ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Along with fear, pity is one of the emotions aroused in the audience of a tragedy. We respond with pity, Aristotle seems to suggest, when we as members of the audience identify with the tragic hero’s suffering. Pity and fear are “purged” in the process of catharsis.

Detailed explanation-2: -of the paragraph Aristotle says: the one being for the man who does not deserve his misfortune and the other for the man who is like ourselves-pity for the one who does not deserve misfortune, fear for the man like ourselves-so that the event will be neither pitiful nor fearful.

Detailed explanation-3: -“Tragedy, ” says Aristotle, “is an imitation [mimēsis] of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude…through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions.” Ambiguous means may be employed, Aristotle maintains in contrast to Plato, to a virtuous and purifying end.

Detailed explanation-4: -pity and fear are the obverse and reverse of the same emotional experience; pity designating the pained recognition of undeserved misfortune occurring to others than ourselves, and fear designating a recognition of such misfortune occurring, or threatening to occur, to ourselves.

Detailed explanation-5: -The aim of tragedy, Aristotle writes, is to bring about a “catharsis” of the spectators-to arouse in them sensations of pity and fear, and to purge them of these emotions so that they leave the theater feeling cleansed and uplifted, with a heightened understanding of the ways of gods and men.