« Che cosa è questo purgare ? ». La catharsis tragique d’Aristote chez les poéticiens italiens de la Renaissance

• Main Author: Teresa Chevrolet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institut du Monde Anglophone 2008-06-01
• Series: Etudes Epistémè
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/895

The notion of catharsis was popularized as early as 1548 through the various editions of Aristotle’s Poetics. During the Renaissance, it was interpreted in an ambiguous way: it was either understood in a moral sense, as a purification of passions, or in a medical way, as a purgation. All theoreticians of literature were interested in that notion, as it helped them define their own vision of dramatic literature. This article explores the different developments of the term by the Renaissance theoreticians of poetry in the 16th century, and more especially the commentators of Aristotle’s Poetics, who sometimes envisaged the notion of catharsis in the context of ancient Greek medicine.