Aristotelean theories of tragedy with Ben Jonson's play &quote;Sejanus His Fall&quote;

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Würzburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: English Tragedies, language: English, abstract: Drama has always fascinated people. Seeing other people’s fates presented on stage has for ages held an incredible attraction for the audience because it not only satisfies human curiosity, but it also functions as a means by which dramatists can take up current and relevant issues of the time and visualize these concerns in a comprehensible as well as literarily graspable way. Witnessing the action on stage and riding on an emotional ‘roller coaster’ during the play can lead to a certain relief at the end of the dramatic built-up, a relief of emotional stress. Human beings have developed two ways to handle this reduction of tension: laughing and crying. According to Aristotle, tragedy, in particular, is to evoke pity and fear when seeing the tragic hero