The Evil of Nature and the Corona Tragedy: Re-Reading Hamartia in Poetics

To explain the effects of tragedy on the audience, Aristotle refers to the fear and compassion conveyed to them following the protagonist’s unfortunate fate. Of course, the question of what factor has brought this misfortune to him is a question, to which Aristotle has given a short and unclear answer. From Aristotle's point of view, the fear and compassion that are occasionally deserved for the protagonist, who may be even sometimes blamed because of them in front of his audience, are caused by the mistakes that he has made. Of course, the famous word 'Hamartia' (ἁμαρτία), to which Aristotle refers, has not been explicitly interpreted and this ambiguity has stopped understanding of the cause of the failure of the hero of tragedy in an aura of the commentators’ multiple interpretations. With regard to the key word 'Hamartia' (ἁμαρτία) as a well-known term in Poetics that describes the protagonist's mistake, the present article tried to consider the unfortunate event of Corona as a confirmation of the specific interpretation of this term through a descriptive-analytic method after presenting the commentators’ multiple opinions in understanding what this Aristotelian term means. Therefore,  what is most evident in the face of the natural catastrophe caused by Corona is the surprise of modern Man as a result of this ruinous phenomenon. Thus, if we go back to the tragedy in Aristotle's view, the acceptance of this natural evil at a time when all scientific methods have been used to control the Nature means nothing but submission to the evil, lawless, and out-of-control feature of Nature. As far as it goes, if we relate Man as the hero of the tragedy with the laws of the outside world and go beyond the imposed rules of art, we can say that this hero has been fated to the mentioned misfortune not due to his mistakes, but by bad chance. Via this description, a hero, who is not captivated by luck, may be deemed to be a kind of ideal character that will not be objectively found if the tragedy analyst wants to interpret his actions completely as voluntary, highly, and moral. With this unacceptable assumption, the task of art will be limited to presenting a pure ideal, while the relationship between art and reality will be seriously damaged. As a result of this interpretation, a fate-based tendency will be required for understanding the tragic character in relation with the reality of human life. Hence, the hero of Aristotle's tragedy must be called a prisoner of fortune contrary to the attitude our rationalist philosophers have achieved. Such an understanding of the Naturalist and Rationalist Aristotle reflected by his own commitment to the observation of Nature would make us reach an Aristotle, who has become realistic by a Stoic reading, an idea that distinguishes between autonomous and out-of-control matters and considers acceptance of the latter as part of a wise and realistic human life. Thus, Hamartia has been the hero's delusional optimism about the power of his own intellect and discernment. Nonetheless, this illusion has forced him to be resigned to the Nature and the Environment as atonement. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to this fact that the interpreter must still remain committed to the rules of rationality for understanding the action of this tragic hero since he is still aware of human rational principle. The negation of free will requires that Man deprive himself of his human privilege. However, as evidenced by the historical relations that govern human destiny and in spite of the bitterness and malevolence of the Corona, it is still possible to stay away from excessive optimism about Nature while committing to Man’s intellectual and practical ability. Understanding tragedy as a tumult of natural outburst would be a kind of critical and realistic interpretation of life. This recent interpretation is not a belief in tragedy or interpretation of life as a tragic event, but it is acceptance of tragedy as part of the essential components of human life based on the inseparable connection of Man and Nature. This is the balance between rationality and critical (not transcendent) naturalism.