Gregory A. Staley
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387438
- eISBN:
- 9780199866809
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387438.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
As both a literary genre and a view of life, tragedy has from the very beginning spurred a dialogue between poetry and philosophy. Plato wanted to ban tragedians from his ideal community because he ...
More
As both a literary genre and a view of life, tragedy has from the very beginning spurred a dialogue between poetry and philosophy. Plato wanted to ban tragedians from his ideal community because he believed that they dabbled in the philosopher’s business but had no “idea” what they were doing. Aristotle set out to answer Plato’s objections by arguing that fiction offers a faithful image of the truth and promotes emotional health through the mechanism of catharsis. This book argues that Aristotle’s definition of tragedy actually had its greatest impact not on Greek tragedy itself but on the later history of the idea of tragedy, beginning with the tragedies of the Roman poet and Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 bc–ad 65), whose Latin plays were known and read in the Renaissance for centuries before the now more famous Greek tragedies were rediscovered. When Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) composed An Apology for Poetry, he borrowed from Seneca the word idea to designate what we would now label as a “theory” of tragedy. Through Sidney, Seneca’s plays came to exemplify an idea of tragedy that was at its core Aristotelian. Senecan tragedy enacts Aristotle’s conception of the genre as a vivid image of the truth and treats tragedy as a natural venue in which to explore the human soul.Less
As both a literary genre and a view of life, tragedy has from the very beginning spurred a dialogue between poetry and philosophy. Plato wanted to ban tragedians from his ideal community because he believed that they dabbled in the philosopher’s business but had no “idea” what they were doing. Aristotle set out to answer Plato’s objections by arguing that fiction offers a faithful image of the truth and promotes emotional health through the mechanism of catharsis. This book argues that Aristotle’s definition of tragedy actually had its greatest impact not on Greek tragedy itself but on the later history of the idea of tragedy, beginning with the tragedies of the Roman poet and Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 bc–ad 65), whose Latin plays were known and read in the Renaissance for centuries before the now more famous Greek tragedies were rediscovered. When Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) composed An Apology for Poetry, he borrowed from Seneca the word idea to designate what we would now label as a “theory” of tragedy. Through Sidney, Seneca’s plays came to exemplify an idea of tragedy that was at its core Aristotelian. Senecan tragedy enacts Aristotle’s conception of the genre as a vivid image of the truth and treats tragedy as a natural venue in which to explore the human soul.
John C. Lyden
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335989
- eISBN:
- 9780199868940
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335989.003.0016
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter begins by describing the mythological approach to film and religion by arguing that movies provide the collective myths that help a culture deal with its anxieties and hopes, usually by ...
More
This chapter begins by describing the mythological approach to film and religion by arguing that movies provide the collective myths that help a culture deal with its anxieties and hopes, usually by way of the cathartic drama of rewarded heroes and punished villains. Having established this theoretical groundwork, the chapter addresses specific pedagogical issues that relate to helping students not only to recognize the myths and values implicit within a film but also to understand how people appropriate them.Less
This chapter begins by describing the mythological approach to film and religion by arguing that movies provide the collective myths that help a culture deal with its anxieties and hopes, usually by way of the cathartic drama of rewarded heroes and punished villains. Having established this theoretical groundwork, the chapter addresses specific pedagogical issues that relate to helping students not only to recognize the myths and values implicit within a film but also to understand how people appropriate them.
Gordon W. Russell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195189599
- eISBN:
- 9780199868445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189599.003.0007
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter provides a brief introductory or refresher course intended to familiarize the reader with the basics of experimental research. Several sources of biasing influences are described, with ...
