Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 10, 2023 February 3, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Aristotle distinguishes between six different kinds of anagnorisis. First, there is recognition by means of signs or marks, such as when Odysseus's nurse recognizes him by virtue of a characteristic scar. Aristotle considers this the least artistic kind of anagnorisis, usually reflecting a lack of imagination on the part of the poet. Second, also distasteful to Aristotle, is a recognition contrived by the author. In such a case, the poet is unable to fit the anagnorisis into the logical sequence of the plot, and so it seems extraneous. Third is recognition prompted by memory. A disguised character may be prompted to weep or otherwise betray himself when presented with some memory from the past. Fourth, the second best kind of anagnorisis, is recognition through deductive reasoning, where the anagnorisis is the only reasonable conclusion of an agent's thought. Fifth, there is recognition through faulty reasoning on the part of a disguised character. The disguised character might unmask himself by exhibiting knowledge that only he could know. Sixth, the best kind of anagnorisis, is the kind of recognition that is naturally a part of the logical sequence of events in the play, such as we find in Oedipus Rex.
Aristotle makes seven final remarks about how a poet should go about constructing a plot: (1) The poet should be sure to visualize the action of his drama as vividly as possible. This will help him spot and avoid inconsistencies. (2) The poet should even try acting out the events as he writes them. If he can himself experience the emotions he is writing about, he will be able to express them more vividly. (3) The poet should first outline the overall plot of the play and only afterward flesh it out with episodes. These episodes are generally quite brief in tragedy but can be very long in epic poetry. As an example, Aristotle reduces the entire plot of the Odyssey to three sentences, suggesting that everything else in the poem is episode. (4) Every play consists of desis, or complication, and lusis, or denouement. Desis is everything leading up to the moment of peripeteia, and lusis is everything from the peripeteia onward. (5) There are four distinct kinds of tragedy, and the poet should aim at bringing out all the important parts of the kind he chooses. First, there is the complex tragedy, made up of peripeteia and anagnorisis; second, the tragedy of suffering; third, the tragedy of character; and fourth, the tragedy of spectacle. (6) The poet should write about focused incidents, and not about a whole epic story. For instance, a tragedy could not possibly tell the entire story of the Iliad in any kind of satisfying detail, but it can pick out and elaborate upon individual episodes within the Iliad. (7) The chorus should be treated like an actor, and the choral songs should be an integral part of the story. Too often, Aristotle laments, the choral songs have little to do with the action at all.
The discussion of anagnorisis is an elaboration on what we already found in Chapters 10 and 11. There, Aristotle suggested that anagnorisis is most effective when it is connected with peripeteia, as the two combined bring out a powerful tragic reversal that can arouse the emotions of pity and fear. Aristotle's sixth category of anagnorisis seems to suggest as much. The more tightly the moment of recognition is tied to the plot, the more effective it will be. For this reason, he opposes moments of recognition that are forced or contrived.
The seven points Aristotle makes at the end are, for the most part, either uninteresting or reiteration of what he has said before. For instance, a tragic poet likely knows far more about the actual process of writing a play than Aristotle does and hardly needs a philosopher's advice on visualizing and acting out the drama before writing it, which is what we find in (1) and (2). Points (3), (6), and (7) are further elaborations on the unity of plot, ensuring that the action and the chorus remain focused on the unified plot. Aristotle's discussion in (5) of the different kinds of tragedy is peculiar. It seems to contradict some of what he has said before, and he does little more than list these different types, leaving us to wonder exactly what he means by "tragedy of suffering" or "tragedy of character."
Of the seven points, by far the most interesting is (4), which concerns desis and lusis. The Greek word desis literally means "tying" and lusis means "untying," as does "denouement," the word we borrow from French. These two words give us a vivid metaphor for Aristotle's understanding of how a tragedy works: the plot is like a piece of string that is twisted up into a complex knot and then untied. The plot is thus structured around the moment of peripeteia, or reversal, where the knot begins to unravel. Every event before the peripeteia should serve to complicate the plot, and every event from the peripeteia onward should serve to untie these complications.
We also speak of knots to refer metaphorically to tension. A tragic plot builds up tension only to release it subsequently. This release of tension we find in the lusis might explain why Aristotle treats katharsis as a desired effect of tragedy.
Please wait while we process your payment