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Commentary on modern tragedy tends to revolve around two major arguments. First, is the question of whether there is modern tragedy and second, if yes, on what ground is the term justified. The argument is caused by the differing opinions as to the necessary ingredients of tragedy as identified by Aristotle. The focus of this discourse is to analyse to what extent Aristotle's Poetics has influenced tragic construction and theory of later periods. Poetics is not only the first significant work in dramatic theory but its major concepts and lines of arguments have influenced the development of theory and construction of tragedy throughout the centuries. An examination of the tragic conception from the time of the Greeks to the present reveals that tragedy has undergone a metamorphosis in definitions and experience. Based on this premise, this study emphasizes the diversity of the tragic conception and characteristics, its continuity and deviations. Even though there have been changes over the centuries in the concept of the tragic genre, its essence remains the same. For the purposes of this study, the researcher employs extensively, the Historical Research Methodology. Using the historical research methodology and Alfred Whitehead's Process Philosophy, this study submits that even though a precise and detailed discussion of the tragic forms begins with Aristotle, it did not end with him because Aristotle based his theory on the only examples available to him: The works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Many new types of serious plots ending in a catastrophe have been developed - types that Aristotle had no way of foreseeing. The Poetics should therefore be seen as Aristotle theorizing according to the great tendency of his time. His theory is descriptive and not prescriptive and should not be regarded as many generations following its appearance have: an unchallengeable law to be applied as whole to all tragic art without question. The study also proposes the Patho-Cathartic approach to the interpretation and determination of the tragic vision.