hamartia

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ha·mar·ti·a

(hä′mär-tē′ə)

Tragic flaw.

[Greek, from hamartanein, to miss the mark, err.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hamartia

(həˈmɑːtɪə)

(Literary & Literary Critical Terms) literature the flaw in character which leads to the downfall of the protagonist in a tragedy

[C19: from Greek]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

trag′ic flaw′

a character defect that causes the downfall of the protagonist of a tragedy.

[1950–55]

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Noun

hamartia - the character flaw or error of a tragic hero that leads to his downfall

tragic flaw

flaw - defect or weakness in a person's character; "he had his flaws, but he was great nonetheless"

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References in periodicals archive ?

According to the author, the phenomenon can be explained by his hamartia. This characteristic is defined as a tragic flaw of his character identified as his insecurity resulting from the fact that he was the son of a declasse mother.

ZULFIKAR ALI BHUTTO - THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF ZAB'S RISE AND FALL

In Imran Khan's case, his hamartia lies in promising heaven as he raised hell while failing to fulfill the most basic of his promises.

The tragedy called Imran Khan

Ahmed spoke a bit about the element of hamartia the fall of a tragic hero as a means to understanding the rollercoaster of Bhutto's life.

Festival: Surviving in times of air space closures

O "misterio do processo", que alcanca tanto Kafka quanto Salvatore Satta (citado por Agamben como jurista, mas autor tambem ele de um romance dedicado a reflexao sobre o tempo, Il giorno del giudizio, lancado postumamente em 1977), carrega consigo aquela carga ambivalente, entre o julgamento e a culpabilidade, que Agamben ja havia rastreado em Dante--mas apontando, porem, para a nocao de "pecado" compartilhada pela Poetica de Aristoteles e pelo Novo Testamento atraves da sobrevivencia e traducao do termo grego hamartia (AGAMBEN, 2014, p.

TRAGEDIA, COMEDIA, ROMANCE DE FORMACAO/TRAGEDY, COMEDY, NOVEL OF FORMATION

Anselmo's impertinent curiosity may be seen as the Aristotelian hamartia that brings about the peripeteia that turns his once-happy world upside down, and finally leads to the anagnorisis of realising the foolishness of an "impertinente deseo" ["impertinent desire"] that turns him into the "fabricador de [su] deshonra" ["the author of [his] own dishonour"] (373).

Cambio de genero literario en las adaptaciones de "El curioso impertinente" de Cervantes en la Restauracion inglesa

Pedro Bohorquez de Piossek es una trama que satisface punto por punto lo que Frye denomina "la cuarta fase de la tragedia", esto es "la tipica caida del heroe por hybris y por hamartia" (FRYE 1977, p.

Historiographical Narrative Systems: The Reality of Fiction in Pedro Bohorquez. The inca of El Tucuman/Sistemas narrativos historiograficos: La realidad de la ficcion en Pedro Bohorquez, el inca del Tucuman

The Aristotelian unity of action (or plot) begins with the hero's error of ignorance (hamartia), which leads to a change of fortune from good to bad that is manifest in suffering (pathos) within the family (or philos) relation, where the suffering is arguably most pitiable because of the familial affinity (23).

The Dramatic Modern Novel: Mimesis and The Poetics of Tragedy in Mrs. Dalloway

The Gypsies traces the traditional tragic path from the hero's hamartia (initial blindness) towards anagorisis (recognition), but this alteration in Aleko's vision is not accompanied by any hope for redemption.