House of Notes

Aristotle's concept of catharsis Aristotle writes that the function of tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear, and to affect the Katharsis of these emotions. Aristotle has used the term Katharsis only once, but no phrase has been handled so frequently by critics, and poets. Aristotle has not explained what exactly he meant by the word, nor do we get any help from the Poetics. For this reason, help and guidance has to be taken from his other works. Further, Katharsis has three meaning. It means ‘purgation’, ‘purification’, and ‘clarification’, and each critic has used the word in one or the other senses. All agree that Tragedy arouses fear and pity, but there are sharp differences as to the process, the way by which the rousing of these emotions gives pleasure. Katharsis has been taken as a medical metaphor, ‘purgation’, denoting a pathological effect on the soul similar to the effect of medicine on the body. This view is borne out by a passage in the P

                 Aristotle Biography:biographical sketch   Aristotle was born in 384 BC, in Stagira, near Macedonia at the northern end of the Aegean Sea. His father, Nicomachus, was the family physician of King Amyntas of Macedonia. It is believed that Aristotle's ancestors had been the physicians of the Macedonian royal family for several generations. Having come from a long line of physicians, Aristotle received training and education that inclined his mind toward the study of natural phenomena. This education had long-lasting influences, and was probably the root cause of his less idealistic stand on philosophy as opposed to Plato. Aristotle's father died when he was a boy, and Aristotle was left under the care of his guardian Proxenus. When Aristotle was seventeen, Proxenus sent him to study at Plato's Academy in Athens, the heart of the intellectual world at the time. Aristotle remained at the Academy for twenty years, until Plato's death in 34

          Biographical Briefing on Aristotle, biographical sketch of Aristotle Directions: The following information will help your group prepare for the press conference in which one of you has been assigned to play Aristotle and the rest of you have other roles to play. To prepare for the press conference, each group member reads a section of the handout and leads a discussion of the questions following that section. Aristotle was bom in 384 B.C. in Stagira, a small township in northern Greece. His father, a physician at the royal court of Macedonia, died while his son was still young. Aristotle then left Stagira to study at Plato’s Academy in Athens. For the next 20 years, Aristotle studied with Plato, a renowned Greek philosopher, and the circle of philosophers at the Academy. After Plato’s death in 347 B.C., Aristotle left the Academy and traveled in Greece and Asia Minor, writing and studying in academic circles. His writing covers a wide range of subjects: logic