More
This chapter provides a brief introductory or refresher course intended to familiarize the reader with the basics of experimental research. Several sources of biasing influences are described, with each followed by the steps typically taken to control for their influence. Three traditional behavioral measures of laboratory aggression are reviewed, followed by four more recently developed laboratory measures. Self-reports of aggression, objective inventory measures, and projective techniques are described and evaluated. Attention is directed to the use of archival records as a source of data well suited to investigations of sport aggression. A concluding section traces the development of theory intended to account for aggressive behavior. Early instinctual explanations were displaced by the frustration–aggression hypothesis, aggressive cue theory, and social learning theory. The popular and persistent notion of catharsis is reviewed and found to be lacking empirical support.Less
This chapter provides a brief introductory or refresher course intended to familiarize the reader with the basics of experimental research. Several sources of biasing influences are described, with each followed by the steps typically taken to control for their influence. Three traditional behavioral measures of laboratory aggression are reviewed, followed by four more recently developed laboratory measures. Self-reports of aggression, objective inventory measures, and projective techniques are described and evaluated. Attention is directed to the use of archival records as a source of data well suited to investigations of sport aggression. A concluding section traces the development of theory intended to account for aggressive behavior. Early instinctual explanations were displaced by the frustration–aggression hypothesis, aggressive cue theory, and social learning theory. The popular and persistent notion of catharsis is reviewed and found to be lacking empirical support.
Richard Sorabji
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199256600
- eISBN:
- 9780191712609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256600.003.0020
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
If Aristotle's catharsis gets rid of something by allowing it moderate exercise, by tragedy it will get rid of an excessive disposition to grief, as well as pity and fear; and in comedy of an ...
More
If Aristotle's catharsis gets rid of something by allowing it moderate exercise, by tragedy it will get rid of an excessive disposition to grief, as well as pity and fear; and in comedy of an excessive disposition to contempt. Dispositions to fear, grief, and contempt do tend to be excessive. Until the Neoplatonists Porphyry and Iamblichus, there are only brief references to Aristotle's catharsis in Pythagoras and Pythagoreans, Philodemus, Plutarch, less clearly in the Stoics Diogenes of Babylon and Seneca. But among later Neoplatonists, Proclus denies theatre can be cathartic while Simplicius allows over-indulgence to be cathartic. Both compare a healing emetic. Olympiodorus associates catharsis through moderate exercise of emotion with Pythagoras, whereas Aristotle's catharsis is associated with his advice in Rhetoric to drive out one emotion by its opposite, and there are three other kinds of catharsis.Less
If Aristotle's catharsis gets rid of something by allowing it moderate exercise, by tragedy it will get rid of an excessive disposition to grief, as well as pity and fear; and in comedy of an excessive disposition to contempt. Dispositions to fear, grief, and contempt do tend to be excessive. Until the Neoplatonists Porphyry and Iamblichus, there are only brief references to Aristotle's catharsis in Pythagoras and Pythagoreans, Philodemus, Plutarch, less clearly in the Stoics Diogenes of Babylon and Seneca. But among later Neoplatonists, Proclus denies theatre can be cathartic while Simplicius allows over-indulgence to be cathartic. Both compare a healing emetic. Olympiodorus associates catharsis through moderate exercise of emotion with Pythagoras, whereas Aristotle's catharsis is associated with his advice in Rhetoric to drive out one emotion by its opposite, and there are three other kinds of catharsis.
Richard Sorabji
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199256600
- eISBN:
- 9780191712609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256600.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
According to Seneca, the arts, including tragedy and music, can only produce first movements. So Aristotle's claim that tragedy and comedy produce catharsis by arousing emotion is wrong, as is ...
More
According to Seneca, the arts, including tragedy and music, can only produce first movements. So Aristotle's claim that tragedy and comedy produce catharsis by arousing emotion is wrong, as is Posidonius' belief in wordless music changing emotion without changing judgements. But, pace Seneca, there is a residue of cases of genuine emotion about the content of the play or about the melody, and a better defence of Stoicism in these cases would be that the relevant judgements are there. But when wordless music changes emotion, Posidonius prefers to say that the emotion is non-judgemental; Philodemus, his Epicurean contemporary, says that the emotion persists and one is merely distracted. The debate involved Pythagoreans, the Stoics Zeno and Diogenes of Babylon, and later Augustine.Less
According to Seneca, the arts, including tragedy and music, can only produce first movements. So Aristotle's claim that tragedy and comedy produce catharsis by arousing emotion is wrong, as is Posidonius' belief in wordless music changing emotion without changing judgements. But, pace Seneca, there is a residue of cases of genuine emotion about the content of the play or about the melody, and a better defence of Stoicism in these cases would be that the relevant judgements are there. But when wordless music changes emotion, Posidonius prefers to say that the emotion is non-judgemental; Philodemus, his Epicurean contemporary, says that the emotion persists and one is merely distracted. The debate involved Pythagoreans, the Stoics Zeno and Diogenes of Babylon, and later Augustine.
