A tragedy has both complication and resolution, Aristotle says, and resolution is everything that happens from the beginning of the change of fortune to the end of the play. Aristotle argues that resolution and complication should be constructed with equal care, so one part of the tragedy does not overshadow the other. Both resolution and complication should rely on the plot, Aristotle maintains, not “theatrical devices” like Medea’s supernatural chariot at the end of Euripides’s Medea.
Resolution Quotes in Poetics
The Poetics quotes below are all either spoken by Resolution or refer to Resolution. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
(Clearly, therefore, the resolutions of plots should also come about from the plot itself, and not by means of a theatrical device, as in the Medea, or the events concerned with the launching of the ships in the Iliad. A theatrical device may be used for things outside the play—whether prior events which are beyond human knowledge, or subsequent events which need prediction and narration since we grant that the gods can see everything. But there should be nothing irrational in the events themselves; or, failing that, it should be outside the play, as for example in Sophocles’s Oedipus.)
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Resolution Term Timeline in Poetics
The timeline below shows where the term Resolution appears in Poetics. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8. Other Aspects of Tragedy
The resolution of the plot should come about from the plot as well—it shouldn’t rely on “theatrical...
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8.5 Complication and Resolution. A tragedy must have complication and resolution. According to Aristotle, the complication is “everything from the beginning up to and including the...
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...the component parts, but it is usually judged by its plot. Therefore, both complication and resolution should be constructed with the same attention.
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