My notes on “Nature of Tragedy” and my opinions on it

These are my notes on the 98 pages book Nature of Tragedy by M.M. Sharif, Asiatic Publishers. This book is a criticism and realization of Aristotle’s theory of imitation and the nature of tragedy in imitative art.

This is a really good and informative book published in 1947 based on the transcript of his lectures. But due to a short amount of time, I could not get enough time to write detailed notes on it and therefore rushed a summary of the three chapters that is discussed by the book.

Four basic elements of emotional imitations

Art, to be used as a method for conveying emotion, requires imitation of similar objects or events that gives us the emotion. As a result, art can be derived into smaller means of classification to make the expression of art easier. These basic elements of emotional imitation are:

1. Means

   Mean is an important aspect of creating emotional imitation. It is the form of art through which the emotion is expressed. Such as plays, poetry, drama or literature.

2. Manner of imitations

   The manner of imitation dictates the flow and movement of the art which will produce emotion in the spectators’ mind. Such as the tragic movement of a play to produce pity.

3. Object imitated

   Object of imitation is of utmost importance in producing emotional imitation. The object may be the plot of the story of a human being, or the moral implications of an action or anything in our world of common sense that we can attach emotions to.

4. Aim of imitation

   The aim of the imitation may determine the effect of the imitation and the type of imitation it should be. Such as, if the aim of an imitation is to produce pity, then we may classify it as a tragedy. Similarly, if the aim is to produce fear, then we may call it a horror. If it is to produce humor, then it is a comedy.

For tragedy to be fully realized according to Aristotle, it requires dramatic scenes, strange and drapery elements to go with realization.

Tragedy should include these characteristics

1. Plot:
   1. Serious incidents having magnitude
   2. Comprehensible, not too long, not too short. Should lie in domain of common sense and logical thought.
   3. Should be complete. Has to have a complete ending to the plot.
2. Course of transition:
   1. Peripety - Change of one state of things to its opposite.
   2. Complication - Movement from beginning to change.
   3. Denouement - Movement from change to end.
   4. Discovery - Climactic point of sudden recognition of his impending doom.
   5. Suffering - Not by vice/depravity, but rather by err of judgement.¹

Basic aim of simple tragedy

• Produce catharsis from pity/fear

On producing tragedy based on the movement of art

Effect of tragedy also depends on the movement of art. The more dynamic the form of art is, the more it tends to produce pity in the minds of the spectators. In case of art, any form can be used to express tragedy as long as it imitates the tragic movement. Movement from prosperity to undeserving misery that is. Even a series of sculpture or paintings that expresses the demise of a person or the tragedy of a story can also produce pity in the spectators.

A summarized comparison of different means are:

Series of sculptures/paintings < Songs < Written plays < Literature/Poetry²

On Aristotleian Tragedy

Tragedy does not have to be Aristotelian only.

For example:

Tragedy contains characters who may not be innocent/normal or may be in misery and then proceed to a greater misery.

Tragedy does not rule out “extremely bad” heroes. When it does introduce them, the tragic effect is achieved by equally unmerited suffering of others. It counterbalances the lack of pitiable elements in the hero.

Euripedes, the most tragic poet regarded by Aristotle, most of his characters are extremely evil. (See Medea, Electra)

The mechanism is thought to be as followed

• Pity is achieved by display of undeserved misfortune.
• Merited suffering causes less pity than suffering of innocent bystanders.

Examining Medea’s case of tragedy

1. Her villany causes suffering of others, producing pity in the spectators.
2. Her victimization from Jason’s betrayal and Aphrodite/Artemis’ curses supposedly should produce pity in spectators.

But both of these are only theoretical, may not work practically all the time.

Euripedes’ tragedies mostly contain passion as the driving force of disaster, unlike Aristotle’s err of judgement. We pity someone when he is driven by his natural impulses to cause a disaster, because that is by nature, undeserving to both the victim and the hero.

Another characteristics of Euripedean tragedies is that the environment drives the character into a tragic misery.

Environment compells Medea to cause calamity. Medea therefore causes calamity to the environment.

Therefore, Euripedes’ tragedies are usually regarded as tragedies of the society than tragedies of the person.

Since M.M. Sharif in his book frequently compares and mentions these plays for comparing tragedies and elements of tragedies, noting them so I will read/watch later:

• Shakesparean:
  1. Hamlet
  2. King Lear
  3. Macbeth
  4. Othello
• Euripedean and Sophocles’ Tragedy (particularly Medea and Electra)
• Schiller’s, Don Carlos
• Ibsen’s plays
• Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism

Tragic idea as the basis of Tragedy

Tragic idea, as Kitto observes, runs more than tragic action.³

“ The drama arises through conflict of ideas rather than vulgar attachments, rapacities, generosities, resentment, ambitions, misunderstanding, oddities and form. “ – Bernard Shaw, Quintessence of Ibsenism

Aristotle realized that in actual life, if calamity falls upon our close relatives, we feel terror rather than pity. Fear produces terror, opposite of pity. There are two conditions according to Aristotle that evoke pity into the minds of a spectator:

1. Danger to a person other than ourselves.
2. Absence of any close relation between the person and us.

And a third optional condition, which enhances the effectiveness of producing pity:

1. Impossibility to help. Even if the spectators had means to help. This intensifies the pity/changes our sympathy into pity. Fueling the catharsis as a result.

Since the person watching the tragedy ascertains the fact that it is merely fiction, and the characters are not in relation to him, the pre-eminent fear in tragedy becomes pity in the viewer. (But this theory of Aristotle is proved wrong). For a better understanding of producing pity through tragic movement, read:

1. Schiller’s Essay, On Tragic Art
2. Cordelia, Ophelia - Shakesparean

Understanding Catharsis

Defining catharsis

Aristotle has produced many controversies by defining the word “catharsis”.

