In classical tragedies, the catastasis (pl. catastases) is the third part of an ancient drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

, in which the intrigue or action that was initiated in the epitasis

Epitasis

In Classical drama, the epitasis is the main action of a play, in which the trials and tribulations of the main character increase and build toward a climax and dénouement. It was coined by the fourth-century Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. He defined a play as being made up of three separate...

, is supported and heightened, until ready to be unravelled in the catastrophe

Catastrophe (drama)

In drama, particularly the tragedies of classical antiquity, the catastrophe is the final resolution in a poem or narrative plot, which unravels the intrigue and brings the piece to a close. In comedies, this may be a marriage between main characters; in tragedies, it may be the death of one or...

. It also refers to the climax

Climax (narrative)

The Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...

 of a drama.

In rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

, the catastasis is that part of a speech, usually the exordium

Exordium (rhetoric)

In Western classical rhetoric, the exordium was the introductory portion of an oration. The term is Latin and the Greek equivalent was called the Proem or Prooimion....

, in which the orator sets forth the subject matter to be discussed.

The term is not a classical one; it was invented by Scaliger

Julius Caesar Scaliger

Julius Caesar Scaliger was an Italian scholar and physician who spent a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the new learning...

in his Poetics (published posthumously in 1561). It "is more or less equivalent to the summa epitasis of Donatus and Latomus and to what Willichius sometimes called the extrema epitasis," and was first used in 1616 in England.