One of the most widespread assumptions about a good Greek tragedy is that it must have an unhappy ending. Aristotle himself, in Poetics 13, seems to sanction this persistent misunderstanding with his remarks on Sophocles' most famous work, the Oedipus Tyrannus. For this reason, commentators have long puzzled over Aristotle's subsequent ranking of Oedipus Tyrannus as a kind of second-rate tragedy in Poetics 14. The puzzle over the apparent contradiction between Poetics 13 and 14 has not been resolved by philologists, but recent scholarship has nonetheless argued persuasively that Aristotle must be read as making a coherent argument across both chapters (see Belfiore 160-176 and Halliwell 202-237).
The fact that a plot structure that takes the complex form having no pathos is ranked highest by Aristotle should not mislead us into thinking that an Iphigenia-style "happy ending" is the gold standard for high culture, in contradiction with the apparent indications elsewhere that Oedipus, unhappy metabasis and all, ought to be. The recommended plot in Poetics 14 is not simply a popularly satisfying "happy ending" but, more rigorously, a unitary plot that avoids an unhappy pathos by means of a coincident anagnorisis and peripeteia having a thrilling effect.
In other words, happy metabasis content is not as important as the formal discovery of hamartia. Formally, preventative discovery of hamartia is superior to tragically belated anagnorisis. Formally, Oedipus Tyrannus is only second-best. But this means only that high culture can treat pathos, peripeteia, and anagnorisis in various configurations as either present or absent in the plot structure. It does not require them to be configured so as to generate formulaically an unhappy metabasis (following a crude "high culture" formula: i.e., "avoid Hollywood endings"). Nor does it require them, pace Belfiore, to be configured so as to generate by chance (learning by chance what pleases the crowd) a formulaically happy metabasis (following an easy "popular culture" formula: i.e., "strive for big box office"). Formally, what is essentially prescribed by Aristotle in Poetics 14 is the superiority of a timely deferral of pathos to a belated recognition of the hamartia that generated pathos.
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