Introduction
Greek tragedy, at its most essential, is not simply a story of suffering. It is a story of a particular kind of suffering — one that arises from the collision between a person of considerable stature and a fatal internal flaw that they either cannot see or cannot resist.
The great Aristotelian conception of tragedy requires a protagonist of high social standing, an hamartia or fatal error, the arousal of hubris — that peculiar Greek sin of overweening pride and presumption — and ultimately a nemesis or divine retribution that brings the figure low, often in proportion to the heights from which they fell.
