To answer your definition
literally:
"According to Aristotle, a Greek tragedy
includes an:
1. Incentive moment:
pre-existing "in medias res" situation that achieves unity of time,
place)
2. Peripeteia/Rising
Action: a series of rising actions induced by the tragic hero that
inevitably bring about his downfall rather than prevent it, which is his
intention
3.
Anagnorisis/Climax: a turn of events that leads to the
tragic hero's inevitable suffering, but he is not as aware of it as we, the audience,
is.
4. Catastrophe/Falling
Action: the tragic hero becomes aware of the fact that he has caused his
own fall, and he punishes himself or expresses guilt, shame, or
responsibility.
5.
Resolution: the Chorus usually adds a moral exemplum after
the tragic hero leaves the stage.
* And it must conform to
the three unities: unity of time (take place during one
day), unity of place (one setting), and unity of action (begin at the end with no
flashbacks).
* It must focus first on
plot (the 5 parts of the Aristotle triangle) and
character, focusing on the tragic hero who suffers from a
tragic flaw (hamartia), usually pride. My favorite
definition of tragic hero comes from critic Northrop
Frye:
“Tragic
heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the
inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by
lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as
victims of the divine
lightning.”
So, the gods send
down tragedy in the form of lightning. The tragic hero Creon is the "highest point" in
the human landscape since he is king, and he becomes a conductor of tragic lightning to
others, the "clump(s) of grass" (Antigone, Haemon, Eruydice). It is Creon's decision
not to bury his nephew is the sacriligeous inciting incident that leads to the gods'
punishment of him. Antigone may be a tragic hero, but I think of her more as an agent
of the gods: a kind of lightning bolt herself.
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