Tragedy does arouse emotions of pity and terror in its audience, but these emotions are purged in the process (katharsis).
Aristotle implies that this purgation (katharsis) is not unpleasant to us precisely because the fictional and formalized nature of the action sets it at a distance from us.
Confronted by fiction, I am relieved precisely of the pressure of belief, and it is this condition that permits the Aristotelian katharsis.
Technical terms, especially Greek ones, sound very authoritative: take some dianoia, add in a little sophrosyne, sprinkle over it a smidgeon of anagnorisis, work the whole lot into a lovely peripeteia, and wait for the inevitable katharsis.
I checked that out in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which notes: "No one is quite sure exactly what Aristotle meant by katharsis, or purification.
The notion of katharsis, or "discharge" of the unpleasant emotions of pity and fear may be the most famous part of Aristotle's Poetics, although the text mentions it only in passing.
The notion of katharsis at least hints at the complex and multivalent emotional states that would be further analyzed by later theorists such as Hume.
However, starting in the eighteenth century, the notion of katharsis gained ground, particularly since it addressed a question of enormous importance to 18th century aesthetics, namely how something like tragedy, which would seem to revolve around situations invoking unpleasant emotions, can nonetheless be enjoyable.
HUDSON Nicole Fiacco Gallery "Synaptic Katharsis," paintings by Ieva Mediodia.
One may be regarded as taking up Aristotle's idea in the Poetics that "katharsis," purification or purgation, of the emotions of fear and pity, is a valuable part of our response to a tragedy; this led to an emphasis on the emotional impact of aesthetic experience that was downplayed in the cognitivist tradition.
