L’ORDITO DELLA VITA: ESPERIENZA DEL DIVINO NELLA POETICA DI ARISTOTELE

Abstract

This paper articulates a comparison between the theory of athenian tragedy developed by Aristotle in the Poetics and the experience of athenian tragedy that this theory presupposes and preserves, despite its high level of abstraction. The purpose is to show that the katharsis refers to a peculiar experience (made by the spectator or by the reader of tragedy) based on the relationship between human and divine order, which is possible only under certain conditions and out of certain assumptions. The katharsis is not the result of a mechanical and physiological process of hydraulics of emotions. It should be understood and interpreted as the consequence of a specific type of understanding, pre-theoretical and experiential.