Analysis Of Aristotle's 'Women Of Trachis'

Aristotle defends his point against the argument of popularity by saying , “It is accounted the best because of the weakness of the spectators; for the poet is guided in what he writes by the wishes of his audience. The pleasure, however, thence derived is not the true tragic pleasure.” Philoctetes was then, a good tragedy, but most of the pleasure derived was not tragic pleasure. This conclusion explains its popularity, while maintaining the validity of Aristotle’s position. It has now been explained that Philoctetes may have been a good tragedy, but because it doesn’t follow Aristotle’s guidelines, it isn’t perfect, and it isn’t a tragedy in Aristotle’s definition. The reaction to the play can be used as proof of this. While it may have been

We can come to the rational conclusion that because it followed so few of the guidelines it was not very tragic, and did not elicit much fear or pity in the viewer.

Women of Trachis is a play that follows more of Aristotle’s ideas. Unlike Philoctetes, it has a clearly defined action, and a clearly defined change of Fortune. Though depending on who is viewed as the tragic hero, the action, and change of fortune may become more complicated. In either case the actions are very closely connected as are the changes in Fortune. Cause and effect are very easily identifiable and are implemented in accordance to Aristotle 's view. From the beginning of the play we see Deianeira’s actions (Causes) lead directly to the results (Effects). Deianeira does not do anything immoral or wicked purposefully, her flaw is jealousy. She is worried Heracles will

We can also see that ‘Women of Trachis’ follows more of Aristotle’s guidelines. From this, in addition to Aristotle’s own arguments, it is fair to say that aristotle’s guidelines do in fact outline the qualities of the best “true” tragedy since, the more tragic of two works is the one which adheres to them. We can also begin to see evidently that many tragedies will not fit Aristotle 's views, and will still be known as good tragedies. Our examples highlight a few reasons. Some tragedies could have been focused more on entertainment than pure emotion. Others, while aiming to be tragedies, incorporated other concepts and issues into the work resulting in the dilution of the genre in a sense. Many tragedies that are available to us were written many years before Aristotle 's guide. At this time tragedy as a genre was less developed, not everyone was striving for perfection, and even less if any knew what perfection was. Different authors had different ideas of tragedy, which highlights the subjective nature of the