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The definition of the essence of tragedy ( ὅρον τῆς οὐσίας
) at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Aristotle's Poetics runs: Ἔστιν … τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι᾽ ἀπαγγελίας, δι᾽ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν. [Tragedy … is the imitation of a good action, which is complete and of a certain length, by means of language made pleasing for each part separately; it relies in its various elements not on narrative but on acting; through pity and fear it achieves the catharsis of such emotions.] In his Dramaturgy, Lessing has undertaken to discuss this definition in connection with the developments concerning “pity” and “fear” found in Aristotle's Rhetoric and to safeguard it against French and German misunderstandings, with on the whole utmost success for the part extending as far as περαίνουσα. In the treatment of the last six obscure words, however, he no longer proceeds so securely: τοιούτων, first of all, poses difficulties for him; he extracts himself from these with the following turn, which is scarcely compatible with his otherwise sharp demarcation of pity and fear:
The τοιούτων relates merely to the foregoing pity and fear; tragedy should excite our pity and our fear only in order to cleanse these and suchlike passions, but not all passions indifferently. But he says τοιούτων and not τούτων
; he says “these and suchlike” and not merely “these” in order to point out that by pity he understands not merely actual so-called pity but rather all philanthropic sensations in general, just as by fear he understands not merely unpleasure about an evil looming
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