Precisely what Aristotle meant by
catharsis is far from clear, and has been the topic of much scholarly debate: The notion has been understood in terms of purgation (of excessive or pathological emotion), of purification, and of intellectual clarification, to mention only some of the most influential of the interpretations that have been offered. Whatever its precise meaning may be, however, it is clear that Aristotle took
catharsis to be a process or experience that in one way or another is conducive to emotional health or balance, such that our emotional experience of (well-written) tragedy is not indulgently sentimental and opposed to "our better nature," as Plato argued, but is rather an essential element in a fully comprehending attitude to what a work depicts.
Aristotle linked catharsis with the pleasure that we take in tragedy: The fact that mention of the former comes at the end of his definition of tragedy suggests that he takes it to be in some sense the goal of works of this sort, and (an appropriate form of) the latter is said to be "what the poet should seek to produce." His defense of the value of our emotional experience of tragedy in terms of catharsis is thus at least implicitly a defense of it in terms of tragic pleasure; and a debate related to, and at least as extensive as that concerning the meaning of "catharsis," has its origins in his characterization of tragic pleasure as "the pleasure derived from pity and fear by means of imitation [mimesis]" (1967, 1453b).
