Star Wars analyzed from the perspective of Greek literature
May, 11; 2025. By Arscodex
Today we're here to unravel, analyze, and explain the strong connections between George Lucas's Star Wars work and Greek literature. Warning: contains spoilers; those who haven't seen the films should refrain from reading on.
Anyway, for now, we'll leave what we've stated there to delve into the entire Aristotelian dialectic that emanates from the work of this philosopher, Aristotle, from his Poetics, a work that aptly describes all narrative processes seen from Aristotle's perspective, that is, from Ancient Greece. And guess what? Little has changed so far.
The point is to study these concepts: anagnorisis, peripeteia, denouement, and catharsis, especially the first two, which are original to the work Poetics , as we say. Well, anagnorisis is the moment in the narrative in which the protagonist learns relevant facts about his/her past and/or his family or connections with other characters. This normally leads to, or coincides with, the peripetia, which is a whim of fate that causes the main plot to change or take on a different meaning—in short, the final twist of the work—and all of this leads to the actual outcome.
Well, now let's focus on Chapter VI of Star Wars ("Return of the Jedi"), where all these issues are easy to spot. Anagnorisis is clear: Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker that he is his father. And then we leave it to the reader to identify the peripetia and the outcome, which in this case is threefold, since there are three actions that develop in parallel and culminate at the end of the film.
We can then appreciate that while all these elements are naturally present in Greek tragedy, we also see that they are manifested in epic, that is, heroic narrative with a positive outcome for the hero, as is the case here. Adding to this confusion other brilliant—and novel for their time—literary ideas or motifs, such as the use of "the force," make this work a superb film, let's not fool ourselves.
All these narrative concepts, especially tragedy, epic, comedy, etc., have already been described or mentioned previously in this media.
Well, to conclude, we must say that we don't know if George Lucas, when writing and devising the script for this film, was familiar with Aristotle's work, "The Poetic Art," but the outcome remains unchanged: an epic work (Star Wars, that is) that contains all the classical elements and has been an unprecedented success in the world of cinema, a success that is still being exploited commercially today.
Anyway, for now, we'll leave what we've stated there to delve into the entire Aristotelian dialectic that emanates from the work of this philosopher, Aristotle, from his Poetics, a work that aptly describes all narrative processes seen from Aristotle's perspective, that is, from Ancient Greece. And guess what? Little has changed so far.
The point is to study these concepts: anagnorisis, peripeteia, denouement, and catharsis, especially the first two, which are original to the work Poetics , as we say. Well, anagnorisis is the moment in the narrative in which the protagonist learns relevant facts about his/her past and/or his family or connections with other characters. This normally leads to, or coincides with, the peripetia, which is a whim of fate that causes the main plot to change or take on a different meaning—in short, the final twist of the work—and all of this leads to the actual outcome.
Well, now let's focus on Chapter VI of Star Wars ("Return of the Jedi"), where all these issues are easy to spot. Anagnorisis is clear: Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker that he is his father. And then we leave it to the reader to identify the peripetia and the outcome, which in this case is threefold, since there are three actions that develop in parallel and culminate at the end of the film.
We can then appreciate that while all these elements are naturally present in Greek tragedy, we also see that they are manifested in epic, that is, heroic narrative with a positive outcome for the hero, as is the case here. Adding to this confusion other brilliant—and novel for their time—literary ideas or motifs, such as the use of "the force," make this work a superb film, let's not fool ourselves.
All these narrative concepts, especially tragedy, epic, comedy, etc., have already been described or mentioned previously in this media.
Well, to conclude, we must say that we don't know if George Lucas, when writing and devising the script for this film, was familiar with Aristotle's work, "The Poetic Art," but the outcome remains unchanged: an epic work (Star Wars, that is) that contains all the classical elements and has been an unprecedented success in the world of cinema, a success that is still being exploited commercially today.
Featured links in People
Related newsAwesome recreation of the Millennium Falcon in Disneyland California now visitable - August, 23; 2019
Disney formalizes the purchase of Fox for 62800 million euros - March, 20; 2019
Is popular culture good for art? Is entertainment good for your health? - November, 23; 2017
The importance of music in cinema - October, 03; 2025