Catharsis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Catharsis (disambiguation).

Catharsis, Latin from the Greek Κάθαρσις Katharsis meaning "purification" or "cleansing" (also literally from the ancient Greek gerund καθαίρειν transliterated as kathairein "to purify, purge," and adjective katharos "pure or clean" ancient and modern Greek: καθαρός), is a sudden emotional breakdown or climax that constitutes overwhelming feelings of great pity, sorrow, laughter or any extreme change in emotion that results in the renewal, restoration and revitalization for living.

Catharsis is a form of emotional cleansing first defined by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy. Neither the existing text of Aristotle's Politics nor the semi-existing text of his Poetics give a clear definition of what he meant in this context. The transition as 'purging' infers that these emotions are removed from the viewer at the end of a tragedy. If this is true, then the pleasure The fact that there existed those who could suffer a worse fate than them was to them a relief. Catharsis is also translated as 'purification' which would infer that these emotions would, instead of being removed, brought into healthy or proper levels from having experienced a piece of tragedy. This definition would be supported by Aristotle separating himself from Plato's belief that emotions are bad things in themselves, but are healthy in levels appropriate to the situation.

In literary aesthetics, catharsis is developed by the conjunction of stereotyped characters and unique or surprising actions. Throughout a play we do not expect the nature of a character to change significantly, rather pre-existing elements are revealed in a relatively straight-forward way as the character is confronted with unique actions in time. This can be clearly seen in Oedipus Rex where King Oedipus is confronted with ever more outrageous actions until emptying generated by the death of his mother-wife and his act of self-blinding. As a literary effect, catharsis should be compared with the equivalent effects for epic and poetic forms of kairosis and kenosis.

In contemporary aesthetics catharsis may also refer to any emptying of emotion experienced by an audience in relation to drama. This exstasis can be perceived in comedy, melodrama and most other dramatic forms. Deliberate attempts, on political or aesthetic bases, to subvert the structure of catharsis in theatre have occurred. For example, Bertold Brecht viewed catharsis as a pap for the bourgeois theatre audience, and designed dramas which left significant emotions unresolved, as a way to force social action upon the audience. In Brecht's theory, the absence of a cathartic resolving action would require the audience to take political action in the real world in order to fill the emotional gap they experience. This technique can be seen as early as his agit-prop play The Measures Taken.

1 Medical uses
2 Religion
- 2.1 Cathartic Sacrifice
3 See also
4 Sources & External links

[edit] Medical uses

The term catharsis has been used for centuries as a medical term meaning a "purging." Most commonly in a medical context, it euphemistically refers to a purging of the bowels. A drug, herb, or other agent administered as a strong laxative is termed a cathartic.

The term catharsis has also been adopted by modern psychotherapy to describe the act of expressing deep emotions often associated with events in the individual's past which have never before been adequately expressed. Catharsis is also an emotional release associated with talking about the underlying causes of a problem (it was first mentioned by Aristotle: catharsis associated with audience watching tragic plays)

[edit] Religion

Another meaning under the heading of 'purging' can concern body and soul— in religion, it concerns efforts made to come to terms with guilt and sin, as by penance such as by chastisement (in modern use of that word, the meaning of punishment has taken over from the original sense of purification), such as practiced by flagellants; a testimony to the age of this use is the very name of the Cathars (a medieval sect).

In Mysticism, the end of human life and of philosophy is to realize the mystical return of the soul to God. Freeing itself from the sensuous world by katharsis, the purified human soul ascends by successive steps through the various degrees of the metaphysical order, until it unites itself in a confused and unconscious contemplation to the One, and sinks into it in the state of ecstasis.

Thus in the neo-Platonism of Plotinus, the first step in the return of the soul to God is the act by which the soul, withdrawing from the world of sense by a process of purification (katharsis), frees itself from the trammels of matter.

[edit] Cathartic Sacrifice

In early cults, the distinction between sacred and unclean is far from complete or well defined (see Taboo); consequently we find two types of cathartic sacrifice: one to cleanse of impurity and make fit for common use, another to rid of sanctity and in like manner render suitable for human use or intercourse.

The most conspicuous example of the first class is the scapegoat. Two goats were provided by the ancient Hebrews on the Day of Atonement; the high priest sent one into the desert, after confessing on it the sins of Israel; it was not permitted to run free but was probably cast over a precipice; the other was sacrificed as a sin-offering. In like manner in the purification of lepers two birds were used; the throat of one was cut, the living bird dipped in the blood mingled with water and the leper sprinkled; then the bird was set free to carry away the leprosy. In both these rites we seem to have a duplication of ritual, and the parallelism of sacrifice and liberation is clear.

As an example of the second class may be taken the sacrifice of the bull to the Rigvedic god Rudra. MM. Hubert and Mauss interpret this to mean that the sanctity of the remainder of the herd was concentrated on a single animal; the god, incarnate in the herd, was eliminated by the sacrifice, and the cattle saved from the dangers to which their association with the god exposed them. The Feast of First fruits is another example of the same sort; comparable with this concentration of holiness is the respect or veneration shown to a single animal as representative of its species (see animal worship). In both these cases the object of the rite is the elimination of impurity or of a source of danger. But the Nazarite was equally bound to lay aside his holiness before mixing with common folk and returning to ordinary life; this he did by a sacrifice, which, with the offering of his hair upon the altar, freed him from his vow and reduced him to the same level of sanctity as ordinary men.