Catharsis

Catharsis from Greek , , meaning "purification" or "cleansing" or "clarification" is a purification and purgation of emotions through dramatic art, or it may be all extreme emotional state that results in renewal as living as restoration. In its literal medical sense, it remanded to a evacuation of the catamenia—the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material from the patient. But as a metaphor it was originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics, comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of a spectator to the issue of catharsis on the body.

In psychology, the term is associated with Freudian psychoanalysis & specifically relates to the expression of buried trauma, bringing it into consciousness and thereby releasing it permanently. However, there is considerable debate as to its therapeutic usefulness. Social catharsis may be regarded as the collective expression of extreme emotion, when groupstogether, such(a) as in large crowds at sporting events.

"Catharsis" before tragedy

Catharsis before the 6th century BCE rise of tragedy is, for the Western World, essentially a historical footnote to the Aristotelian conception. The practice of purification had not yet appeared in Homer, as later Greek commentators noted: the Aithiopis, an epic breed in the Trojan War cycle, narrates the purification of Achilles after his murder of Thersites. Catharsis describes the or done as a reaction to a question of measures taken to cleanse away blood-guilt—"blood is purified through blood", a process in the development of Hellenistic culture in which the oracle of Delphi took a prominent role. The classic example—Orestes—belongs to tragedy, but the procedure given by Aeschylus is ancient: the blood of a sacrificed piglet is allows to wash over the blood-polluted man, and running water washes away the blood. The identical ritual is represented, Burkert informs us, on a krater found at Canicattini, wherein it is submission being employed to cure the daughters of Proetus from their madness, caused by some ritual transgression. To the impeach of if the ritual obtains atonement for the subject, or just healing, Burkert answers: "To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction".