
Poetics
by Aristotle
'Poetics ' Summary
The table of contents page of the Poetics found in Modern Library's Basic Works of Aristotle (2001) identifies five basic parts within it.
-
Preliminary discourse on tragedy, epic poetry, and comedy, as the chief forms of imitative poetry.
-
Definition of a tragedy, and the rules for its construction. Definition and analysis into qualitative parts.
-
Rules for the construction of a tragedy: Tragic pleasure, or catharsis experienced by fear and pity should be produced in the spectator. The characters must be four things: good, appropriate, realistic, and consistent. Discovery must occur within the plot. Narratives, stories, structures and poetics overlap. It is important for the poet to visualize all of the scenes when creating the plot. The poet should incorporate complication and dénouement within the story, as well as combine all of the elements of tragedy. The poet must express thought through the characters' words and actions, while paying close attention to diction and how a character's spoken words express a specific idea. Aristotle believed that all of these different elements had to be present in order for the poetry to be well-done.
-
Possible criticisms of an epic or tragedy, and the answers to them.
- Tragedy as artistically superior to epic poetry: Tragedy has everything that the epic has, even the epic meter being admissible. The reality of presentation is felt in the play as read, as well as in the play as acted. The tragic imitation requires less time for the attainment of its end. If it has more concentrated effect, it is more pleasurable than one with a large admixture of time to dilute it. There is less unity in the imitation of the epic poets (plurality of actions) and this is proved by the fact that an epic poem can supply enough material for several tragedies.
Aristotle also draws a famous distinction between the tragic mode of poetry and history. Whereas history deals with things that took place in the past, tragedy concerns itself with what might occur, or could be imagined to happen. History deals with particulars, whose relation to one another is marked by contingency, accident or chance. Contrariwise, poetic narratives are determined objects, unified by a plot whose logic binds up the constituent elements by necessity and probability. In this sense, he concluded, such poetry was more philosophical than history in so far as it approximates to a knowledge of universals.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
Ancient GreekPublished In
Authors

Aristotle
Greece
Aristotle (384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy...
Books by AristotleDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences by René Descartes
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise publi...

Ten Books on Architecture, De architectura by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
De architectura is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect and military engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and dedicated to his patron...

On Union with God by Blessed Albert the Great
How to rid yourself of troubling thoughts, concerns and outside distractions and learn to focus on acquiring a continual relationship with God inside...

The Kama Sutra by Mallanaga Vatsyayana
The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfilment in life. Attributed to Vātsyāyana, the Kama Sutra...

The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for...

Commentaries on the Laws of England. Book 1 by William Blackstone
The Commentaries were long regarded as the leading work on the development of English law and played a role in the development of the American legal s...

On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church by Martin Luther
Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church was the second of the three major treatises published by Martin Luther in 1520, coming after the Add...

A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley
Does the world exist outside of your mind? In his groundbreaking philosophical work, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, George...

The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
The Critique of Pure Reason, first published in 1781 with a second edition in 1787, has been called the most influential and important philosophical t...

Novum Organum by Francis Bacon
The Novum Organum, fully Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae ("New organon, or true directions concerning the interpretation o...
Reviews for Poetics
No reviews posted or approved, yet...