What Does Anagnorisis Mean?

Anagnorisis is a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery. Anagnorisis originally meant recognition in its Greek context, not only of a person but also of what that person stood for.

What is anagnorisis in literature?

Anagnorisis, (Greek: “recognition”), in a literary work, the startling discovery that produces a change from ignorance to knowledge. ... Anagnorisis usually involves revelation of the true identity of persons previously unknown, as when a father recognizes a stranger as his son, or vice versa.

What is an example of anagnorisis?

Anagnorisis is the recognition by the tragic hero of some truth about his or her identity or actions that accompanies the reversal of the situation in the plot, the peripeteia. Oedipus's realization that he is, in fact, his father's murderer and his mother's lover is an example of anagnorisis.