What is the relation between Macbeth and Aristotles Theory of Tragedy?
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions That’s Aristotle’s definition of tragedy. Macbeth is ‘representing’ or ‘imitating’ a very serious situation, in which a man is manipulated by his wife to commit regicide and then leads a tyrannical reign (and of course lots of death and deceit, etc). This isn’t something one would call ‘funny’ – tragedy always deals with ‘serious’. It has to be complete in that there is a beginning, middle, and end – Macbeth has all three, of course. Magnitude means that the action that is being imitated can’t be too big or too small (for example it doesn’t go on to retell 10 years worth of events and it’s also not describing just one second in time), i
