Catharsis – a brief overview

Catharsis , as defined by Aristotle is an element of the emotional effect of tragedy . He says that the action of the tragedy has a healthy impact on the mind and arouses pity and fear simultaneously to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions . Thus catharsis can be chalked up to be the process of releasing strong or repressed emotions and thereby providing a moral and spiritual renewal for an individual .

A Greek play

It was used in Aristotle’s poetics as a metaphor to explain the impact of tragedy to the audiences . He further elaborated in Poetics saying : –

” Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious , complete and of a certain magnitude “

The implication being that a tragic action , as it is represented , liberates the mind of a spectator from the selfish narrowness of his / her mundane existence and elevates him to a state of liberation from anxiety or stress . It has a significant moral purpose of purging the mind with the elements of pity and fear .

It is also a medical term indicating internal cleansing by means of an aesthetic purgative , just as there may be physical cleansing by means of the material purgative . What Aristotle contends is that the tragic action has a moral effect on the mind of the spectator and cleanses it from all that is selfish and evil . Thus , a spontaneous effect of pity and fear is achieved . To Plato , catharsis was a much wider term marking the soul’s ascent to knowledge by going beyond the fixed senses and embracing knowledge in the most pure form . To him cathartic virtues were a way of assimilation to divinity . As they separated the soul from the sensible , from everything that is unnecessary and untrue . Therefore paving the way for it to contemplate the mind .

Examples of Cathartic relief are littered throughout plays dating as far back as Oedipus Rex to Shakespeare’s plays like Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet and even in various recent plays , although admittedly they are very scarce . However , the world still continues to debate the necessity of Catharsis in drama .