Catharsis and the Actor

Abstract

‘Catharsis’ remains one of the several concepts employed by Aristotle in thePoeticswhose precise meaning and implications have tantalized critics over the centuries. But all too often ‘catharsis’ has largely been discussed as a process which occurs to theaudienceof a tragedy: in this article, Ian Watson looks instead at the different forms it may take (and the differences in underlying intentions) so far as performers are concerned. He relates his ideas to forms of dramatic experience as discrete as psychodrama, and to schools of acting from Stanislavski to Grotowski.

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