Aristotle’s Poetics

c. 335 BCE

(N. B. Written approximately 100 years after Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex)

Imitation (Mimesis)

--its origins

--the psychology behind it

--the objects of imitation (men in action)

--the medium of imitation (rhythm, tune, meter)

--the manner of imitation (narration, action)

Tragedy vs. Comedy

• Tragedy: represents men as better than they are. Is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament; in the form of action, not narration; which prompts an excess of pity and fear necessary to the proper purgation of these emotions.

• Comedy: represents men as worse than they are; an imitation of characters of a lower type; deals not with the bad but with the ludicrous, reflecting some defect or ugliness that is not painful or destructive.

The Six Elements of Tragedy• Plot: the soul of the drama, the arrangement of the incidents, the

action, to which all the other elements are subordinate

• Character: determines men’s qualities; that which reveals moral purpose. Four things to be aimed at: goodness, propriety, truthfulness to life, consistency.

• Thought: the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in

given circumstances; every effect produced by speech

• Diction: the expression of the meaning in words; the art of delivery

• Song: holds the chief place among the embellishments

• Spectacle: has an emotional attraction for the audience, but is the least artistic of the parts, since it derives not from the poet but from the machinist

The Structure of the Plot

• Simple: the action is one and continuous with a change of fortune, but not reversal of the situation and without recognition

• Complex: a single, continuous action including-- Reversal of fortune (peripeteia): from good to bad-- Discovery (recognition): from ignorance to knowledge-- Scene of suffering (these 3 things involve surprise)-- Tragic irony: expectation vs. actual occurrence-- Unity: beginning, middle, end; logical, necessary sequence of

each scene-- Probability-- Temporal limitation: “Single revolution of the sun”

The Structure of Tragedy

• Complication

• Unraveling or denouement

• Rising action, complication, climax (catastrophe), falling action, denouement

Concept of the Tragic Hero

• Noble, but possessed of a tragic flaw (hamartia) that is his undoing

• Hybris (Hubris)

What Happens to the Audience in Viewing a Tragedy

• Arousal of pity and fear– Pity: evoked by undeserved misfortune– Fear: that such misfortune can surely be

visited on ordinary people if it can be visited on a person of superior birth and position

• Catharsis

The Quantitative Parts of Tragedy

• Prologue

• Episode

• Exode

• Choric song—– Parode– Stasimon