Poetics

by Aristotle

Philosophy was the last form of literature to reach maturity in classical Greece, but with its arrival literature became for the first time reflective, and conscious of itself.

Both Plato’s and Aristotle’s works contain reflections on the purpose and value of literature. Both philosophers are keenly interested in the relationship between literature and morality, and because they have different conceptions of morality they have different attitudes to literature.

Aristotle, however, devoted a self-standing work, the Poetics, to the issues that Plato had discussed in fragmented fashion. His brief treatise stands out, therefore, as the first surviving work devoted to literary criticism, and indeed the first essay in the broader field of aesthetics.

The Greek word poiesis (literally ‘making’), as used by Aristotle, has both a narrower and a wider scope than the English word ‘poetry’.

Aristotle’s insights transcend the boundaries of ancient Greek culture and can be applied to creative writing of many ages and many nations.

Aristotle provides a prism through which different kinds of imaginative writing may be viewed and evaluated.

The Poetics concentrates on a single art form: tragedy.

tragedy was the most fully developed literary product of the time.

While seeking to lay bare the essence of tragedy, Aristotle was able to expose, through his close inspection of this single genre, some of the basic principles operative in the creative process itself.

Aristotle defines tragedy in the following terms: 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. (1449b24 ff.)

Aristotle insists that in tragedy the most important element of all is story: the characters are created for the sake of the story, and not the other way round.

The poet’s job, Aristotle tells us, is not to relate what actually happened, but rather the kind of thing that would happen, either necessarily or probably.

drama teaches us in a manner that motivates us, in a way that chill moral truisms do not.

The Italian humanist Ludovico Castelvetro published in 1576 a text of the Poetics with a translation and commentary. He blew up Aristotle’s remarks on unity and scale into a doctrine of the Three Unities, of time, place, and action.

The principles he set out could only dubiously claim the backing of Aristotle, but they had a great influence on the classical French tragedies of Corneille, and through him, on English Restoration dramatists such as John Dryden.

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.

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

The limit that is set by the nature of the subject is this: the longer the story, the grander the scale, provided it remains comprehensible as a whole.

If the presence or absence of something makes no discernible difference, then it is no part of the whole.

poetry utters universal truths, history particular statements.

what is possible is credible.

* These effects occur above all when things come about unexpectedly but at the same time consequentially.

even chance events are found more astonishing when they seemed to have happened for a purpose.

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.

good men should not be shown passing from good fortune to bad, for that evokes not fear or pity, but outrage. Nor should depraved men be shown passing from bad fortune to good—this indeed is the least tragic of all: it has none of the appropriate features, evoking neither pity nor fear nor even basic human sympathy. Finally, a very wicked man should not be shown passing from good fortune to bad: this may evoke basic human sympathy, but neither pity nor fear.

The story should be put together in such a way that even without seeing the play a person hearing the series of events should feel dread and pity.

The effect that some producers try to achieve is not so much fear as horror: that has nothing at all to do with tragedy.

it is no good for a character to be courageous if the courage or intelligence is expressed in a way that is not appropriate

Clearly, the explication* of a story should issue from the story itself, and not from a deus ex machina