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ARISTOTLE’S
POETICS
CHAPTER 1-3
• Aristotle’s purpose to approach poetry from a scientific viewpoint.
• First he lists different kinds of poetry
-Poetry,
-tragedy.
-Comedy.
-Dithyrambic.
-Flute-playing.
-Lyre-playing.
• All kinds of poetry are mimetic but there are differences in them.
FIRST DISTINCTION
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The mean they employ.
Rhythm language & harmony.
Poetry is essentially mimetic.
SECOND DISTINCTION
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Objects that are imitated.
Action is represented with agents.
In tragedy and epic poetry these agents are better than us.
In comedy they are worse than us.
FINAL DISTINCTION
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Manner of representation.
Direct narrative / through characters.
CHAPTER 1-3
ANALYSIS
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The very first paragraph of Poetics give us a hint that this work is
descriptive rather perspective.
The same method he uses for describing natural phenomenon.
CHAPTER 1-3
ANALYSIS
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The question arises whether this can be done or not.
This can be true for natural laws and Aristotle approaches poetry with
the assumption that the growth and development of poetry has been
graded by unchanging natural laws.
The “Poetics” seeks to increase these laws.
The results are mixed.
ART
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When Aristotle talks about “art” & “poetry” it is not in the same way as
we understand the terms.
“Art” is translation of Greek word “Techne” which is closely related to
“artifice” and “artificial”.
Art for Aristotle is everything made by humans as opposed to being
found in nature so painting,sculpture,poetry is art so is a
horseshoe,sandals and chairs.
What we consider”Art” is what Aristotle called “Mimetic”
Painting use paint,sculptures uses stone,poetry uses language,rhythm
and harmony to imitate real life language off course being the most
crucial part.
ART
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This raises the question that in what way poetry imitates life.
“Oedipus Rex” does not imitate what happened in real life.It is
important in tragedy that people realize it to be fictional but it should be
written in a way that human beings find plausible.
POETRY
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Modern concept of poetry is anything written in verse.
Aristotle directly contradicts it giving example of Empedocles’
philosophical verse.
Narrative is essential to Aristotle’s poetry e.g Tragedy,comedy epic
poetry.
Modern poetry does not imitate life in an obvious way.
CONCLUSION
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Aristotle is trying to catalog different kinds of poetry that existed in his
time.
They employ language & harmony & rhythm,they all deal with people
engaging in certain kind of action and have direct indirect narrative.
Whether something is an epic tragedy or a comedy depends on how
well it fits within these categories.
e-g tragedy is a combination of language,rhythm harmony that deals
with agent who are on the whole better than us.the poet speaks directly
through these agents.
CHAPTER 4-5
POETRY COMES NATURALLY TO US
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We are creatures of imitations.
We learn and excel through imitation.
Rhythm and harmony came naturally to us.
Poetry evolves when we improvise with these media.
LOFTY & MEAN TRADITION
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As poetry evolved a sharp distinction developed between serious
writers and mean writers.
Tragedy and comedy are the later developments that are grandest
representation of this predeceners.
EVOLUTION OF TRAGEDY
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Aristotle stops short of saying that tragedy of histime is perfect.he listed
three innovations:
Initially a chorus of 50 men and boys and a narrator sung in honour of
Dionysus.
Aeschylus introduced a second actor and the dialogue became the
focus of the poem.
Sophocles added a 3 actor and a background scenery.
Tragedy developed an air of seriousness.
Tragedy developed a plurality of episodes/acts.
ARISTOTLE DISCUSSES COMEDY
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He says comedy deals with people worse than us.
Comedy deals with ridiculous I-e a king of ugliness that doesn't harm
anybody.
Aristotle cant say much about its evolution because it was not taken
seriously and not many accounts were available.
DIFFERENCE B/W TRAGEDY & EPIC
POETRY
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Both deal with lofty subject and grand style of verse.Aristotle sees three
differences.
1- Tragedy is told in dramatic form and employs several kinds of verse
and epic poetry employs only one,
2-action of tragedy is confined to usually one day which is not the case
in epic poetry.
3-Tragedy has all the characteristics of epic poetry but it has same
additional elements that are unique to it alone.
CHAPTER 6
DEFINITION OF TRAGEDY
• In this chapter Aristotle examines tragedy exclusively
• He provides a definition of tragedy that we can break into 7 parts:
1- It involves mimesis.
2- It is serious.
3- The action is complete with magnitude
4- Language with rhythm and harmony
5- Some bits are spoken in verse some are sung.
6- It is performed.
7- It arouses emotions of pity and fear and accomplishes a Katharsis.
COMPONENTS OF TRAGEDY
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Spectacle
Melody
Diction
Character (moral qualities of the agent)
Thought (intellectual qualities)
Mythos (combination of incidents and action in the stories)
COMPONENTS OF TRAGEDY
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Aristotle argues that of all these “plot” is the most important.
Character serves to advance the action.
What ever we persue in life take form of action.
Happiness is in a certain kind of activity and not in a certain quality of
character.
Diction and thought are less important than plot.
A well written speech is nothing as compared to a well structured
tragedy.
Forming a solid plot is more difficult than creating a good characters or
diction
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Character reveals the individual motivation of the characters in the
play.what they want and don’t want how hey react in situation is more
important to Aristotle than thought.
Thoughts he said deal with reasoning and general truths.
Melody and spectacle are more pleasurable accessories.
CHAPTER 7-9
ACTION OF A TRAGEDY:
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Should be complete in itself.
With magnitude.
It should have a beginning,a middle and an end.
MAGNITUDE
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Is important in a story as it is in any art.
Tragedy should be of moderate length so as to be taken in by the
memory.
Time limits are set by outside factors or by audience.
Aristotle suggests that action should be long enough for a character to
pass through a number of steps that take him from fortune to
misfortune.
UNITY OF PLOT
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Aristotle doesnot mean that it is enough to focus the plot in the life of an
individual.
Our life consists of all sorts of disconnected episodes.
The poet must select some series of events from a character’s life and
craft them into a coherent whole.
Each part should be integral to the plot if it can be removed or added
without causing any significant change in the drama then its
superfluous and takes away from the unity of the piece.
POETRY V/S HISTORY
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History deals with what has been whether poetry deals with what might
have been.
Poetry deals with universal and general truths whereas history deals
with a particular case.
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Tragedy gives a feeling of necessity to the way certain characters
behave in certain situations.
It gives us an insight into general principles regarding fate,choice and
so on.
The worst kind of plot is episodic plot.
TRAGEDY AT ITS MOST EFFECTIVE
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Tragedy is most effective when events occur unexpectedly and yet in
logical order.
The ideal is to have the audience see the final outcome of a tragedy as
the necessary consequence of all the action that proceeded it and yet
have that outcome to be totally unexpected.