Poetics (Aristotle)
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Aristotle's Poetics (Greek: Περὶ ποιητικῆς, c. 335 BCE[1]) is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory.[2] In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which includes drama—comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements; his analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.[3] "Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition," Marvin Carlson explains, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions."[4]

Contents

Core terms

  • Mimesis or "imitation", "representation"
  • Catharsis or, variously, "purgation", "purification", "clarification"
  • Peripeteia or "reversal"
  • Anagnorisis or "recognition", "identification"
  • Hamartia or "miscalculation" (understood in Romanticism as "tragic flaw")
  • Mythos or "plot"
  • Ethos or "character"
  • Dianoia or "thought", "theme"
  • Lexis or "diction", "speech"
  • Melos or "melody"
  • Opsis or "spectacle"

Content

Aristotle's work on aesthetics consists of the Poetics and Rhetoric. The Poetics is specifically concerned with drama. At some point, Aristotle's original work was divided in two, each "book" written on a separate roll of papyrus.[5] Only the first part—that which focuses on tragedy—survives. The lost second part addressed comedy.[5] Scholars speculate that the Tractatus coislinianus summarises the contents of the lost second book.[6]

Aristotle distinguishes between the genres of "poetry" in three ways:

  • their means
language, rhythm, and harmony, used separately or in combination
  • their objects
actions ("virtuous" or "vicious") and the agents ("good" or "bad")
  • their modes of representation

Having examined briefly the field of "poetry" in general, Aristotle proceeds to his definition of tragedy:

Tragedy is a representation of a serious, complete action which has magnitude, in embellished speech, with each of its elements [used] separately in the [various] parts [of the play]; [represented] by people acting and not by narration; accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions.

By "embellished speech", I mean that which has rhythm and melody, i.e. song; by "with its elements separately", I mean that some [parts of it] are accomplished only by means of spoken verses, and others again by means of song (1449b25-30).[7]

Tragedy consists of six parts, he explains:

Key elements of the plot are reversals (peripeteia), recognitions (anagnorisis) and suffering (pathos). The best plot should be "complex". It should imitate actions arousing horror, fear and pity.
Hero's fortune should change from happiness to misery because of some tragic mistake (hamartia). Hero may have done it knowingly (in Medea), unknowingly (Oedipus). Hero may left deed undone (due to timely discovery, knowledge present at the point of doing deed). Characters must be good, appropriate, consistent, "consistently inconsistent".

He offers the earliest-surviving explanation for the origins of tragedy and comedy:

Anyway, arising from an improvisatory beginning (both tragedy and comedy—tragedy from the leaders of the dithyramb, and comedy from the leaders of the phallic processions which even now continue as a custom in many of our cities) [...] (1449a10-13)[8]

Influence

Poetics was not influential in its time and was generally understood to coincide with the more famous Rhetoric. This is because in Aristotle's time, rhetoric and poetry were not as separated as they later became and were in a sense different versions of the same thing. In later times, Poetics became hugely influential.

The Arabic version of Aristotle’s Poetics that influenced the Middle Ages was translated from a Greek manuscript dating from before the year 700. This manuscript was translated from Greek to Syriac and is independent of the currently-accepted 11th-century source designated Paris 1741.

The Syriac source used for the Arabic translations departed widely in vocabulary from the original Poetics and it initiated a misinterpretation of Aristotelian thought that continued through the Middle Ages.[9]

There are two different Arabic interpretations of Aristotle’s Poetics in commentaries by Abu Nasr al-Farabi and Averroes (i.e., Abu al-Walid Ibn Rushd).

Al-Farabi’s treatise endeavors to establish poetry as a logical faculty of expression, giving it validity in the Islamic world. Averroes’ commentary attempts to harmonize his assessment of the Poetics with al-Farabi’s, but he is ultimately unable to reconcile his ascription of moral purpose to poetry with al-Farabi’s logical interpretation.

Averroes' interpretation of the Poetics was accepted by the West because of its relevance to their humanistic viewpoints; occassionally the philosophers of the Middle Ages even preferred Averroes’ commentary to Aristotle's stated sense. This resulted in the survival of Aristotle’s Poetics through the Arabic literary tradition.

English translations

Wikisource
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Popular culture

The Poetics—both the extant first book and the lost second book—figure prominently in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose.

Notes

  1. ^ Dukore (1974, 31).
  2. ^ Janko (1987, ix).
  3. ^ Aristotle Poetics 1447a13 (1987, 1).
  4. ^ Carlson (1993, 16).
  5. ^ a b Janko (1987, xx).
  6. ^ Janko (1987, xxi).
  7. ^ Janko (1987, 7). In Butcher's translation, this passage reads: "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 catharsis of these emotions."
  8. ^ Janko (1987, 6). This text is available online in an older translation, in which the same passage reads: "At any rate it originated in improvisation—both tragedy itself and comedy. The one tragedy came from the prelude to the dithyramb and the other comedy from the prelude to the phallic songs which still survive as institutions in many cities."
  9. ^ Hardison, 81.

Sources

  • Belfiore, Elizabeth, S.. 1992. Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP. ISBN 0691068992
  • Butcher, S[amuel]. H[enry]., trans. 1974. Poetics. By Aristotle. In Dukore (1974, 31-55).
  • Carlson, Marvin. 1993. Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present. Expanded ed. Ithaca and London: Cornell UP. ISBN 0801481546.
  • Dukore, Bernard F. 1974. Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotowski. Florence, KY: Heinle & Heinle. ISBN 0030911524.
  • Hardison, O.B., Jr. 1987. "Averroes." Medieval Literary Criticism: Translations and Interpretations. New York: Ungar. 81-88.
  • Hiltunen, Ari. 2001. Aristotle in Hollywood. Intellect. ISBN 1841500607.
  • Janko, Richard, trans. 1987. Poetics with Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II and the Fragments of the On Poets. By Aristotle. Cambridge: Hackett. ISBN 0872200337.
  • Lucas, F. L.. 1957. Tragedy: Serious Drama in Relation to Aristotle's “Poetics”. New York: Collier. ISBN 0389201413. London: Chatto. ISBN 0701116358.

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