CATHARSIS means purification. Since the time of Aristotle the term has been definitely associated with the question of the effects of tragedy on the spectators or on the actors. Aristotle maintained that tragedy and also certain kinds of music tend to purify the spectators and listeners by artistically exciting certain emotions which act as a kind of homeopathic relief from their own selfish passions. Goethe was of opinion that the catharsis affects the actors in the tragedy rather than the spectators or readers. Lessing, on the other hand, held that it affects the spectators and readers rather than the performers. Lessing also maintained that catharsis takes the form of a sublimation of the emotions or their conversion into virtuous dispositions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry ; J. Bibliography.—Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry ; J. Bernays, Zwei Abhandlunger caber die Aristotelische Theorie des Dramas (188o) ; G. E. Lessing, Hamburgische Dramaturgie (1769, etc.) .