Error Term Analysis

This quote occurs in Aristotle’s account of tragic plots, and it is significant because it further reflects the balance required within poetry; however, this passage also introduces Aristotle’s idea of an “error,” which is also known within literature by the Greek hamartia. According to Aristotle, a character must strike the perfect balance between good and bad: a character shouldn’t be too moral, but their change of fortune should come about because of an “error,” not because of any “moral defect or depravity.” This balance ensures that the audience will not be “disgusted” by the character’s change of fortune, and this change will provoke feelings of fear and pity in the audience.

Aristotle references Oedipus and Thyestes as examples of his argument. Thyestes may be a reference to Euripides’s lost play by the same name, but Oedipus is a reference to Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. In this tragedy, the titular Oedipus is neither overly good nor overly bad, and he commits his crimes—killing his father and having sex with his mother—in ignorance. The “error” that brings about Oedipus’s downfall is that he is too proud to heed the prophetic warnings about these mistakes, and this “error” leads to maximum feelings of fear and pity in the audience.