Aristotle's doctrine in respect to certain of these
emotions, tragic pity and terror, is well known, though variously
interpreted. He regards such emotions as a discharge of energy, an
exhaustion and a relief, in consequence of which their disturbing
presence is less likely to recur in actual life; it is as if emotional
energy accumulated, as vital force is stored up and requires to be
loosed in bodily exercise; but this, except in the point that pity and
terror, if they do accumulate in their particular forms latently, are
specifically such as it is wise to be rid of, does not differentiate
emotion from the rest of our powers in all of which there is a similar
pleasure in exercising, an exhaustion and a relief, with less liability
of immediate recurrence; this belongs to all expenditure of life. It is
not credible to me that painful emotion, under the illusions of art, can
become pleasurable in the common sense; what pleasure there is arises
only in the climax and issue of the action, as in case of the drama when
the restoration of the order that is joyful, beautiful, right, and wise
occurs; in other words, in the presence of the final poetic justice or
reconciliation of the disturbed elements of life.
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