Download ARISTOTLE 384-322 BC Born in Stagira (also called the Stagyrite

ARISTOTLE

 384-322 BC
 Born in Stagira (also called the Stagyrite)
 Spent 20 yrs studying under Plato
 Tutor to Alexander the Great for 8 yrs
 Established his academy, LYCEUM
 His school also called PERIPATETIC- habit of walking up and down in the grounds while
discoursing with his disciples
 Two critical treatise
 The Poetics (art of poetry)
 The Rhetoric (art of speaking)
 The Poetics – 2 parts- I> dealing with tragedy
II> dealing with comedy – lost
 Not merely a commentary on poetic art- firmly rooted in Greek lit- illustration
THE POETICS
 ARISTOTLE’S REPLY TO PLATO’S OBJECTION
PLATO’S OBJECTION
 Plato’s objection on three groundseducational,
philosophical
& moral view point

Educational point of view: poetry fosters evil habits in children – doesn’t
cultivate good habits
eg: Homer’s epic- lusty, cunning & cruel war mongers
Philosophical point of view/Theory of Mimesis
o
Art is mimetic
o
IDEA is ultimate reality
o
ART imitates IDEA; imitation of reality
o
Poetry doesn’t lead to ultimate reality- twice removed from reality
 Eg: carpenter & chair
Idea of chair in the mind of carpenter
Carpenter gave physical shape & created a chair
Painter imitated the chair
So art is twice removed from reality
o
Priority to Philosophy as it deals with Idea- philosophy is better
than poetry
Moral point of view
 Soul of Man = higher principles of reason+ lower /baser impulses & emotions
 Poetry waters & nourishes the baser impulses of men- emotional, sentimental &
sorrowful
 Poetry feeds & waters passion instead of drying them up; promotes undesirable
passions
 So poetry is not ethical & is bad…
According to Plato, poets are breeders of
falsehood & poetry is mother of lies…
Plato’s treatise in the form of DIALOGUES
Aristotle’s Reply - 1
 Art – not a slavish imitation of reality
 Literature – not the photographic reproduction of life
 It’s a representation of selected events & characters necessary in a coherent action for
the realization of artist’s purpose
 Art gives sth more which is absent in the actual
 Artists puts his idea, perception, intuition into it… ‘this more’ is the aim of the artist…

Leads us to the essential reality of life
Aristotle’s Reply - 2
 Function of Art = to provide aesthetic delight, communicate experience, express
emotions & represent life. (to please)
 Not to teach morality as ETHICS (teaching may be given)
 If an artist succeeds in providing aesthetic sense, he is a good artist
 Defended in his Theory of Catharsis
“Art gives new knowledge, yields aesthetic satisfaction & produces a better state of mind”
- Not to encourage weaker part of soul & numbs faculty of reason
Aristotle’s Reply- 3
 Plato judges poetry from 3 standpoints
 Evth should be judged in terms of its own aims & objectives
 We can’t say MUSIC is bad as it doesn’t paint; painting is bad as it doesn’t sing or
poetry is bad as it doesn’t teach ethics…
 If poetry, ethics & philosophy had identical function, how could they be different
subjects???
Aristotle’s classification of various forms of art on the
basis of
1. Object of imitation
2. Medium of imitation
3. Manner of imitation
Object of imitation
 Which object is imitated?
 Life of Great people? Or Mean people?
 Tragedy? Epic? Satire? Comedy?
 Tragedy
- men on a heroic scale, men better than they are in everyday life
 Comedy
life
- trivial aspect of human nature, characters worse than they are in real
Medium of Imitation
 What sort of medium is used to imitate life???
 Words? Colors? Music?
 If words, which meter/ verse?
 Tragedy writer may make use of one kind of metre, & the comedy writer of another
Manner of imitation
 In what manner is imitation of life presented?
 By Action? By narration?
 David Daiches: “the poet can tell a story in narrative form and partly through the
speeches of characters (as Homer does), or it can all be done in third person narrative,
or the story can be presented dramatically, with no use of third person narrative at
all.”
Definition of Tragedy
 “Tragedy is an imitation of action that is serious, complete & of a certain magnitude;
in the language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds
being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative;
through pity & fear effecting the proper purgation- catharsis of these & similar
emotions”
‘imitation’
 All art is imitation/representation of life
 None can present life in its totality
 Artist should be selective in representation
 Must aim at representing /imitating a fragment of life.
‘action’
 Comprises of all human activities including deeds, thoughts, & feelings
 Soliloquies, chorus - actions
‘serious’
 Tragedy imitates the serious side of life
 Comedy imitates the shallow & superficial side
‘complete’
 Complete or self contained
 Should have a beginning, middle & end
 Beginning> audience does not need to be told ath before the start to understand the
story….if so, then unsatisfactory.
 Follows the middle> events from the middle lead to the end.
 Must not leave the impression that even after the end, the action continues…
 Close knit unit

