Art & MusicGreek → English
Peripeteia
/ˌpɛrɪpɪˈtaɪə/noun
The sudden reversal that swings a drama's action into its opposite.
The Greek roots
περί
perí
around
πίπτειν
píptein
to fall
Literally: “a falling around”
The story of the word
Aristotle defined it in the Poetics, and his example is the messenger who arrives to cheer Oedipus up and instead tells him whose son he is. The Greek is physical before it is dramatic: peripíptō is to fall in with something, to stumble into it. Aristotle wanted it paired with anagnorisis, the recognition, both landing in the same stroke.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 1590s
Same family
symptomperipheralanagnorisisptosis
In a sentence
The peripeteia arrives in the third act, when the letter turns out to be a forgery.