A. D. Nuttall
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187660
- eISBN:
- 9780191674747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187660.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
But why does tragedy give pleasure to ‘people like ourselves’? A cruel or sadistic pleasure in the blinding of Oedipus is immediately distinguishable from what Aristotle called the oikeia hedone, ...
More
But why does tragedy give pleasure to ‘people like ourselves’? A cruel or sadistic pleasure in the blinding of Oedipus is immediately distinguishable from what Aristotle called the oikeia hedone, ‘the proper pleasure’ of tragedy, and the same may be true — though less obviously true — in the case of the gloating, envious spectator. In the tragic theatre, suffering and death are perceived as matters for grief and fear, after which it seems that grief and fear become in their turn matters for enjoyment. ‘The pleasure of tragedy’ is an immediately uncomfortable phrase. Plato feared poets because it seemed to him that they told lies and whipped up irrational emotions. Aristotle's answer is that, in tragic poetry at least, emotion is not whipped up, but is discharged. His word, which has become so famous that it has stepped from Greek into English, is catharsis, ‘purification’ or ‘purgation’.Less
But why does tragedy give pleasure to ‘people like ourselves’? A cruel or sadistic pleasure in the blinding of Oedipus is immediately distinguishable from what Aristotle called the oikeia hedone, ‘the proper pleasure’ of tragedy, and the same may be true — though less obviously true — in the case of the gloating, envious spectator. In the tragic theatre, suffering and death are perceived as matters for grief and fear, after which it seems that grief and fear become in their turn matters for enjoyment. ‘The pleasure of tragedy’ is an immediately uncomfortable phrase. Plato feared poets because it seemed to him that they told lies and whipped up irrational emotions. Aristotle's answer is that, in tragic poetry at least, emotion is not whipped up, but is discharged. His word, which has become so famous that it has stepped from Greek into English, is catharsis, ‘purification’ or ‘purgation’.
A. D. Nuttall
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187660
- eISBN:
- 9780191674747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187660.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
According to Aristotle, the pleasure of tragedy is the pleasure of vigorous excretion. Wish-fulfilment drama would seem to offer simultaneous gratification and catharsis (release of excess pressure). ...
More
According to Aristotle, the pleasure of tragedy is the pleasure of vigorous excretion. Wish-fulfilment drama would seem to offer simultaneous gratification and catharsis (release of excess pressure). Of course if there were an unstoppable welling-up of fear in all of us which simply required expulsion from time to time, recourse to the tragic theatre would be explained: this theatre for that catharsis, the other theatre for the other. But Aristotle, despite his use of the alimentary analogy, is unlikely to have believed this. The person who did believe something of this sort is Sigmund Freud, who at least believed in quasi-physiological cathexes of psychic force — in psychic quanta — requiring periodic discharge. In The Outline of Psychoanalysis, Freud distinguished his own practice from earlier investigations which had been confined to the field of consciousness: psychoanalysis, he observed, was able ‘to take its place as a natural science like any other’.Less
According to Aristotle, the pleasure of tragedy is the pleasure of vigorous excretion. Wish-fulfilment drama would seem to offer simultaneous gratification and catharsis (release of excess pressure). Of course if there were an unstoppable welling-up of fear in all of us which simply required expulsion from time to time, recourse to the tragic theatre would be explained: this theatre for that catharsis, the other theatre for the other. But Aristotle, despite his use of the alimentary analogy, is unlikely to have believed this. The person who did believe something of this sort is Sigmund Freud, who at least believed in quasi-physiological cathexes of psychic force — in psychic quanta — requiring periodic discharge. In The Outline of Psychoanalysis, Freud distinguished his own practice from earlier investigations which had been confined to the field of consciousness: psychoanalysis, he observed, was able ‘to take its place as a natural science like any other’.
Stephen Halliwell
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199570560
- eISBN:
- 9780191738753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570560.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter argues that Aristotle's theory of tragedy in the Poetics incorporates a model of ‘emotional understanding’: understanding filtered through the affective and evaluative responses embodied ...
