Aristotle Wrote the Poetics as a Work

Aristotle wrote the Poetics as a work of literary criticism. He reviewed and analyzed many plays written in his time. This essay discusses the features of Greek tragedy in the context of those Poetics and how these features are manifested in Sophocles' Oedipus.

Greek tragedy has all the elements of drama presented by Aristotle in his Poetics. These elements are reversal, discovery and calamity. Further, according to Aristotle the divisions of tragedy are the prologue, episode, exode, and choral song. (Poetics 1452b). Oedipus, a tragedy written by Sophocles, embodies each of these characteristics and provides a clear example of tragedy, as framed by Aristotle.

Laius, the father of Oedipus, fearing that the words of the oracle would come true, abandons his son to die. Oedipus, saved and raised by another, listens to yet another oracle and discovers the terrible truth of his fate, which is, of course, to kill his father and marry is mother. This is the plot. When he leaves his "father," not Laius, but the man who found and raised him the tragedy begins to unfold. In his attempts to escape the fate the Gods have chosen, he makes the decision that will seal it. He experiences a reversal in luck when he kills a man on the road. He could have decided never to kill anyone, but his flight has led him straight into his fate. After solving the riddle and winning the hand of Jocasta, his mother and the queen, he unravels the reality of his deeds. This is the instance of discovery, which then leads to the calamity of his life.