Anagnorisis

[1] In his Poetics, as part of his discussion of peripeteia, Aristotle defined anagnorisis as "a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune" (1452a).

He considered it the mark of a superior tragedy, as when Oedipus killed his father and married his mother in ignorance, and later learned the truth, or when Iphigeneia in Tauris realizes in time that the strangers she is to sacrifice are her brother and his friend, and refrains from sacrificing them.

Another prominent example of anagnorisis in tragedy is in Aeschylus's "The Choephoroi" ("Libation Bearers") when Electra recognizes her brother, Orestes, after he has returned to Argos from his exile, at the grave of their father, Agamemnon, who had been murdered at the hands of Clytemnestra, their mother.

[7] A humorous definition is included in 'The Banner: mock-heroic verse epic, Part 1: Sid' by Robin Gordon: In any moment of such crisis / one thinks, of course, of those devices / which Aristotle said were needed / in any poem.

We have heeded / Aristotle, and our plot, / (beginning, middle, end), has got / complications too, and error / fit to rouse cathartic terror, / protagonists, antagonists, / peripiteia, turns and twists.

/ When Oedipus sees the bird he's bedded / is his own father's lawful wedded / wife, in fact she is his mother, / or Iphigenia finds her brother, / Discovery or Recognition / brings the plot to its fruition.