Anagnorisis

The Greek term for “recognition” used in literary criticicm to describe the moment of tragic recognition when a protagonist realizes an important fact or insight about a situation, themselves, or human nature. The term was used by Aristotle in the Poetics where he argued that the ideal moment for anagnorisis in a tragedy is the moment of peripeteia, the reversal of fortune. “Critics often claim that the moment of tragic recognition is found within a single line of text, in which the tragic hero admits to his lack of insight or asserts the new truth he recognizes. This passage is often called the line of tragic recognition.“