to reason about our emotions, and to make them more reasonable” (p.18)