More
This chapter argues that Aristotle's theory of tragedy in the Poetics incorporates a model of ‘emotional understanding’: understanding filtered through the affective and evaluative responses embodied in emotions. The Poetics treats the defining experience of tragedy as involving a concentrated surge of pity and fear, but it ties these emotions to the audience's cognitive grasp of the unified patterns of human action represented in plot-structures. In the second half of the chapter it is maintained, partly with the help of Politics 8, that catharsis can best be interpreted as the psychological benefit arising from the conversion of painful into pleasurable emotions through an aesthetic experience of mimetic representation or expression. An appendix analyses and rejects two recent attempts to prove the catharsis clause in the Poetics an interpolation.Less
This chapter argues that Aristotle's theory of tragedy in the Poetics incorporates a model of ‘emotional understanding’: understanding filtered through the affective and evaluative responses embodied in emotions. The Poetics treats the defining experience of tragedy as involving a concentrated surge of pity and fear, but it ties these emotions to the audience's cognitive grasp of the unified patterns of human action represented in plot-structures. In the second half of the chapter it is maintained, partly with the help of Politics 8, that catharsis can best be interpreted as the psychological benefit arising from the conversion of painful into pleasurable emotions through an aesthetic experience of mimetic representation or expression. An appendix analyses and rejects two recent attempts to prove the catharsis clause in the Poetics an interpolation.
Gregory A. Staley
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387438
- eISBN:
- 9780199866809
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387438.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The Stoics regularly turned to the words of tragic characters to elucidate psychology, for it was thought that poetry was a vivid source of evidence about the unseen soul: Tragedy was the plot of the ...
More
The Stoics regularly turned to the words of tragic characters to elucidate psychology, for it was thought that poetry was a vivid source of evidence about the unseen soul: Tragedy was the plot of the soul, an illustration of the process of cognition that produced emotion. Seneca’s plays regularly depict characters who are angry, frightened, or even in love, for passion was the Stoic explanation for the events traditionally considered tragic, and tragedy was the genre best suited to the world of mad emperors in which Seneca lived. Yet within both his plays and his philosophical essays, Seneca suggests that these vivid portraits of passionate souls serve not to make us passionate but instead help us to understand and to reject similar feelings. Aristotle’s notion of catharsis as a process of “clarification” shaped Seneca’s approach to tragic response.Less
The Stoics regularly turned to the words of tragic characters to elucidate psychology, for it was thought that poetry was a vivid source of evidence about the unseen soul: Tragedy was the plot of the soul, an illustration of the process of cognition that produced emotion. Seneca’s plays regularly depict characters who are angry, frightened, or even in love, for passion was the Stoic explanation for the events traditionally considered tragic, and tragedy was the genre best suited to the world of mad emperors in which Seneca lived. Yet within both his plays and his philosophical essays, Seneca suggests that these vivid portraits of passionate souls serve not to make us passionate but instead help us to understand and to reject similar feelings. Aristotle’s notion of catharsis as a process of “clarification” shaped Seneca’s approach to tragic response.
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823282340
- eISBN:
- 9780823286201
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823282340.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book opens with a philosophical scene: in the context of a reading of Hölderlin, Heidegger dismisses Rousseau as irrelevant to the true concerns of philosophy, and thus shows his own blindness ...
