Forms of recognition

Recognition (anagnorisis) has already been defined — the change from ignorance to knowledge — and the chapter now enumerates its kinds. First and least artistic is recognition by signs: congenital marks like birthmarks, or acquired signs like scars, or external objects. These are the most commonly used because they are the easiest to invent. Odysseus's recognition by his scar is one example. Such recognitions depend on an external given rather than arising from the logic of the plot.

Second are recognitions invented at will by the poet, which are also artless. A character reveals himself by something he says or does that the poet has contrived without any necessity arising from the situation. Third is recognition through memory: the sight of a familiar object or the hearing of a familiar voice awakens emotion and leads to recognition. Fourth is recognition by reasoning: the protagonist infers from available evidence who the other person must be. This is better than the previous kinds because it arises from thought rather than from chance objects, but it still does not arise from the plot's own necessity.

The best form is recognition that arises from the incidents themselves, through the natural and necessary course of events. Aristotle cites the recognition in Sophocles's Oedipus — where the recognition of who Oedipus is arises necessarily from the action of the play, from the very investigation that Oedipus himself sets in motion. This is the highest form because it is not an external contrivance but an emergence from the internal logic of the action. When the recognition produces the reversal simultaneously — as in Oedipus — the result is the most powerful tragic construction possible.