Catharsis

The catharsis ( gr κάθαρσις catharsis " Cleaning") named after the definition of tragedy in the Aristotelian poetics, the " cleaning " of certain emotions. By living through of grief / emotion and terror / horror (from the Greek eleos and Phobos, also since Lessing misleadingly translated as pity and fear ), the audience learns of the tragedy as their effect a purification of his soul from these states of excitement ( Poetics, ch. 6, 1449b26 )

Catharsis was initially a term from the sphere of the sacred and described the ritual purification. The term was later adopted into medicine and called a purgative excretion of the body.

Interpretation and performance history

The Catharsis conception of Aristotle is one of the most influential ideas of the theory of poetry. She learned in the aftermath wide variety of interpretations and extrapolations that will be exemplified in the following.

Education for a stoic attitude towards the fate

This idea was developed by Martin Opitz in the 17th century and refers on the one hand on the philosophy of the Stoics and the original Greek tragedy in which the human being is a destructive fate, but is the size of this penalty imposed by the gods fate to take (eg Oedipus ). Through the tragedy and the resulting from the presentation of catharsis and the audience should be redirected to a stoic attitude. This idea fit with Christian ideas of the 17th century and to the principle laid down by Opitz aesthetic principle that poetry by have joy, good and teach at the same time should.

The purification of the passions in the viewer through pity and fear

This idea was originally developed by Pierre Corneille (17th century). The conflict between passion and duty is decided by the heroic will of people in line with the ethics of René Descartes in favor of duty. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing also represented in his Hamburg Dramaturgy, the concept of purification through pity and fear to support the moral education of the public; because the most moral man is the compassionate man who fears the fate for themselves. The viewer suffers with the hero with (eg in Horace ) and cleans so by his own passions. So it is easier for him to act ethically themselves.

Compensation instead of cleaning

Goethe (18th century) relates the catharsis no longer on the viewer, but to the people of the piece and sees it as a balancing of the passions. In the spirit of harmony and humanity a reconciliation of "duty" and " inclination " ( reason and emotion ) will be sought in accordance with the ideals of classical music, which no human sacrifices costs (eg Iphigenia in Tauris ).

Further development

The predominant until the 18th century moralizing interpretation of catharsis so understands the psychic change, especially in preparation for moral improvement. More modern psychologizing interpretations of change rather give the sense of a mental breakdown voltages. In psychodrama by Jacob Levy Moreno is morally value-free catharsis according to the maxim " Every true second time as the first time " lead to a reorientation of the principles of life in both viewers as well as the protagonists of the psycho- dramatic play.

In relation to the development of the German theater polemicised especially Bertolt Brecht in his theater theory ( epic theater ) against the catharsis and demanded a distanced spectator views. (Post) modern theater is increasingly marked by fragmentary catharsis effects that are due, however, no dramatic or moral denominator more.

Augusto Boal, creator of Theatre of the Oppressed, try to remove the distinction spectators actor, holds the catharsis " for something very harmful. " "Even in me, and in every other, plugged power of change. These skills I want to liberate and develop. Bourgeois theater, she suppressed. "