mustn't have Superfluous/ Unnecessary
 Every episode+ every character+ dialogue = must carry the action- to its logical
denouement
‘magnitude’
 Must have a definite magnitude/a proper size/reasonable length as the mind
comprehend fully
 Necessary duration/ not more than 3 hrs or shorter than 3 hrs
 Longer duration tire our patience
 Shorter duration makes effective representation impossible…
‘Language’
 Language should be embellished /beautified with various artistic ornaments like
rhythm, harmony & song + figures of speech
 Lang of daily life – not useful
 Prefers elevated language of poetry as it presents a heightened picture of life’s serious
side
Form of action, not narration
 Manner of imitation should be action, not narration as in epic.
 Dramatic representation, not storytelling
through pity& fear…..catharsis
 Aim of tragedy (highest form of poetry) – to achieve catharsis
 It arouses emotions of pity & fear - Pity at the undeserved sufferings of the hero &
fear of the worst that may befall him
 Fear & pity in everyone’s life – if they go on accumulating, dangerous
 Tragedy- sufferings we witness are not our own
 our suppressed & excess emotions find a full & free outlet, relieving the soul of their
excess
 Lifted out of ourselves- emerge nobler than before
 This is what Milton calls, “calm of mind, all passions spent” (Samson Agonistes)
 As Plato believed, the emotional appeal of poetry is not harmful, but health giving &
artistically satisfying…
SIX PARTS OF TRAGEDY
 Every tragedy is made of these parts
1. Plot
2. Character
3. Thought
4. Diction
5. Melody/Songs
6. Spectacle
What is plot ?
 Soul of tragedy
 A series of events deliberately/logically arranged so as to reveal their dramatic,
thematic & emotional significance – artistic arrangement of incidents
 Or plot is someone’s telling of story…
 story is a series of events recorded in the chronological order
 Eg: The king died & the queen died- story
The king died & the queen died of grief- plot (E M Forster’s Aspects of the Novel)
 Action must be complete – must have beginning, middle & end
 Must have unity in its action- organic unity- every incident has a logical connection
with the rest of the action – none of them is irrelevant- each must be properly
integrated with the main action
Simple/complex plot
 Simple plot - Straightforward story without any complications - without any violent/
sudden changes
 Complex plot – Plot that makes use of peripeteia & anagnorisis
 To Aristotle, ideal tragic plot must be complex
Peripeteia/Anagnorisis
 Peripeteia – sudden reversals of fortune
eg: the messenger from Corinth comes to cheer Oedipus, but by revealing his
personal identity as Lauis’ son brings about a reversal of his fortunes
 Anagnorisis – discovery/ a change from ignorance to knowledge (sudden revelations
of concealed/mistaken identities)
eg: Oedipus moves from ignorance to knowledge when he cross questions the
Messenger & the Shepherd..
Tragic hero
 In a good tragedy, character supports plot
 Tragic hero should have all the characteristics of a good character. To him, character
must be
1. True to the self
2. True to type (apt to the class they belong to)
3. True to life (realistic)
4. Consistent (no sudden change of character)

Aristotle observes:
1. A good man coming to bad end (Shocking & disturbs faith)
2. A bad man coming to good end (neither moving, nor moral)
3. A bad man coming to bad end (moral but not moving)
4. A rather good man coming to bad end (an ideal situation)
Aristotle disqualifies two type of characters- thoroughly good & thoroughly bad
HAMARTIA
 Tragic flaw (trans. By A C BRADLEY)
 Gk term means ‘the missing of mark’ (miscalculation)
 Tragedy doesn’t come from above, but from hero’s own error/miscalculation- a minor
flaw in his character. This is tragic flaw.
 Hamartia is not moral state, but an error of judgement which a man commits…
Oedipus – ignorance/ hasty temperament
Samson – sensually uxorious
Othello – hasty careless view/ jealousy
Desdemona – carelessness
Hamlet – inaction/ procrastination
Achilles – hot temper
CRITICS
 R. A. SCOTT JAMES
 DAVID DAICHES
 F L LUCAS