More
This book opens with a philosophical scene: in the context of a reading of Hölderlin, Heidegger dismisses Rousseau as irrelevant to the true concerns of philosophy, and thus shows his own blindness to Rousseau’s very evident influence. This dismissal is motivated in part by Heidegger’s pro-German posture, but also by a disregard of Rousseau’s thinking, particularly his thinking of mimêsis. In what follows, Lacoue-Labarthe’s task is, first, to show that Rousseau articulates a genuine transcendental thinking of origins, one that will be read and retained by the major philosophers who follow him (notably Kant). This demonstration is carried out with reference especially to Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, in which, in the wake of readings by Jacques Derrida and Jean Starobinski, Lacoue-Labarthe locates a thinking of technê (as a supplement of nature) that is properly transcendental and originary. Lacoue-Labarthe calls this Rousseau’s “onto-technology,” showing that it is linked with a scene, and therefore with the theater, in a broad sense. The second task, then, is to show that in his discourse on the theater, especially in the Letter to d’Alembert, Rousseau thinks in specifically philosophical terms, and that, despite an apparently conventional reading of Aristotle’s Poetics, he actually articulates a more genuine understanding of mimêsis and katharsis that is more faithful to Aristotle’s text. Katharsis becomes a form of speculative sublation, an Aufhebung, and Rousseau’s apparently reactionary interpretation of theater places him at a crucial initiating point of modern philosophy in the grips of a paradoxical dialectic.Less
This book opens with a philosophical scene: in the context of a reading of Hölderlin, Heidegger dismisses Rousseau as irrelevant to the true concerns of philosophy, and thus shows his own blindness to Rousseau’s very evident influence. This dismissal is motivated in part by Heidegger’s pro-German posture, but also by a disregard of Rousseau’s thinking, particularly his thinking of mimêsis. In what follows, Lacoue-Labarthe’s task is, first, to show that Rousseau articulates a genuine transcendental thinking of origins, one that will be read and retained by the major philosophers who follow him (notably Kant). This demonstration is carried out with reference especially to Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, in which, in the wake of readings by Jacques Derrida and Jean Starobinski, Lacoue-Labarthe locates a thinking of technê (as a supplement of nature) that is properly transcendental and originary. Lacoue-Labarthe calls this Rousseau’s “onto-technology,” showing that it is linked with a scene, and therefore with the theater, in a broad sense. The second task, then, is to show that in his discourse on the theater, especially in the Letter to d’Alembert, Rousseau thinks in specifically philosophical terms, and that, despite an apparently conventional reading of Aristotle’s Poetics, he actually articulates a more genuine understanding of mimêsis and katharsis that is more faithful to Aristotle’s text. Katharsis becomes a form of speculative sublation, an Aufhebung, and Rousseau’s apparently reactionary interpretation of theater places him at a crucial initiating point of modern philosophy in the grips of a paradoxical dialectic.
RACHEL BOWLBY
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199566228
- eISBN:
- 9780191710407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199566228.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers Freud's claim, in The Interpretation of Dreams, to have discovered in Sophocles' tragedy the evocation of a universal Oedipus. Second are aspects of the myth of Oedipus — such ...
More
This chapter considers Freud's claim, in The Interpretation of Dreams, to have discovered in Sophocles' tragedy the evocation of a universal Oedipus. Second are aspects of the myth of Oedipus — such as the story of the boy Chrysippus' rape by Oedipus's father Laius — that Freud downplayed in making his own emphasis. The third is the general proximity between tragedy and therapy, via the notion of catharsis, which had been recently reinterpreted in medical terms by Freud's own uncle by marriage, the classicist Jacob Bernays. Finally, there is the openness of all Greek myth and tragedy to reinterpretation in the light of changing cultural concerns.Less
This chapter considers Freud's claim, in The Interpretation of Dreams, to have discovered in Sophocles' tragedy the evocation of a universal Oedipus. Second are aspects of the myth of Oedipus — such as the story of the boy Chrysippus' rape by Oedipus's father Laius — that Freud downplayed in making his own emphasis. The third is the general proximity between tragedy and therapy, via the notion of catharsis, which had been recently reinterpreted in medical terms by Freud's own uncle by marriage, the classicist Jacob Bernays. Finally, there is the openness of all Greek myth and tragedy to reinterpretation in the light of changing cultural concerns.
RACHEL BOWLBY
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199566228
- eISBN:
- 9780191710407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199566228.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers the ignoring of hysteria in psychoanalytic writing after the early Studies in Hysteria (1895), co-written with Josef Breuer, and the recent centennial revival of interest in ...
More
This chapter considers the ignoring of hysteria in psychoanalytic writing after the early Studies in Hysteria (1895), co-written with Josef Breuer, and the recent centennial revival of interest in the disease as a transhistorical reality. It asks what it is about hysteria that renders it perpetually liable to seeming disappearance and subsequent reappearance. The chapter also examines how the proto-psychoanalytic ‘cathartic’ cure, which is first outlined in the Studies, is not necessarily as dramatically final as the adjective suggests. The patient ‘Anna O’ called it a ‘talking cure’, but also called it her ‘chimney-sweeping’, which suggests a mundane task that will always return.Less
This chapter considers the ignoring of hysteria in psychoanalytic writing after the early Studies in Hysteria (1895), co-written with Josef Breuer, and the recent centennial revival of interest in the disease as a transhistorical reality. It asks what it is about hysteria that renders it perpetually liable to seeming disappearance and subsequent reappearance. The chapter also examines how the proto-psychoanalytic ‘cathartic’ cure, which is first outlined in the Studies, is not necessarily as dramatically final as the adjective suggests. The patient ‘Anna O’ called it a ‘talking cure’, but also called it her ‘chimney-sweeping’, which suggests a mundane task that will always return.
