A reversal
is a change of the situation into the opposite, as described above, Footnote 1At the end of chapter 7. Vahlen and many other exponents of the Politics confine the meaning of “reversal” to the situation in which the hero’s action has consequences directly opposite to his intention and expectation. There is much to be said for this interpretation, which stresses the irony at the heart of all tragedy. But it is too narrow for Aristotle’s theory. All tragedy involves a change of fortune ( μετάβασις). In a “simple” plot this is gradual; in a “complex” plot it is catastrophic, a sudden revolution of fortune’s wheel. In some of the greatest tragedies, but not in all, this is the result of action designed to produce the opposite effect. this change being, moreover, as we are saying, probable or inevitable—
like the man in the Oedipus who came to cheer Oedipus and rid him of his anxiety about his mother by revealing his parentage and changed the whole situation. Footnote 2The messenger for Corinth announces the death of Polybus and Oedipus’s succession to the throne. Oedipus, feeling now safe from the prophecy that he would murder his father, still fears to return to Corinth, lest he should fulfil the other prophecy and marry his mother. The messenger seeks to reassure him by announcing that Polybus and Merope are not his parents. But the effect of this was to change the whole situation
for Oedipus by revealing the truth that he a murdered his father, Laius, and married his mother, Jocasta. This reversal
is the more effective because it is immediately coincident with the discovery of the truth.
In the Lynceus, too, there is the man led off to execution and Danaus following to kill him, and the result of what had already happened was that the latter was killed and the former escaped. Footnote 3Lynceus married Hypermnestra who disobeyed Danaus in not murdering him. Danaus trying by process of law to compass the death of their son Abas was killed himself. The dog it was that died.
A discovery,
as the term itself implies, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing either friendship or hatred in those who are destined for good fortune or ill.
A discovery is most effective when it coincides with reversals, such as that involved by the discovery in the Oedipus.
There are also other forms of discovery, for what we have described may in a sense occur in relation to inanimate and trivial objects, or one may discover whether some one has done something or not.
But the discovery which is most essentially part of the plot and part of the action is of the kind described above, for such a discovery and reversal of fortune will involve either pity or fear, and it is actions such as these which, according to our hypothesis, tragedy represents; and, moreover, misfortune and good fortune are likely to turn upon such incidents.
Now since the discovery is somebody’s discovery, in some scenes one character only is discovered to another, the identity of the other being obvious; but sometimes each must discover the other. Thus Iphigeneia was discovered to Orestes through the sending of the letter, but a separate discovery was needed to make him known to Iphigeneia. Footnote 4Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris—Orestes and Pylades arriving among the Tauri are by the custom of the country to be sacrificed to Artemis by her priestess, Iphigeneia. It is agreed that Pylades shall be spared to carry a letter from Iphigeneia to Orestes, whom she supposes to be in Argos. In order that Pylades may deliver the message, even if he should lose the letter, she reads it aloud. Orestes thus discovers who she is. He then reveals himself to her by declaring who he is and proving his identity by his memories of their home.
We see then that two elements of the plot, reversal and discovery, turn upon these incidents. A third element is a calamity. Of these three elements we have already described reversal and discovery.
A calamity is a destructive or painful occurrence, such as a death on the stage, acute suffering and wounding and so on.