Tragedy itself has a sense on ordinary mind that easily defines it roughly as imitation of an action on the stage. Today it is going to be discussed two philosphers ‘,Aristotle and Nietzsche, views about tragedy while understanding their philosophy about life itself. To start with what is tragedy for Aristotle and Nietzsche should be the first question that has to be understood to shine a light on whole discussion. For Aristotle, tragedy is an imitation of an action that leads tragic consequences like pity and fear to create katharsis which creates an atmosphere to make audience suffer with protagonist through purification and purgation .
Here ,representation of already existing is crucial because for Aristotle ‘’showing’’ is the main part of creating feeling in audience than ‘’telling’’. On the other hand for Nietzshe,tragedy is the concept of symbolism to explain the complex relationship between the characters such as Apolline and Dionysiac . So it can be easily said that while Aristotle is concentrated on tragic from ,Nietzshche who is not agree with Aristotle about katharsis,focuses on origin. Nietzche basicly underlines that The protagonist’s unrelenting will to live even in the most desperate situation creates in the audience a ‘tragic joy’.
Another important differences between two philosopheres their view about chorus. For Aristotle chorus is an actor in the play which is integrated into play and it should assist the unity of the plot. For Nietzshe ,chorus is an ideal audiences and has an important role. It means that Nietzsche uses chorus as audiences’ view and make audiences feel that they are empathetically on the stage. For example,in his first book ,The Birth of Tragedy , the spectator is making empathy from the eyes of Dionysiac.
When the chorus and its importance is different for each philosopher ,it is east to say that unity of time ,space and subject which are Aristotle’s three unities which tragedy has to include to be well-reflected nature and orginized are not as important as for Nietzsche. Taking everything into account,in the light of mentioned above it can be easily said that Nietzsche and Aristotle have many differences about their views ,understanding and performing tragedy. Apart from their similarities,their differences are attracting the attention. As it is seen above ,from the beginig while definig tradegy ,they almost lose common ground to be shared.
