In his, book ‘Poetics’, Aristotle has enumerated the characteristics of a tragic hero. To arouse the feelings of pity and fear in the spectators, the tragic hero should not be a perfect man or a bad man. The picture of a perfect man falling from grace will not arouse the feelings of pity and fear in the spectators. It would just shock them. They would think if a perfect man suffers and dies like that they with their defects could never hope for a good life. They would not benefit from that state of mind in any way. The fortune of a bad man turning from bad to good also is unacceptable. The tragic incidents in the life of a bad person will not arouse the feelings of pity and fear in the spectators. Besides, a bad person does not deserve a good fortune. The fall of a wicked and cruel person will lead to a sense of satisfaction and a sigh of relief in the spectators. In between these two extremes there is a kind of man who is neither remarkably good nor a worthless person. He is “a man who enjoys property and high reputation like Oedipus”. The fall of such a person, says Aristotle, due not to his vice or an intervention from outside, but to an error of judgment or a fatal flaw in the person, will lead to the arousal of the feelings of pity and fear in the spectators. This happens because the misfortune is out of proportion to his error in judgment. The suggestion that a great misfortune can befall even a good man due to an error in his judgment will arouse the feeling of fear. And the essential goodness makes the spectators to identify themselves with the hero and take pity for him.

According to Aristotle, poetry is imitation or imaginative reconstruction of life. As he sees it tragedy is the “greatest form of poetry”. The Plot is the most important part of a tragedy. Plot may be defined as the logical combination of the actions. It expresses the casual relationships among the incidents. According to Aristotle, the plot must have ‘unity of actions’. It must have a beginning, a middle part and an end that cannot be interchanged. The playwright is to present the actions of the hero alone. He must be careful enough not to present the actions of other characters in the play. All actions of the hero need not be presented. Only those actions that have something to do with the tragedy that befalls the hero need be presented. These actions must be intimately connected with each other and must create an organic whole. It seems that Aristotle does not attach much importance to the ‘unity of time’ and the ‘unity of place’. He insisted that the plot must arouse the feelings of pity and fear in the spectators. The undeserved sufferings of the hero arouse the feelings of pity. And the fears of the worst that may happen to the hero arouse the feeling of fear. The ending of the tragedy must be sad. Only sad endings can create a sense of tragedy. The feelings can be aroused by way of theatrical effects such as physical torture, piteous lamentations and beggarly appearance. The two parts of the plot namely, complication and dénouement must be convincing. Aristotle speaks about two kinds of plots. Simple and complex. In a simple plot, there is no complication or confusion. The change of fortune comes about without a reversal or recognition. In a complex plot, the change of fortune comes about with recognition or reversal or both. The reversal in the play is referred to as ‘Peripetia’. It involves mistaking a friend for a foe and killing him, and a change of fortune from good to bad. Recognition is referred to as ‘Anagnorisis’. It involves the discovery of the nature of past actions and a change from ignorance to knowledge. Both of them have an element of surprise in them and are capable of moving the spectators.

Aristotle was not a literary critic in the modern sense of the term. However, he has expressed his views on poetry in his ‘Poetics’. According to Aristotle, tragedy is the greatest form of poetry. It is also the most complex form of poetry. He defines tragedy as “An imitation of action that is serious, complete and of certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, several kinds being found at different parts of the play, in the form of action, not narrative, through pity and fear effecting proper purgation of these emotions.” Aristotle says that a good tragedy has six parts. In the order of importance, they are
v Plot
v Character
v Thought
v Music or Song
v Diction and
v Spectacle.
Of these, the first three constitute the tragedy proper. The last three are the media through which it is presented. Aristotle says that Plot, the arrangement of incidents, is the soul of the tragedy. And he goes on to say that there can be tragedy without character, but not without plot. A tragedy must arouse the feelings of ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ and purify the emotions of the spectators. Next only to plot is character that is followed by thought. The poet conveys the feelings of ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ through the medium of diction or words “embellished with each kind of artistic ornament” The spectacle “is least connected with the art of poetry”. Though it is the mechanical part of tragedy, it is not less important. The power of tragedy is felt thorough the representation of the actors. He does not agree with Plato, his teacher, that the tragedy has harmful effects on man. Plato feels that constant exposure to the sufferings of others will weaken our ability to endure pain, sufferings and the other feelings associated with them.Aistotle feels that constant exposure to the sufferings of others will arouse the feelings of pity and fear in the spectator and lead to what he calls ‘Catharsis’ or purgation of the feelings in their minds. When the spectators and the readers identify themselves with the hero, they are lifted out of themselves and emerge stronger and nobler that before.