‘Catharsis’. From Lessing’s Moral Purification to Goethe’s Purity of Form

The present essay addresses Goethe’s interpretation of ‘catharsis’. Goethe reacted to
a moral interpretation of catharsis (propounded by a long line of critics from Brumoy
to Lessing) by maintaining that Aristotle understood catharsis as an artistic process
only. In his opinion, catharsis was a kind of ultimate effect that, while not acting
on the spectators’ morality, certainly affected their satisfaction and contentment and
was, in fact, the necessary fulfilment of any well-structured and consistent tragedy. In
addition, Goethe conceived the act of writing poetry itself as a cathartic process; this
entails that a “purged” work of art is also the outcome of an ideal Classicism. Indeed,
the attainment of “pure” poetic forms is the main topic over which Goethe and Schiller
debated in their correspondence.