Poetics

by Aristotle

The mere occurrence of an emotion does not in itself imply any vice or virtue, but what does indicate character is the relation of emotion to reason.

It is the pleasure that we take in feeling these normally depressing emotions that is the pleasure peculiar to tragedy. This is the dramatic counterpart of Aristotle’s point that we enjoy seeing pictorial representations of things that in reality we would find ugly and repellent.

The names of his characters can be used as representative of general types: we are more likely to describe our acquaintances as Eeyores or Uriah Heeps than as Drakes or Cromwells.

all the literary genres mentioned make use of rhythm, language, and melody, whether separately or in combination.

Representation comes naturally to human beings from childhood,* and so does the universal pleasure in representations. Indeed, this marks off humans from other animals: man is prone to representation beyond all others, and learns his earliest lessons through representation.

What is ridiculous is some error or embarrassment that is neither painful nor life-threatening;

Tragedy is a representation of an action of a superior kind—grand, and complete in itself—presented in embellished language, in distinct forms in different parts, performed by actors rather than told by a narrator, effecting, through pity and fear, the purification* of such emotions.

Tragedy is a representation not of persons but of action and life, and happiness and unhappiness consist in action. The point is action, not character: it is their moral status that gives people the character they have, but it is their actions that make them happy or unhappy.

Moreover, the most important devices that tragedy uses to affect the emotions are parts of the story—namely, reversals and discoveries.

To give a general formula: an adequate limit of length is a size that permits a transformation from adversity to prosperity, or from prosperity to adversity, in a probable or necessary sequence of events.

For this reason poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history; poetry utters universal truths, history particular statements.

Tragedy is an imitation not just of a complete action, but of events that evoke pity and fear.*

Discovery, as the term implies, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, on the part of those destined for good or bad fortune. Discovery takes its finest form when it coincides with reversal, as in the Oedipus.

Reversal and discovery together will evoke either pity or fear—just the kind of actions of which, according to our basic principle, tragedy offers an imitation—and will serve to bring about the happy or unhappy ending.

What should be looked for are cases where the sufferings occur within relationships, as between brother and brother, son and father, mother and son, son and mother—where one kills, or is on the point of killing, the other, or is doing something else horrible.

That was the answer that Sophocles gave when he said that while Euripides portrayed men as they actually are, he himself portrayed them as they ought to be. That is the right response.