This is for academic purpose.

1. Hamartia

2. Prepared by Gayatri Nimavat
Roll no. : 9
M.A semester 1. Batch : 2022-24
Paper 101: Literature of the Elizabethan and
Restoration periods
Email id: gayatrinimavat128@gmail.com
Enrollment no. : 4069206420220019
Submitted to Department of English, MKBU

3. Points to ponder
● Introduction
● Definition
● Hamartia of Macbeth
● Hamartia of Hamlet
● Hamartia of Othello
● Hamartia of King Lear
● Hamartia of Oedipus The King

4. Introduction
● Hamartia is a key aspect of the tragic hero that starts
out as a positive one, which later changes and ends
up being detrimental to the tragic hero, and is the
root of his collapse.
● Hamartia is also known as the tragic flaw. The tragic
flaw is something very bad in a tragic hero which
causes a tragedy and makes the hero deserve what
happens to him.

5. Definition
● ἁμαρτία in Aristotle's Poetic,
means 'mistake of fact'.
Hamartia, also called tragic flaw.
● Hamartia from Greek hamartanein,“to err”. Aristotle
introduced the term casually in the Poetics in
describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and
nature whose misfortune is not brought about by
villainy but by some “error of judgment”.

6. ● This imperfection later came to be interpreted as
a moral flaw, such as Othello's jealousy, Hamlet's
indecisiveness, Macbeth's ambition, Antony's
irresponsibility although most great tragedies
defy such a simple interpretation.

8. Hamartia of Macbeth
● The Hamartia of Macbeth is ambition.
● Macbeth, perfectly honest, admits that
Duncan is a great king and is good for
Scotland. But due to the surplus of
thoughts, ignited by the prophecies, he
tampers with this idea of becoming
king.
● These thoughts of ambition lead to his
tragic end.

9. Hamartia of Hamlet
● Hamlet's hamartia was indecision, or
thinking too much, is ridiculous and
leaves out of account his many swift,
and indeed often brutal, actions.
● Moreover it implies that had he killed
Claudius without more ado tragedy
would have been avoided.

10. Hamartia of Othello
● Othello's hamartia, is his
extreme jealousy.
● It is this jealousy that enables
him to be tricked and allows him
to create his own destruction.

11. Hamartia of King Lear
● King Lear’s hamartia is pride
and love of flattery.
● This leads him to bestow his
wealth and power to his
daughters based solely on
how well they could flatter him
with words.

12. Hamartia of Oedipus The King
● The Oedipus Tyrannus, his hamartia
is his unintended wrongdoings.
● While Oedipus displays excessive
pride, hastiness, and anger, his
ultimate downfall comes with a
series of unfortunate misjudgments
that are made as he continuously
aims to do the right thing.

13. Conclusion
● In a sense Aristotle is trying to sit on a fence:he
wants a tragic hero who is neither very bad nor
very good.
● Hamartia comes in to provide the fence to sit on
so that Aristotle can satisfy his concept of the
emotional effect of a tragic plot, his moral
sense, and his feeling that there must be
necessity in tragic causation.

14. Works Cited
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "domestic tragedy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Feb. 2016,
https://www.britannica.com/art/domestic-tragedy. Accessed 6 October 2022.
Haupt, G. E. “A NOTE ON THE TRAGIC FLAW AND CAUSATION IN SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY.”
Interpretations, vol. 5, no. 1, 1973, pp. 20–32. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23239812. Accessed 2 Oct.
2022.
Hyde, Isabel. “The Tragic Flaw: Is It a Tragic Error?” The Modern Language Review, vol. 58, no. 3, 1963, pp.
321–25. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3721422. Accessed 6 Oct. 2022.
Stinton, T. C. W. “Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 2, 1975, pp.
221–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/638320. Accessed 2 Oct. 2022.

15. Thank you!