Deborah Chester
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781784992880
- eISBN:
- 9781526104199
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992880.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Since fantasy usually centers upon power struggles and heroism, the protagonist is placed in a dire situation that can’t be solved in ordinary, real-life ways; therefore, such quandaries require ...
More
Since fantasy usually centers upon power struggles and heroism, the protagonist is placed in a dire situation that can’t be solved in ordinary, real-life ways; therefore, such quandaries require protagonists who have extraordinary courage, willingness to take enormous risks, and/or magical powers. A six-step pattern of climax construction covers a choice between two terrible options, a sacrificial decision from the hero, an action that defies the villain, a dark moment of apparent defeat, a reversal, and the delivery of poetic justice according to what the hero and villain each deserve. Such a design has been used in storytelling since antiquity, yet this archetypal pattern remains universal because it’s emotionally and psychologically cathartic for readers.Less
Since fantasy usually centers upon power struggles and heroism, the protagonist is placed in a dire situation that can’t be solved in ordinary, real-life ways; therefore, such quandaries require protagonists who have extraordinary courage, willingness to take enormous risks, and/or magical powers. A six-step pattern of climax construction covers a choice between two terrible options, a sacrificial decision from the hero, an action that defies the villain, a dark moment of apparent defeat, a reversal, and the delivery of poetic justice according to what the hero and villain each deserve. Such a design has been used in storytelling since antiquity, yet this archetypal pattern remains universal because it’s emotionally and psychologically cathartic for readers.
Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile, and Katherine E. Buckley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- April 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195309836
- eISBN:
- 9780199893393
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309836.003.0009
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology
This chapter discusses the magnitude of media violence effects, the idea of media violence providing catharsis (venting) for aggression, and a host of public policy questions. It shows, for example, ...
More
This chapter discusses the magnitude of media violence effects, the idea of media violence providing catharsis (venting) for aggression, and a host of public policy questions. It shows, for example, that the harmful effects of violent video games are at least as large as many other known risk factors, such having abusive parents. Furthermore, video game violence is important because almost all children are exposed to this risk factor. The vast array of media violence studies over the last 50 years strongly disproves the catharsis idea that (unfortunately) remains so popular in modern culture. This is the idea that using violent media allows a person to vent their pent up aggressive inclinations, thereby reducing real aggressive behavior. Although this idea is appealing, it is wrong. The chapter concludes with descriptions of a wide array of public policy options that various concerned parents, legislators, and policy makers in a number of countries have proposed to address the harmful effects of violent video games.Less
This chapter discusses the magnitude of media violence effects, the idea of media violence providing catharsis (venting) for aggression, and a host of public policy questions. It shows, for example, that the harmful effects of violent video games are at least as large as many other known risk factors, such having abusive parents. Furthermore, video game violence is important because almost all children are exposed to this risk factor. The vast array of media violence studies over the last 50 years strongly disproves the catharsis idea that (unfortunately) remains so popular in modern culture. This is the idea that using violent media allows a person to vent their pent up aggressive inclinations, thereby reducing real aggressive behavior. Although this idea is appealing, it is wrong. The chapter concludes with descriptions of a wide array of public policy options that various concerned parents, legislators, and policy makers in a number of countries have proposed to address the harmful effects of violent video games.
Andrew Ford
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199242399
- eISBN:
- 9780191714078
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242399.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
This chapter focuses on book 8 of Aristotle's Politics and its discussion of mousike in education or paideia. It argues that in this context we should understand the term in the strict sense of music ...
