ARISTOTELES

The Father of Literary Criticism

Who was Aristoteles?

Greek Philosopher from the 5th Century BC. Student of the philosopher Plato Teacher to Alexander the Great Credited with writing the first text on dramatic theory how to make tragic drama.

Theories have been resurrected over the

centuries to establish trends (Renaissance, Neo-Classical)

Believed to have written a text on comedy too, but it is lost. Considered as the father of literary criticism

The years after Plato

Aristotle would have been his rightful succeeded, however his divergence from Plato's teachings made it impossible

"The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead."

Aristotles Poetics, written at about 335 BCE, is considered to be the first systematic critical theory in the world. It has inspired the thoughts of writers, philosophers and critics.

Introduction:
The Poetics can be somewhat perplexing. Therefore, it is helpful to keeping in mind the following guiding questions:

What is poetry? What kind of poetry is tragedy? What are tragedys essential elements?

Discourse Outline of Aristotles Poetics:

Unifying theme is Mimesis: Imitation is representation

I.

Introduction (Poetics 1-5): A. General Notion of Artistic imitation (1) B. Different Species of Artistic Imitation (2-3) C. The Development of Poetry (4-5)
Tragedy (Poetics 6-22): A. Definition and description (6)
B. C. D. Discussion of Plot (7-18) Discussion on thought (19) Discussion on diction (20-22)

II.

III. Epic (Poetics 23-24): A. Discussion of Merits of Tragedy & Epic (26).
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Introduction:
If you recall, Plato wanted to ban poetry for the following reasons:
No knowledge undergirds poetry for poets are ignorant (Apology 22b-c; on 543a); Poetry relies on inspiration (Ion 534b-e; Phaedrus, 245a) rather than reason; Poetry propagates falsehoods (Republic 337-391);
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Introduction:
Poetry arouses irrational passions that displaces reason; it is intoxicating with its seductive charms of rhythm, meter, and harmony (Book 10);
Poetry imitates appearance and not reality; it is a lowerlevel metaphysic (mimesis) (Book 10); Poetry imitates the souls worst impulses from its better ones (Republic 605); Poetry should be banned if it cannot be justified by reason (Republic 2-4; 10)
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The Poetics vs. The Republic

The Poetics is in part Aristotle's response to his teacher, Plato, who
argues in The Republic that poetry is representation of mere appearances and is thus misleading and morally suspect. Aristotle's approach to the phenomenon of poetry is quite different from Plato's. Aristotle approaches literary texts as a natural scientist, carefully accounting for the features of each "species" of text. Rather than concluding that poets should be banished from the perfect society, as does Plato, Aristotle attempts to describe the social function, and the ethical utility, of art.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Aristotle identifies tragedy as the most refined version of poetry, among the three genres (Tragedy, Epic, and Comedy) Aristotles defines many key literary components such as mimesis (imitation), muthos (plot), anagnorisis (discovery), peripeteia (reversal), hamartia (misjudgment), and catharsis (purifying or relieving of emotions).

The guide provided here takes you through each of the twenty-six books of the Poetics and attempts to give a summary of Aristotle's arguments.

BOOK I
Aristotle begins his discussion by establishing a general definition of poetry, a broad category including all forms of literary production and performances (even to include some kinds of musical performances) recognized in Aristotle's time: The word "poetry" is derived from the Greek verb poiesis, "making." For Aristotle, all poetry is mimetic (imitative); its goal is to represent reality. As poetry is the product of human making, human experience is the ultimate object of poetic representation.

How can they be distinguished?

Aristotle identifies three aspects in which poetic genres can be distinguished

from each other: the medium through which they present their imitation, the
objects of imitation, and the mode or manner of the imitation. The Medium of Imitation rhythm, language, and harmony. Music combines both rhythm and harmony, while dance uses only the rhythmical movement of the dancers to convey its message. What about arts that use language alone? It is a formative moment in the history of literary genres. Aristotle acknowledges a certain indecision about how to categorize the different kinds of texts of this nature.

