The classic example of Aristotelian principles is Sophocles' Oedipus the King (ca. 428 B.C.); Shakespeare's Othello (1603-04) follows a similar pattern of pride, error, and self-destruction (though Oedipus merely mutilates himself on discovering his crimes, whereas Othello commits suicide). (See catharsis for more details.)
Recent scholarship has suggested that the interpretation of hamartia as a fatal flaw is itself flawed, and that the word more properly means any disproportion in the character's makeup that leads to downfall; thus an excess of a valuable or virtuous quality can in some circumstances be seen as hamartia.