Studies // Cited work
Poetics
Aristotle (c. 335 BCE). Poetics.
Level E Classical text
What this study supports
Supports historical claims about where the term katharsis entered aesthetics. It makes no empirical claim, and its meaning is contested by commentators.
- Who was studied
- Not applicable: a classical treatise on tragedy and poetics.
- Design
- Classical text
- Level of evidence
- Theory, classical and historical texts, records and software: no empirical claim of their own.
Claims that rest on it
Each claim states what the site asserts, at what strength, and with what caveat.
HistoricalLevel EConfidence HIGH
Aristotle's Poetics describes tragedy as achieving, through pity and fear, the katharsis of such emotions, and commentators still debate whether he meant purgation, purification or clarification.
- Scope
- The classical text and its interpretive tradition.
- Caveat
- The passage is brief and Aristotle does not define the term further; no reading is settled.
Last reviewed · Review due · katharsis-classical-meaning