ENGL 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Tragic Hero, Hamartia, Goneril
19 Oct 2016
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Experiences rising action by increasing social status, wealth, etc. Death and disaster follow and are eminent; death has implications due to the status of the hero. Character has been left out, and so has hamartia. Hamartia ( to miss the mark ) is aristotle"s term: generally taken to imply hero"s responsibility for catastrophe, implying moral failure, tragic flaw , error . The tragic hero plays a role in bringing on their own downfall. Nicomachean ethics: tragedy is ethical drama, so hamartia is a flaw that we can use to judge the hero, moral failing. Poetics: tragedy depicts the working out of fate, so hamartia is a tragic error, a mistake the hero commits because he was fated to no moral judgement is possible. An error made because circumstances compelled him in that direction. Hamartia is only discussed because of aristotle, without which we wouldn"t define a tragedy by the presence of its hamartia. Ethical reading of lear (hamartia = flaw)
