Paraphrase the following text: ……../ 20 points
It is evident from the first of the above passages that the ability to effect a “catharsis” in the individuals of an audience is one of the crucial requirements of a well-constructed tragedy, according to Aristotle. Moreover, the second passage makes clear that the cathartic effect of a tragedy will produce an “appropriate pleasure” of a certain kind. Lastly, the third passage above indicates that the appropriate method of bringing about the emotions of pity and fear (and the corresponding kind of “tragic pleasure”) is through a certain depiction of the relationships between friends and relatives. Unfortunately, the remains of Aristotle’s Poetics (or any of his other works) reveal no thorough account of his concept of catharsis. This dearth of details has
resulted in a plethora of interpretations of Aristotle’s concept of catharsis. Today, three broad interpretations of these different versions of tragic catharsis have emerged from the research.
Tragic catharsis has been interpreted as a process of either (or some combination of) (1) purgation, (2) purification, or (3) cognitive stimulation.
Summarize the following passage
Remember that summary is shorter than the original text ……./20 points
To begin, it is important to introduce a distinction that has been often neglected in the current literature on catharsis: the distinction between the kind of cathartic experience that the citizenry of the polis has and the kind of cathartic experience restricted to all other denizens. The Politics alludes to just this division in which Aristotle discusses the role attributed to music:
[It is necessary] for everyone that a certain catharsis [τινα κάθαρσιν] is brought about and
[it is necessary for everyone] to be satisfied in the midst of pleasure. And similarly, the effective melodies also render a harmless gratification to humans.17
On which account, the participants, when they perform theatrical music, should be
permitted to use harmonies of these kinds and melodies of these kinds; but since the
spectator is two-fold: one group is free and has been educated, while the other group is vulgar and is grouped together from workings and hired laborings and other things of such kinds, one must provide contests and spectacles and things of these kinds with a view to relaxation…and what is suitable according to nature provides pleasure for each.18
These passages from Aristotle reveal the following argument he is making with regard to class and catharsis. Basically, within the context of his best or ideal city-state, he is claiming that the having of a cognitively based cathartic experience requires individuals who are naturally free (have leisure) and educated. In contrast, the having of emotional excitation, or hedonistic frenzy alone, is relegated to individuals who are naturally vulgar and uneducated. Therefore, since citizens have the requisite leisure and education and workers and slaves lack both, citizens of the polis naturally do have cognitively based cathartic experiences, and workers and slaves naturally only have emotional or hedonistic cathartic experiences. The purpose of laying out this argument is to impress upon the reader Aristotle’s own division between the kinds of aesthetic experience had by non-citizens and citizens.