Catharsis, by uniting different philosophers’ interpretation, definition of it is,

“Is the natural relief and purification of emotions through removal of their superfluous strength by their temporary and artificial inducement and thereby creation of a healthy, and in consequence, a morally desirable state in spectators’ minds.”

Read F.L. Lucas, Tragedy for better understanding the mechanism of catharsis and Humayun Kabir’s Poetry, Monad and Society for tragic movement of catharsis.

“Tragedy does not purgate the disease. It creates the disease and then cures it.” – Humayun Kabir, Poetry, Monad and Society

Here, the disease is fear and the cure is pity.

Catharsis of the artist

But tragedy in a sense when created by an artist, does not produce catharsis in spectators but is a reflection of the catharsis of the artist. Humayun Kabir also quotes,

“Tragedy yields a catharsis of artist’s impulses and emotions before that of contemplator.”

Dr. Lock says summing up Keble’s theory of poetry in Biography of Keble,

“is essentialy a relief to the poet, a relief for overcharged emotions”…. “It is the utterance of feelings which struggled for expression but which are too deep for perfect expression at all, much more for expression in life.”

I quote M.M. Sharif directly from his book Nature of Tragedy,

“In tragic art, the artist gets an outlet for his suppressed impulses and emotions. His tendencies of love, admiration, sympathy, self-elation, curiosity, anger, fear and so on, gush forth, with the help of his consciousness, in the form of tragic agents, like gods, ghosts, kings, queens, soldiers, sailors, murderers, murderesses, and in scenes like parlours, courts, gardens, battlefields as substitute of life.”

Because it removes the pent up emotions of the artist who otherwise, would have become madmen, poetry and tragedy, is therefore cathartic. That is why we are more allured to embrace deviant art of rarity compared to common creation of talent. Our curiosity tempts us to explore the mind of the artist as the art is analyzed by our mind. Tragedy is similar in this regard. Cruel movement draws pity and curiosity out of the spectator which allows them to feel catharsis by exploring the mind of the artist and his agenda in his art.

Free association writing therefore produces catharsis in mentally ill patients. It allows them to realize their accumulated emotions and lets it gush forth into words or drawings written on pen and paper.

Shelley has said,

“Our sweetest songs are those that tell of the saddest thought”

Artist’s catharsis can be transferred to spectator’s mind when he is in the same frame as the artist.

Aristotle’s theory of tragedy producing catharsis is correct but is wrongly directed towards the contemplator whereas the catharsis on the contemplator is just a reflection of the catharsis of the artist, albeit a weakened reflection that is.

Art, Mimesis and Tragedy

Imitation or Mimesis by Aristotle says,

An imitation produces the same emotions that would be produced by the action of that imitation in actual life.

In this regard, Aristotle thinks music is the pinnacle of melody.

And supporting this, M.M. Sharif says,

Melody of a music can copy the rhythm of our experiences, succession of our actions, emotions of different events. Starting from our roars of laughter, shouts of joy, screams of pain, shrieks of terror, thunders in rage and wails in woe, music is the most imitative out of all objects of mimesis in regards of conveying emotions. Music can copy our success and failure, our weakness and strength, the beating of our hearts and the swinging of our legs and arms in suspense. Music does not only represent the physical expression of our emotions, impulses, volitions and thoughts, but it also represents the suddenness and storminess of anger, sharpness and shortness of temper, strength and dominance of courage, fineness and acuteness of intellect, extent and depth of knowledge, oscillations of indecision, balance of justice and likewise, it imitates the physical expressions of our daily life and as well as the quality of our experiences in their universal forms, it is regarded as imitative of all arts.

Universality apart, it can imitate qualities of our character, actions and emotions and their concreteness more truly than architecture, sculpture, dancing, painting and even poetry.

But music itself is subjective. Subjective in a sense that a genre of music in one culture may not regarded as the same genre in another culture. So to apply this logic, there must be an expanded exposure to music for the spectators, so they can distinguish hidden emotions by acquiring stimuli from the music.

Hegel’s dispute with Mimesis

Hegel rejects imitation and mimesis and believes that imitation is not adequate enough to support the theory of mimesis, meaning it cannot induce the same or give equal magnitude of emotions to the spectator.⁴

In my opinion, Hegels theories are correct. According to M.M. Sharif, if nature is copied exact to exact, then it cannot reproduce the same emotions as seen for the first time. An example given by M.M. Sharif is an apple drawn as perfectly as possible cannot give the same emotions we develop when seeing the apple for the first time in reality. The only thing that impresses the spectator is the background behind drawing of the apple, such as the talent required, the story behind it etc. which becomes the main focus, not the object of the art itself. So, we have to see art as a construction of original imitation and added beautification.

Art as a construction

The beauty of an art, does not depend on imitation alone. If additional beautification of an art is taken into amount, it is still an authentic art, an object of uniqueness and creativity. And it is not due to imitation. Although Aristotle contributes all of his theory of ideal art to mimesis alone, he himself admits that art results from objective stimuli or the knowledge, color, rhythm, uniqueness etc. about the art.

So therefore,

Art is a construction… not an imitation and thus, tragedy is a construction.

The characters in a tragic play, have distinctive qualities of characters and thought, but these qualities are not seen in any general human because these characters are based on the relation to human life in piteous and fearful aspects. Tragedies are not imitations of anything. They are creations of the elements supplied partly by nature and the artist.

Art is an imitation, not of actual life, but from imagination of the artist. His imagination, his feelings, even if it is taken from the gruesome of reality, enhanced with even more messed up elements, like the Medea of Euripedes, converges with his art, produces catharsis to the artist and in pity to the contemplator.

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