More
This chapter focuses on book 8 of Aristotle's Politics and its discussion of mousike in education or paideia. It argues that in this context we should understand the term in the strict sense of music without words. Aristotle is concerned not so much with poetry and its place in society, but with the natural powers of music — of tunes, harmoniai, and rhythms — and how they affect ordinary people. According to this argument music is a leisure activity providing relaxation from labour and freedom from care, not a means of communicating deeper truths and values. Similarly, catharsis should be understood as a harmless release of the emotions (however that worked) rather than as an intellectual refinement which educated audiences in the proper use of the emotions.Less
This chapter focuses on book 8 of Aristotle's Politics and its discussion of mousike in education or paideia. It argues that in this context we should understand the term in the strict sense of music without words. Aristotle is concerned not so much with poetry and its place in society, but with the natural powers of music — of tunes, harmoniai, and rhythms — and how they affect ordinary people. According to this argument music is a leisure activity providing relaxation from labour and freedom from care, not a means of communicating deeper truths and values. Similarly, catharsis should be understood as a harmless release of the emotions (however that worked) rather than as an intellectual refinement which educated audiences in the proper use of the emotions.
Catherine Belling
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199892365
- eISBN:
- 9780199950096
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892365.003.0021
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Horror stories, in fiction and especially film, express the content of hypochondria that medicine excludes or denies: the abjectness of the damaged, diseased, dead, and decaying body. The genre of ...
More
Horror stories, in fiction and especially film, express the content of hypochondria that medicine excludes or denies: the abjectness of the damaged, diseased, dead, and decaying body. The genre of horror allows expression of this unruly aspect of embodiment. Centered on a reading of David Cronenberg's film The Fly as a kind of illness narrative, the chapter suggest that hypochondria is to medicine as horror is to tragedy-and as postmodern horror, in its refusal of catharsis or closure, is to the clinical decorum of modern medicine.Less
Horror stories, in fiction and especially film, express the content of hypochondria that medicine excludes or denies: the abjectness of the damaged, diseased, dead, and decaying body. The genre of horror allows expression of this unruly aspect of embodiment. Centered on a reading of David Cronenberg's film The Fly as a kind of illness narrative, the chapter suggest that hypochondria is to medicine as horror is to tragedy-and as postmodern horror, in its refusal of catharsis or closure, is to the clinical decorum of modern medicine.
Charles Shepherdson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227662
- eISBN:
- 9780823235353
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227662.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter focuses on two elements in Lacan's reading of Antigone, two features, which are also two relations. One of these takes place on the stage, within the action of ...
More
This chapter focuses on two elements in Lacan's reading of Antigone, two features, which are also two relations. One of these takes place on the stage, within the action of the play; the other takes place between this action and the audience who come to witness its unfolding. Within the play, it is a question of Antigone's relation to her brother, and the strange desire or fate, the compulsion or responsibility, that binds her to her brother — more precisely (since there are two), to that brother who is dead but not yet buried, that singular and irreplaceable brother towards whom Antigone alone is able, or willing, or compelled to act. The second feature is located in the relation between the action of the play and the audience that bears witness to that action. If Antigone is not only the heroine, but the heroine for us, if it is she who most of all attracts our attention and rouses our emotions, if we are drawn toward her in a kind of horrified captivation that both attracts and repels, moving us forward in pity even as we recoil in fear, then she is the principal focus of what Aristotle calls catharsis, that obscure but crucial experience of “emotion” which is definitive of tragedy as such.Less
This chapter focuses on two elements in Lacan's reading of Antigone, two features, which are also two relations. One of these takes place on the stage, within the action of the play; the other takes place between this action and the audience who come to witness its unfolding. Within the play, it is a question of Antigone's relation to her brother, and the strange desire or fate, the compulsion or responsibility, that binds her to her brother — more precisely (since there are two), to that brother who is dead but not yet buried, that singular and irreplaceable brother towards whom Antigone alone is able, or willing, or compelled to act. The second feature is located in the relation between the action of the play and the audience that bears witness to that action. If Antigone is not only the heroine, but the heroine for us, if it is she who most of all attracts our attention and rouses our emotions, if we are drawn toward her in a kind of horrified captivation that both attracts and repels, moving us forward in pity even as we recoil in fear, then she is the principal focus of what Aristotle calls catharsis, that obscure but crucial experience of “emotion” which is definitive of tragedy as such.
Richard Kearney
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823229734
- eISBN:
- 9780823235186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823229734.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter illustrates the ethics of catharsis by means of anthropological and cultural analysis. It begins with some anthropological examples of how catharsis is linked to the process of ...
