A Catharsis is an emotional discharge through which one can achieve a state of moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a state of liberation from anxiety and stress. Catharsis is a Greek word and it means cleansing.
In literature it is used for the cleansing of emotions of the characters. It can also be any other radical change that leads to emotional rejuvenation of a person.
Originally, the term was used as a metaphor in Poetics by Aristotle to explain the impact of tragedy on the audiences. He believed that catharsis was the ultimate end of a tragic artistic work and it marked its quality. He further said in Poetics:
“Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; . . . through pity [eleos] and fear [phobos] effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions” (c. 350 BCE, Book 6.2).
4 comments
I go through catharsis almost every day =o somewhat commonly more than once a day even!…
It tends to make a mess of the sheets though, or the carpet…depends on what all that ’emotional discharge’ ends up on…
LOVE the reply….i dont think we’ve ever had “spoken” to one another, or rather, posted to one another, but i gotta say, i love ur sence of humor, and your style of writing
lol xD thanks!…
I don’t have anyone to talk to in real life, so maybe that’s why my text seems so..spoken, at times =P
It’s much more likely that someone bitches about my grammar or punctuation or how I use too many smilies or something xP
well i think ur the cat’s meow…..i used to have a lot of friends, i suppose u could say i still do, butt my anxiety makes it hard to leave the house…..what kinda music do u like? I LOVE music, and am currently writing a short story that dorrance publishing is intrested in (yay!) maybeif it’s cool /w u u could email me n lemme know what you think of some parts of it i’m working on???? PLEASE???? i’ve showed it to my husband, but he always says everything is awesome, so idk if he’s just being supportive or what….hit me back quartney_stack @ yahoo dot com