1 The logic suffers from ellipse. Plays which fail to exhibit the sequence of cause and effect are condemned (1) because they lack the unity which befits tragedy, (2) because they miss that supreme effect of fear or pity produced by incidents which, though unexpected, are seen to be no mere accident but the inevitable result of what has gone before.
2 In chapters 7 and 8.
3 At 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.
4 The 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.
5 Lynceus 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."
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