peripeteia

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The Word of the Day for November 10 is: 

peripeteia   \pair-uh-puh-TEE-uh\   noun
          : a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation 
especially in a literary work

Example sentence:
          In the last act of the play, the king's decision to avenge his 
brother leads to a peripeteia that leaves him bereft of his throne and his 
family.

Did you know?
          "Peripeteia" comes from Greek, in which the verb “peripiptein” means 
"to fall around" or "to change suddenly." It usually indicates a turning point 
in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. In his 
_Poetics_, Aristotle describes peripeteia as the shift of the tragic 
protagonist's fortune from good to bad--a shift that is essential to the plot 
of a tragedy. The term is also occasionally used of a similar change in actual 
affairs. For example, in a June 7, 2006 article in _The New York Times_, 
Michael Cooper described William Weld’s second term as Massachusetts’ governor 
as “political peripeteia”: it “began with a landslide victory and ended with 
frustrated hopes and his resignation.” 





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