The spectator recognizes himself and his finiteness in the face of the power of fate. Hans-Georg Gadamer's attempt to describe catharsis in his study Truth and Method can serve both as a working definition and an introduction into the problem of establishing any determinate definition of this elusive concept: What is experienced in such an excess of tragic suffering is something truly common. It is not as simple as getting an object lesson in how to behave the tragic event does not 'teach us a lesson' as do certain public-information campaigns on drunk driving or drug abuse. What is actually involved in this purging is not clear.

Catharsis is most often defined as the 'purging' of the emotions of pity and fear that occurs when we watch a tragedy. One of the most difficult concepts introduced in the Poetics is catharsis, a word which has come into everyday language even though scholars are still debating its actual meaning in Aristotle's text. Although we certainly have examples of Greek patterns and decorations that are 'abstract,' nothing indicates that the Greeks recognized such a category as 'abstract art.' Rather than concluding that poets should be banished from the perfect society, as does Plato, Aristotle attempts to describe the social function, and the ethical utility, of art.It is important to remember that Aristotle, and the Greek world as a whole, viewed art as essentially representational.

Fascinated by the intellectual challenge of forming categories and organizing them into coherent systems, Aristotle approaches literary texts as a natural scientist, carefully accounting for the features of each 'species' of text. Aristotle's approach to the phenomenon of poetry is quite different from Plato's. The Poetics is in part Aristotle's response to his teacher, Plato, who argues in The Republic that poetry is representation of mere appearances and is thus misleading and morally suspect. This brief text, through its various interpretations and applications from the Renaissance onward, has had a profound impact on Western aesthetic philosophy and artistic production. Like many important documents in the history of philosophy and literary theory, Aristotle's Poetics, composed around 330 BCE, was most likely preserved in the form of students' lecture notes.

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Aristotle second book of poetics