Original Research

Aristoteles se siening van dramatiese spanning in die tragedie en die invloed daarvan op moderne dramateorie

L. Cilliers
Literator | Vol 13, No 2 | a736 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v13i2.736 | © 1992 L. Cilliers | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 06 May 1992 | Published: 06 May 1992

About the author(s)

L. Cilliers, Universiteit van die Oranje-Vrystaat, South Africa

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Abstract

Aristotle’s remarks about dramatic suspense in the Poetics are so diffuse and divergent in nature that it seems highly unlikely that he meant them to be regarded as a systematic theory on this subject. Yet his views in this regard - although set down in writing some 2400 years ago - are still in many respects the basis of modern drama theory. The emphasis which he places on the linear plot and on causal connection is an early recognition of two very important requisites for unity in a drama. The phases in the course of action which he pointed out and on which scholars like Scaliger, Freytag and Verhagen have built their theories, are still accepted in broad outline today. The desirability of concentrated action and of the identification of the spectator with the dramatis personae are factors which are still valid. And finally, his discussion of the effect which tragedy has on the spectators is the point of departure of modern reader-oriented theories.

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