Catharsis' Quarterly is as apt a name as any for this compendium of critical and creative writing by local and regional writers, visual and performing artists. Serving as a vehicle for emerging artists in Northwest, Fl its focus is to cultivate an open dialogue within the community regarding the development of humanities and the arts. Aristotle originally applied the word "catharsis" to the cleansing release of pity or terror in viewing a tragedy. Wherein the Greek tragedies experience of a dramatic personae on stage would evoke in the audience a sense of emotional release. Catharsis is also a word used by students of Freudian or psychodynamic therapy. Freud, quite familiar with Greek drama probably borrowed the term. In this context it is the release of repressed emotion by a patient of psychiatry. The very act of expunging such emotion creates a healing release of internal pressures from which neurotic symptoms emerge. It is a word intimately associated with the artistic process - a purging of feelings, a carminative of creativity into a work of art. For isn't art a catharsis in the form of a painted canvas, written page, or sheet of musical notation? Nearly as complex grammatically as the artistic process itself, the word is a string of sibilants that challenges the tongue and evokes the fundamental processes of art.
