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Reversal of the
Situation is a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject
always to our rule of probability or necessity. Thus in the Oedipus, the
messenger comes to cheer Oedipus and free him from his alarms about his mother,
but by revealing who he is, he produces the opposite effect. Again in the Lynceus,
Lynceus is being led away to his death, and Danaus goes with him, meaning to
slay him; but the outcome of the preceding incidents is that Danaus is killed
and Lynceus saved.
Recognition, as
the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or
hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune. The best
form of recognition is coincident with a Reversal of the Situation, as in the
Oedipus. There are indeed other forms. Even inanimate things of the most trivial
kind may in a sense be objects of recognition. Again, we may recognize or
discover whether a person has done a thing or not. But the recognition which is
most intimately connected with the plot and action is, as we have said, the
recognition of persons. This recognition, combined with Reversal, will produce
either pity or fear; and actions producing these effects are those which, by
our definition, Tragedy represents. Moreover, it is upon such situations that
the issues of good or bad fortune will depend. Recognition, then, being between
persons, it may happen that one person only is recognized by the other—when the
latter is already known—or it may be necessary that the recognition should be
on both sides. Thus Iphigenia is revealed to Orestes by the sending of the
letter; but another act of recognition is required to make Orestes known to
Iphigenia.
Two parts,
then, of the Plot—Reversal of the Situation and Recognition—turn upon
surprises. A third part is the Scene of Suffering. The Scene of Suffering is a
destructive or painful action, such as death on the stage, bodily agony,
wounds, and the like.
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