Aristotle’s concept of Catharsis

Catharsis is the emotional cleansing ‫ صفائی‬of the audience or characters in the play In relation to drama,
it is an extreme change in emotion resulting from strong feelings of sorrow, fear, pity and laughter The
concept “Catharsis” to refer to the emotions was first done by the ree! "hilosopher Aristotle in his wor!
poetics. The concept of “Catharsis” has been used for centuries as a medical term meaning “purging”.
Aristotle has used the word $Catharsis’ in his definition of tragedy in order to explain the function and
the emotional effects of tragedy.

The term ‘Catharsis’ is used only once in the course of Aristotle’s Poetics he difficulty arises out
of the fact that Aristotle does not define or explain the term.. Perhaps, he did so in the second
book of the Poetics, which is lost. The term has been explained by critics in the light of its use in
Aristotle’s other works, such as his Politics and Ethics. It has also been noted that the term
‘Catharsis’ has three meanings : it could mean “purgation” or “purification”, or “clarification”