1. What is Tragedy?

2. Origins of Tragedy
The Greek philosopher Aristotle first defined tragedy in his book Poetics written in about 330 BCE

3. Shakespearean Tragedy
A Tragic Hero
The Tragic Flaw-Hamartia
Reversal of Fortune
Anagnorisis
Catharsis
Restoration of Social Order –Denouement

4. The Tragic Hero
The tragic hero is someone we, as an audience, look up to—someone superior.
A promising protagonist

5. Tragic Flaw The hero is nearly perfect-
The hero has one flaw or weakness
We call this the “tragic flaw,” “fatal flaw,” or hamartia.

6. Reversal of Fortune
The “fatal flaw” brings the hero down from his/her elevated state.
Renaissance audiences were familiar with the “wheel of fortune” or “fickle fate.”
What goes up, must come down.

7. anagnorisis
Anagnorisis (“recognition," "knowing again," "knowing back," or "knowing throughout”)
A change from ignorance to awareness.
Recognition scenes in tragedy are of some horrible event or secret, such as a true motive or acknowledgement of fault.
A plot with tragic reversals and recognitions best arouses pity and fear.

8. Catharsis
“Catharsis” is the audience’s purging of emotions through pity (for the character’s tragedy) and fear (that it could happen to us – or anyone).
The spectator is purged as a result of watching the hero fall, and, hopefully, learns a vicarious lesson.

9. This is why we cry during movies!

10. Restoration of Social Order
Tragedies include a private and a public element
The play cannot end until society is, once again, at peace.

11. The End
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