Aristotle, The Poetics
Aristotle’s Poetics is a fragmentary work; originally it was a text for use by philosophy students rather than by the general public. The part which survives is mostly about Tragedy. The most notable thing about Aristotle’s view of the poetical process is that he sees it as an ‘imitation’ (mimesis) of real situations, rather than invention. But since it is a mental abstraction derived from many single instances, it is `truer’ than any individual situation, because it is more ‘universal’, more general, or (as Plato might have said) it participates in the Ideal to a greater degree.
The PROCESS OF IMITATION in Tragedy includes:
(1) language [diction]
(2) meter [rhythm]
(3) music
(4) dance [movement]
The SUBJECT MATTER OF TRAGEDY is THE ACTIVITY OF HUMAN BEINGS, either seen as
(a) IDEALIZED [heroic deeds, klea andron]
(b) REALISTIC [average human activities]
(c) CARICATURIZED [comedic exaggeration of reality]
EPIC AND TRAGEDY compared and contrasted:
THE EPIC TRAGEDY
idealized men & women idealized men & women
direct and indirect narrative direct narrative
dactylic hexameter various meters
open-ended length limited length [usually one day, the ‘unity of time’]
PURPOSE OF DRAMA:
According to Aristotle the purpose of Drama is to arouse in the audience feelings of PITY and FEAR, and to purge these emotions (catharsis), thereby making people stronger emotionally.
ELEMENTS OF DRAMA:
(1) scenery and costume (spectacle)
(2) musical score (organized sound)
(3) libretto (the text, diction)
(4) characterization
(5) thought content (themes and ideas)
(6) plot (action: METABOLE)
Since a drama is dynamic, it is PLOT which governs the whole. In fact, music and spectacle can be omitted (as in the reading of a play) while the effect of the drama is still preserved. A PLOT must have: a beginning, a middle and an end; it must be of a certain length (neither too long nor too short); it must have unity of theme (connection actions, not random items); it must be graspable by the mind and memory both in its parts and as a whole.
PLOT can be
(a) simple (without `reversal’ [PERIPATEIA] or `discovery’ [anagnoresis])
(b) complex (with either Peripateia or Anagnoresis)
ANAGNORESIS
(1) by signs or tokens, or marks on the body ‘recognition’
(2) arbitrary, by direct discoveries invented by author
(3) awakened memory (recall of forgotten events)
(4) logical reasoning, or sophistical reasoning
(5) discovery from incidents, in a `probable’ manner.
-John Paul Adams, CSUN
john.p.adams@csun.edu