 Aristotle's description of the problematic of classification is one of the first formulations of a set of questions that continues to occupy literary theorists: What is literature? What is the nature of the "literary"? How do we distinguish between "literary" and "non-literary" uses of language?

Book I concludes with a brief mention of those genres which use a

combination of the three media (language, rhythm and harmony) dithyrambic poetry (lyric poetry performed in song and dance as a tribute to

the god Dionysus)

nomic poetry (also choral lyrics, performed in praise of Apollo and other gods) the dramatic genres of tragedy and comedy, in which the chorus conveys the elements of the play's text in song and dance (with the comparison of epic)

BOOK II
The Objects of Imitation All poetry is the representation of the actions of human beings rather than a natural phenomena such as landscapes or animals. Aristotle views poetry in distinctly moral terms: as a human product, poetry must fundamentally be "about" the activities and qualities that shape human experience. Representations of human beings in poetry can be sorted into three categories: 1) depictions / imitations of humans as better than they really are 2) depictions / imitations of humans as they are in reality 3) depictions / imitations of humans as worse than they really are. Aristotle seems to recognize here that particular poets may represent humans differently in the same genre, as in the example of Comedy, which tends to represent its characters in negative terms Tragedy, which portrays humans as more noble than they are in actuality.

BOOK III
The Mode of Imitation Aristotle's third means of distinguishing among different poetic genres, the mode of representation, can be divided into two categories: 1. Narrative: the mode of imitation of the epic, which is conveyed to the audience by a single storyteller or rhapsode, in contrast to the tragedy 2. Drama: the speech and gestures of actors, drama represents actions by placing them before the audience's eyes. This classification of Aristoteles frames the structures of literary genres N. Frye calls this method of classification as Archetypal Criticism

Genres in the Western Literary Tradition

Protagonists power Superior in kind to both men & their environment Fictional Mode MYTH Character type Divine beings

Superior in degree to both men & their environment

ROMANCE

Heroes

Superior in degree to men High mimesis (imitation of Leaders but not to their life like in epic & tragedy) environment Superior in no way Low mimesis (imitation of Common people life like in comedy & realism) IRONY Antiheroes

Inferior

BOOK IV
The Origins & the Role of Poetry in Human Life the pleasure we take in experiencing poetry, derive from two basic characteristics of human consciousness: the instinct to imitate and the instinct for harmony and rhythm. Aristotle observes that humans learn through imitationthink of how children learn to speak their native languages Aristotle imagines that early humans acted upon these impulses, creating imitations of what they observed and coupling them with rhythmic and musical patterns. The results were the earliest manifestations of poetry. The divisions Aristotle established in his discussion of the object of poetic imitation return here.

 High-minded persons imitated noble deeds and heroes tragedy emerging from the dithyrambic & nomic poetry, while "ignoble" or "trivial" persons chose to compose parodies lampooning the foolish behavior of their fellow humans comedy emerging from phallic songs

BOOK V
THE COMPARISON OF EPIC & TRAGEDY Epic poetry is limited to one kind of meter (hexameter :
and is narrative in form. The events depicted in an epic can also span a long period of time. While the tragedy treats events that take place in a time not much longer than a full day, "one revolution of the sun." This last distinction of the tragedy is a component of the famous unities, which later aestheticians and poets took as absolute rules in the writing of tragedies. To sum up, all elements of epic poetry, Aristotle concludes, including the idealization of the characters, are found in tragedy, but tragedy does not share all of its formal elements with the epic.

BOOK VI
The Definition of Tragedy This chapter opens with Aristotle's famous definition of tragedy: 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 purgation of these emotions

BOOK VI: components of a tragedy

MEDIUM OBJECT MODE Spectacle (visual experience of the play, costuming, scenery, etc.) Diction (metrical Plot ("the composition of the arrangement of spoken lines.) the incidents" ) Song (vocal compositions incorporated into the performance) Character

Thought (the processes of reasoning that lead characters to behave as they do.)

