The metabasis paradox is an instance in the received text of Aristotle's Poetics where, according to many scholars,[1][2][3][4][5] he makes two incompatible statements.
[17] Subsequently, he writes also in chapter 13 that, while critics have judged Euripides harshly because "many" of his plays "end in misfortune," yet "this is, as we have seen, correct," referring to the change of fortune from good to bad.
[22] Takeda, however, does not offer the standard, consensus description of the solutions of André Dacier,[23] Gotthold Lessing,[24][25] and Stephen Halliwell.
[37] André Dacier wrote more than a century later, as though unaware of Castelvetro's remarks on the problem, "The wise Victorius [Vettori] is the only one who has seen it; but since he did not know what was the concern in the Chapter, and that it is only by this that it can be solved, he has not attempted to clarify it.
[47][48] Dacier believed that, in chapter 14, Aristotle considered stories that are open to change, hence the option of avoiding a death.
But Euripides chose the third in his Cresphontes, as the uncertain tradition of Merope's action gave him the liberty to choose which he pleased.
[55][56][57] Lessing's own solution is that in chapter 13 Aristotle establishes the best plot structure, and in 14 the best treatment of pathos, or scene of suffering.
He proposed that this removes Aristotle's contradiction, because to use this kind of incident may leave the drama open to ending in good or bad fortune, at least in theory.
[71] According to Bywater, this is why the fourth way, "where a timely Discovery saves us from the rude shock to our moral feelings...is pronounced to be κράτιστον."
He claims that, for Aristotle, misfortune has tragic meaning only if it is avoidable and intelligible, and that recognizing before killing, among the four ways, best meets these criteria.
[80] In his interpretation of Halliwell, Takeda believed the main point is that Aristotle had emphasized process over ending in misfortune.
[82] Murnaghan titled her essay on the problem "sucking the juice without biting the rind," borrowing Gerald Else's phrase characterizing the averted death theme.
[83] Murnaghan argues that, instead of a problem to be solved, Aristotle's contradiction expresses the ambivalence of many observers toward tragedy's violence.
She finds that the death-avoiding incident Aristotle prefers reflects the essence of theater, since both allow us to confront death safely.
[86] Through a close reading of Aristotle's expression of the two contrary opinions, Bouchard proposes that they refer to different types of audience.
[87] In Bouchard's view, the preference for misfortune in chapter 13 reflects the domain of the literary critic, while the judgment that killing averted by recognition is "best," "kratiston," is linked to the popular audience.
In contrast, the context Aristotle gives (in Bouchard's translation) to the arguments for change of fortune from good to bad, is more intellectual--"the most beautiful tragedy according to art.
Bouchard also accounts for Heath's explanation of chapter 14: "The reason Heath gives to explain [the] preference rests on the idea of technical purity: plays like Iphigenia in Tauris are devoid of acts of violence (pathos) and thus of the kind of sensational spectacle that Aristotle condemns at the beginning of chapter 14: 'Reliance on visual effect therefore becomes impossible in a plot of averted violence: the poet has to rely on the structure of the plot to achieve tragic effect.