In his Poetics, Aristotle defined the term 'tragedy' as 'a man not preeminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity, but by some error in judgement... the change in the hero's fortune must not be from misery to happiness, but on the contrary, from happiness to misery'. From this definition, he further expanded it by defining the profile of the tragic hero. I agree with Aristotle's views in which he considered the best tragedy ever written was Sophacle's Oedipus Rex. He felt that a tragedy should consist of the hero's goodness and superiority, a tragic flaw in which the hero makes fatal errors in judgement which eventually lead to his downfall, and the absence of freewill in the tragic hero's life.
             Oedipus was a good ruler: just, compassionate and sympathetic. When the priests of Thebes approached him, pleading for help on behalf of the people of Thebes who were suffering from death and famine. Oedipus immediately agreed and promised them that he would do his best in solving the problems, saying that his heart bore 'the weight of his own' and 'all of his people's sorrows'. He promised to 'bring everything to light'. Oedipus's superiority was also evident in the play, not only through his ranking of the king of Thebes, but also through his intelligence which was shown when Oedipus was the only person able to chase the Sphinx away with the correct answer to her riddle.
             However, Oedipus was not a perfect man. His tragic flaw was that of stubbornness, impulsiveness and most of all, his great amount of pride. When he left Corinth, he met an entourage on the way to Thebes. There, the 'leader' of the horse-drawn carriage ordered him 'out of the way'. Oedipus lost his temper and killed everyone in the entourage due to his impulsiveness and foolishness. When Oedipus was
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