BOOK VII & VIII: PLOT

The tragic effect comes from the plot, and especially from the
peripeteiathe reversal of the situation in which the characters find themselves as well as from scenes of recognition. Life is not a plot, Aristotle argues. The events of a life, even the life of an imaginary character, must be sorted and organized. Homer, for example, does not include all of the details known about Odysseus's life in the Odyssey, but selects a series of events (the hero's homecoming) and assembles them into a consistent and unified whole.

BOOK IX
Poetry and History Since life is not a plot, it is not necessary for a poet simply to record events as they happen. Such a chronicle is history, but not poetry. Even if history were cast into the same kind of meter as is used in tragedy, Aristotle argues, it would only be history in verse. Because plots serve to represent the universal laws of probability. The true difference between historians and poets, Aristotle states, is that The historian records what has happened, while the poet represents what may happen.

Till Book XVI, the theme of PLOT

Aristotle seems to refine his categories of plot in this
chapter, listing the complex plot which turns on peripetia and anagnorisis, the pathetic plot in which characters are motivated by passion, the ethical plot in which an ethical sense propels the action, and the simple plot, which does not contain peripeteia or anagnorisis. Aristotle clearly favors complex plots which combine all the poetic elements to good effect.

 In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster makes a distinction between "story" and "plot" that corresponds quite closely to Aristotle's distinction between simple and complex plots.

The king died and then the queen died is a story, Forster writes. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot.

PLOT
the arrangement of the incidents

CHARACTER (supports plot)

protagonist = change of fortune Change should come about as the result, not of vice, but of some great error or frailty in a character. Hamartia =tragic flaw (hubris = excessive pride) The protagonist will mistakenly bring about his own downfallnot because he is sinful or morally weak but because he does not know enough. Peripeteia : reversal, turning point - one or more self-destructive actions taken in blindness (tragic irony) Anagnorisis : recognition or discovery (passing from ignorance to knowledge) Catharsis: purification (reach a more stable & emotional state): purgation of tragic emotions Tragedy arouses the emotions of pity and fear in order to purge away their excess and to reduce these passions to a healthy, balanced proportion

Oedipus by Sophocles
Oedipus, regarded as one of the ideal tragic heroes. ``Hamartia:tragicflaw

``Katharsis:Purgingtheexcessemotions from the mind. Tragedy enables one to leave the theatre ``in calm of mind, all passionspent. Tragedypurgesthemindofpityandfear.

Oedipus and the Sphinx Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) -- French Painter Oedipus and the Sphinx 1864 Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Oil on canvas

Aristotelian Catharsis

Cathartic Relief in Literature

Agamemnonends with its namesake, his daughter, and his wife dead in a series of murders by one another.

The Shakespeare's couple, Romeo and Juliet, lay dead in the end of their play.

Till BOOK XXIII

Advice to poets 1. Plot 2. Character 3. Language 4. Object

From BOOK XXIII to XXVI

Tragedy and Epic Aristotle concludes the Poetics by reflecting on the question "which is better, tragedy or epic? It is important to understand the nature of this question within the context of Aristotle's concerns about the morality of art and about art's social function. He first presents us with a possible answer: epic is a higher art form than tragedy, because epic does not rely on spectacle visually appealing sets, dance, the antics of the actorsto convey its message to its audience. Aristotle refutes this idea by saying that tragedy can be read as a text and does not rely on performance to convey its message.

 Tragedy, Aristotle now argues, is superior to epic. Tragedy contains all the elements of the epic, but manages to present its story in a much shorter span of time and with a greater degree of unity. Aristotle's emphasis on unity returns here in his conclusion: the best epics, the Illiad and the Odyssey, although composed of many episodes, tell essentially a single, coherent story. Aristotle concludes by suggesting that different genres produce different kinds of pleasure. The pleasure of the tragedy is based on its acting out performance rather than narration. The pleasure of the tragedy is produced via catharsis, the mysterious "purging" of our emotions of pity and fear.