![]() ![]() ![]() What makes Othello such a tragic figure is that it is not that he lacks virtue, but rather, he has too much of it. Othello is a play about a tragic hero whose heroism slowly unravels in a world that is frayed by love, friendship and his obsession with masculine honor (Zerba 2). Poetry comes thus from a controlled representation, and one of these forms of representation is the tragedy in which Shakespeare's Othello is a perfect example because it embodies all of the Aristotelian principles - such as reversal and recognition, the tragic hero and his tragic flaw, and complication and denouement. In trying to understand Aristotle's view on art, it is important to understand that it is "based on an equation of poetry with the process of representation, and not on any accidental quality such as meter" (142). ![]() In the tragic form, imitation is made of a very controlled process where the different elements of action and character lead the spectator to have a certain insight into the meaning of what it is to be human (142). Every form of art (qua imitation) can be compared in terms of the artistic means, object, and manner used in their creation. For Aristotle, what defines tragedy (and all art, in general) is in the way that it is imitation (Golden 142). It is in the Poetics that Aristotle defines the fundamental nature of tragedy. Aristotle's Poetics is the most informative piece of work on the nature of art. ![]()
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