LITERATURE QUESTIONS
LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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The hero’s recognition of his tragic flaw
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The hero’s ignorance about his tragic flaw
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The hero’s recognition of his adversary
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The hero’s recognition of his tragic end
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Detailed explanation-1: -In his Poetics, as part of his discussion of peripeteia, Aristotle defined anagnorisis as “a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune” (1452a). It is often discussed along with Aristotle’s concept of catharsis.
Detailed explanation-2: -hamartia, also called tragic flaw, (hamartia from Greek hamartanein, “to err”), inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favoured by fortune.
Detailed explanation-3: -Anagnorisis is the recognition by the tragic hero of some truth about his or her identity or actions that accompanies the reversal of the situation in the plot, the peripeteia. Oedipus’s realization that he is, in fact, his father’s murderer and his mother’s lover is an example of anagnorisis.
Detailed explanation-4: -Peripeteia is the reversal from one state of affairs to its opposite. Some element in the plot effects a reversal, so that the hero who thought he was in good shape suddenly finds that all is lost, or vice versa. Anagnorisis is a change from ignorance to knowledge.
Detailed explanation-5: -In Poetics, Aristotle suggests that the hero of a tragedy must evoke a sense of pity and fear within the audience, stating that “the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity.” In essence, the focus of the hero should not be the loss of his goodness.