Over 2,300 years ago, Aristotle wrote his famous manual for contemporary authors. This guide, entitled Poetics, covered what aspects a tragedy should contain.
             Of these aspects, one of the most important points in Poetics made by Aristotle is what characteristics a tragic hero, the protagonist of the tragedy should have. The tragic hero should be a successful, noble person who displays an error in judgment or weakness in character which leads from happiness to misery, ending with a recognition making them usually gain knowledge by the end of the work. These guidelines for creating a tragic hero as well as his guidelines for writing a tragedy were used by many authors who wrote after Aristotle died.
             One example of a playwright who used Aristotle's Poetics for creating a tragic hero is William Shakespeare and this can be seen in his famous drama, "Othello". Shakespeare's tragic hero, Othello, is a noble, renowned, and prosperous man who has a few flaws which lead to his downfall of happiness to misery and at the end he is able to reach recognition of what he has done wrong during the play. Therefore, Shakespeare's character Othello, fits Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero perfectly.
             According to Aristotle, the first characteristic of a tragic hero is a person who is like average people, but instead is successful, prosperous, noble, and renowned. This person (at most times a man), is someone who is doing well with their career and their personal life and their characteristics make them easy for us readers to admire. Shakespeare's Othello is just this. At the beginning of the play, we are introduced to Othello, a respected Venetian general who has just gotten married and has won his wife Desdemona after overcoming her father Brabantio who does not want the marriage to take place. In addition to being successful with his personal life, Othello is also successful in his career; he is a renown ...