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Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / Unit 13   AIL 1211 short lesson, about 20 seconds

A Blindness From Strength

Captions available

The idea

The glossary's phrasing is worth keeping: the flaw often arises from what makes the character admirable. Oedipus is undone by the determination that made him a good king. Reading hamartia as a simple defect misses the ironic structure the term was built to name.

In practice

The virtue produces the fall.

Where people slip

Not a defect; an excess of a strength.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

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