More
This chapter illustrates the ethics of catharsis by means of anthropological and cultural analysis. It begins with some anthropological examples of how catharsis is linked to the process of narration. It reveals that the creative repetition of narrative is ethically imperative because it provides a clearer view to review insufferable pain and unbearable loss.Less
This chapter illustrates the ethics of catharsis by means of anthropological and cultural analysis. It begins with some anthropological examples of how catharsis is linked to the process of narration. It reveals that the creative repetition of narrative is ethically imperative because it provides a clearer view to review insufferable pain and unbearable loss.
R. Darren Gobert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804786386
- eISBN:
- 9780804788267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786386.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter concerns playwriting and dramatic theory after Descartes. It demonstrates how the much-discussed problem of dramatic catharsis originates in an incommensurability produced by ...
More
This chapter concerns playwriting and dramatic theory after Descartes. It demonstrates how the much-discussed problem of dramatic catharsis originates in an incommensurability produced by Cartesianism, since the universal experience of pity and fear theorized by Aristotle cannot be reconciled with an audience of individualized subjects. Pierre Corneille responded to this incommensurability in Nicomède, whose script is analyzed alongside two of its performances: at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1651, and at the Louvre in 1658. Corneille reconfigured tragedy in order to foreground wonder, the precise emotion that Descartes located at the center of his emotional physics and moral philosophy. These Cartesian innovations, theorized in Corneille's copious theoretical writings, were in turn mimicked in English theater and dramatic theory of the period, especially that of John Dryden, whose essays "Of Dramatick Poesy" and "Conquest of Granada" are discussed.Less
This chapter concerns playwriting and dramatic theory after Descartes. It demonstrates how the much-discussed problem of dramatic catharsis originates in an incommensurability produced by Cartesianism, since the universal experience of pity and fear theorized by Aristotle cannot be reconciled with an audience of individualized subjects. Pierre Corneille responded to this incommensurability in Nicomède, whose script is analyzed alongside two of its performances: at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1651, and at the Louvre in 1658. Corneille reconfigured tragedy in order to foreground wonder, the precise emotion that Descartes located at the center of his emotional physics and moral philosophy. These Cartesian innovations, theorized in Corneille's copious theoretical writings, were in turn mimicked in English theater and dramatic theory of the period, especially that of John Dryden, whose essays "Of Dramatick Poesy" and "Conquest of Granada" are discussed.
Simon Palfrey
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226150642
- eISBN:
- 9780226150789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226150789.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This section looks at the first storm scene. The place entered is radically unprecedented, a torn world. This world is liquid and pro-creative, and its necessary issue is Tom. The action moves toward ...
More
This section looks at the first storm scene. The place entered is radically unprecedented, a torn world. This world is liquid and pro-creative, and its necessary issue is Tom. The action moves toward the hovel where, unknown to anyone, the Tom-actor already lurks, absorbing everything, as though being composed by the act of this hearing. Lear’s prayer to the houseless wretches is the final process of Tom’s incubation. Tom bursts out from this speech, a living “superflux,” embodying all of the parties appealed to in Lear’s prayer—his child, the poor, the savage place, the audience, the king himself. The elements interpenetrate; individuality is less aboriginal than de-human ecology. Tom makes the prayer come true; his presence implicitly, proleptically answers it; but the fact that he cannot explicitly answer it ensures the tragedy must go on. His irruption from the straw tantalizes with possibility, occupying a series of temporal stations. This is the play’s unique take on catharsis, a retch venting a wretch.Less
This section looks at the first storm scene. The place entered is radically unprecedented, a torn world. This world is liquid and pro-creative, and its necessary issue is Tom. The action moves toward the hovel where, unknown to anyone, the Tom-actor already lurks, absorbing everything, as though being composed by the act of this hearing. Lear’s prayer to the houseless wretches is the final process of Tom’s incubation. Tom bursts out from this speech, a living “superflux,” embodying all of the parties appealed to in Lear’s prayer—his child, the poor, the savage place, the audience, the king himself. The elements interpenetrate; individuality is less aboriginal than de-human ecology. Tom makes the prayer come true; his presence implicitly, proleptically answers it; but the fact that he cannot explicitly answer it ensures the tragedy must go on. His irruption from the straw tantalizes with possibility, occupying a series of temporal stations. This is the play’s unique take on catharsis, a retch venting a wretch.
