Poetics

by Aristotle

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

Comedy and tragedy

Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type, not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the Ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain.

Comedy

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in 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 and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

Tragedy

Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song.

Tragedy

For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.

Tragedy

The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place.

Plot

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids.

Character

Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.

Poetry

Reversal of the Situation is a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity.

Reversal

Recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune.

Recognition