Catharsis is the emotional cleansing of the audience and/or characters in a play. In relation to drama it is an extreme change in emotion resulting from strong feelings of sorrow, fear, pity, or laughter; this result has been described as a purification or a purging of such emotions (whether those of the characters in the play or of the audience).[1] More recently such terms as restoration, renewal, and revitalization have been used in relation to the effect on members of the audience.[citation needed]

Using the term "catharsis" to refer to the emotions was first done by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work Poetics. It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome either the characters in a play, or an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy (a release of pent-up emotion or energy). In his previous works, he used the term in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the "katamenia", the menstrual fluid or other reproductive materi ...more

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