The term hamartia derives from the Greek ἁμαρτία, from ἁμαρτάνειν hamartánein, which means "to miss the mark" or "to err". It is most often associated with Greek tragedy, although it is also used in Christian theology, sometimes translated into English as a tragic flaw or fatal flaw. It refers to the major defect or inherent weakness of disposition that leads a character to a (potential) downfall. However, other critics point to the term's derivation and say that it refers only to a tragic but random accident or mistake, with devastating consequences but with no judgment implied as to the character.
Definition Hamartia as it pertains to dramatic literature was first used by Aristotle in his Poetics. In tragedy, hamartia is commonly understood to refer to the protagonist's error that leads to a chain of actions which culminate in a reversal of events from felicity to disaster. What qualifies as the error or flaw varies, and can include an error resulting from ignorance, an error of judgment, an inherent flaw in the character, or a wrongdoing. The spectrum of meanings has invited debate among critics and scholars and different interpretations among dramatists.
In Aristotle's Poetics Hamartia is first described in the subject of literary criticism by Aristotle in his Poetics. The source of hamartia is at the juncture between character and the character's actions or behaviors as described by Aristotle.
Character in a play is that which reveals the moral purpose of the agents, i.e. the sort of thing they seek or avoid. In his introduction to the S. H. Butcher translation of Poetics, Francis Fergusson describes hamartia as the inner quality that initiates, as in Dante's words, a "movement of spirit" within the protagonist to commit actions which drive the plot towards its tragic end, inspiring in the audience a build of pity and fear that leads to a purgation of those emotions, or catharsis. Jules Brody, however, argues that "it is the height of irony that the idea of the tragic flaw should have had its origin in the Aristotelian notion of hamartia. Whatever this problematic word may be taken to mean, it has nothing to do with such ideas as fault, vice, guilt, moral deficiency, or the like. Hamartia is a morally neutral non-normative term, derived from the verb hamartanein, meaning 'to miss the mark', 'to fall short of an objective'. And by extension: to reach one destination rather than the intended one; to make a mistake, not in the sense of a moral failure, but in the nonjudgmental sense of taking one thing for another, taking something for its opposite. Hamartia may betoken an error of discernment due to ignorance, to the lack of an essential piece of information. Finally, hamartia may be viewed simply as an act which, for whatever reason, ends in failure rather than success." In a Greek tragedy, for a story to be "of adequate magnitude" it involves characters of high rank, prestige, or good fortune. If the protagonist is too worthy of esteem, or too wicked, their change of fortune will not evoke the ideal proportion of pity and fear necessary for catharsis. Here Aristotle describes hamartia as the quality of a tragic hero that generates that optimal balance.
Tragic flaw, tragic error, and divine intervention Aristotle mentions hamartia in Poetics. He argues that it is a powerful device to have a story begin with a rich and powerful hero, neither exceptionally virtuous nor villainous, who then falls into misfortune by a mistake or error (hamartia). Discussion among scholars centers mainly on the degree to which hamartia is defined as tragic flaw or tragic error.
Critical argument for flaw Poetic justice describes an obligation of the dramatic poet, along with philosophers and priests, to see that their work promotes moral behavior. 18th-century French dramatic style honored that obligation with the use of hamartia as a vice to be punished Phèdre, Racine's adaptation of Euripides' Hippolytus, is an example of French Neoclassical use of hamartia as a means of punishing vice. Jean Racine says in his Preface to Phèdre, as translated by R.C. Knight:
The failings of love are treated as real failings. The passions are offered to view only to show all the ravage they create. And vice is everywhere painted in such hues, that its hideous face may be recognized and loathed. The play is a tragic story about a royal family. The main characters' respective vices—rage, lust and envy—lead them to their tragic downfall.
Critical argument for error In her 1963 Modern Language Review article, "The Tragic Flaw: Is it a Tragic Error?", Isabel Hyde traces the twentieth-century history of hamartia as tragic flaw, which she argues is an incorrect interpretation. Hyde draws upon the language in Butcher's interpretation of Poetics regarding hamartia as both error and "defect in character". Hyde points out a footnote in which Butcher qualifies his second definition by saying it is not a "natural" expression to describe a flaw in behavior. Hyde calls upon another description from A.C. Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy of 1904 which she contends is misleading:
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