Poetics questions and answers discover the community of teachers, mentors and students just like you that can answer any question you might have on poetics. Of all the writings on theory and aestheticsancient, medieval, or modernthe most important is indisputably aristotles poetics, the first philosophical treatise to propound a theory of literature. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. By nature, man is a political animal, one naturally fitted for life in a polis or state.
If this theory is true, by the way, it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase standup routine. Aristotles ideas about tragedy were recorded in his book of literary theory titled poetics. In book i he argues vigorously for a political theory based on nature. Poetry split into two types based on human character, where the soberer focused their imitations on noble people and actions, while the less serious imitated the low, or the worthless, through parody and jokes and invectives. Aristotles poetics etext contains the full text of aristotles poetics.
Also in poetics, aristotle defined comedy as one of the original four genres of literature. I gave these works of aristotle a four star rating based entirely on the politics book and not the poetics book. At some point, aristotle s original work was divided in two, each book written on a separate roll of papyrus. Poetics by aristotle 384322 bc translated by ingram bywater 18401914 aristotles poetics from the 4th century b. Note the only reason this is presented super fast in a chipmunk voice was because the video had to be 5 minutes or less for the assignment. Epic poetry and tragedy, comedy also and dithyrambic poetry. The other three genres are tragedy, epic poetry, and lyric poetry. We know that aristotle also wrote a treatise on comedy that has been lost. Aristotle s work on aesthetics consists of the poetics, politics bk viii and rhetoric. New comedy is lighter in tone and subject matter than old comedy. Richard jankos acclaimed translation of aristotles poetics is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in english that does not presume knowledge of the original greek. Two other unique features are jankos translations with notes of both the tractatus coislinianus, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the poetics, and fragments of aristotles dialogue.
The classic discussion of greek tragedy is aristotles poetics. The new comedy of menander was severely critical of the athenian governments role in the peloponnesian war. The portion of the poetics that survives discusses mainly tragedy and epic poetry. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans. Since aristotle based his definition of tragedy largely on the material of the pre. Long forgotten by commentators, it nevertheless had a great influence, since aristotles poetics has given birth to three concepts crucial for psychology, social sciences, and philosophy of art. According to aristotle who speculates on the matter in his poetics, ancient comedy originated with the komos, a curious and improbable spectacle in which a company of festive males apparently sang, danced, and cavorted rollickingly around the image of a large phallus. As the great period of athenian drama drew to an end at the beginning of the 4th century bce, athenian philosophers began to analyze its content and formulate its structure.
I propose to treat of poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each. A book called aristotles poetics for screenwriters, published after this article was written, commits the same sins as the other texts mentioned here. According to aristotle who speculates on the matter in his poetics, ancient comedy originated with the komos, a curious and improbable spectacle in. Poetics, aristotles theory of comedy will remain forever a veiled mystery. I imitation the common principle of the arts of poetry. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of poetics and what it means. In these first two books aristotle shows his complete mastery of political theory and practice, and raises many crucial issues still with us today.
The poetics is in part aristotles response to his teacher, plato, who argues in the republic that poetry is representation of mere appearances and is thus misleading and morally suspect. Epic poetry and tragedy, comedy also and dithyrambic poetry, and the. Aristotle is able only to give a very sketchy account of the origins of comedy, because it was not generally treated with the same respect as tragedy and so there. Viii of the politics, aristotle speaks of the educative value of visual. Only the first part that which focuses on tragedy and epic as a quasidramatic art, given. One of the most profound and longlasting claims in the poetics is aristotles contention that plot is the singlemost important element in a tragic play. It is simply a more elongated example of bending, twisting and misrepresenting aristotles words to support a current day agenda.
Even antiaristotelians will appreciate the book, if only in finding new sources of thought in their disagreements. The mode of imitation aristotles third means of distinguishing among different poetic genres, the mode of representation, can be divided into two categories. The book aims, among other things, to answer platos criticisms of representative art. Aristotles approach to the phenomenon of poetry is quite different from platos.
The centerpiece of aristotles work is his examination of tragedy. Poetic thinking an essay applying aristotles poetics to harry potter and the order of the phoenix aristotle was a philosopher who revolutionized the world of theater with his essay entitled poetics. The second book of aristotles poetics home facebook. In the absence of that book, if it ever existed, scholars have had recourse to two sources as a basis for establishing aristotles views about the. Aristotle supposedly wrote a second book on comedy, which is now lost. Aristotle, in his poetics, states that comedy originated in phallic songs and that. The poetics is probably quite useful to a person interested in writing any type of literature or work of drama for stage or screen but my knowledge of something like that is extremely limited at best. Aristotles poetics remains one of the most important pieces of writing in the world history of literature and theatre, offering a specific structure to what aristotle believed to be a perfect tragedy.
As mentioned above, there has long been speculation about the existence of a lost second book of the poetics dealing with aristotles theory of comedy. As the shortest book ive got on my literature student bookshelf, this dover thrift edition poetics is the cheapest, and most flimsy, but completely worthwhile book. Though there were thousands of tragedies and scores of playwrights, we only have thirtythree extant tragedies, written by the three great tragedians. In the poetics, aristotle is primarily concerned with analysis of. Comedy, on the other hand, treats of less virtuous people and focuses on human weaknesses and foibles. Comedy aims at representing men as worse, tragedy as better than in actual life.
This short book serves as a response to aristotles teacher plato, who argued that any type of. Faustus, and the powerful effects that could be achieved by focusing on a. The basic difference aristotle draws between tragedy and other genres, such as comedy and the. With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible.
Such scholars fail to appreciate the achievements of robertellus, bernays, and lane cooper, who have shown us how much can be done with the extant text of the poetics in terms of uncovering a solid basis for a theory of comedy. The lost second book of aristotles poetics is a core plot element in umberto ecos. Scholars think aristotles poetics are lecture notes. Anyone interested in the first great work of literary theory will find the lost second book of aristotles poetics accessible as well as valuable. This paper provides an overview and commentary of aristotles theory of poetry, of drama, and of narrative structure, as presented the poetics. As we just said, aristotle seems to have understood the literary work in somewhat organic terms. Theres no introduction to the book, just a note about when it was written circa 330bc and about aristotle himself, taking up less than a page. V definition of the ludicrous, and a brief sketch of the rise of comedy.
Aristotle claims in the poetics that greek drama grew out of the ancient hunting rituals. Aristotle claims in the poetics that greek drama grew out of the dithyrambic contests. Comedy is the third form of literature, being the most divorced from a true mimesis. Its discoverer suggested that it derived from the lost second book of aristotles poetics, which inaugurated the systematic study of comedy, but it was soon condemned as an ignorant compilation verging on forgery, and thus matters stood until the.
Aristotle writes also that he will address catharsis and an analysis of what is funny. From the poetics by aristotle devoted to literary criticism, only the first part mainly dedicated to the tragedy was received. In narrative, aristotle tells us, the poet represents a course of events as a story, either assuming the. What is the main ideas of aristotles literary criticism as presented in his book poetics. In 1839, the tractatus coislinianus, a summarised treatise on comedy, was published from a tenthcentury manuscript. Aristotles politics is a key document in western political thought. Jonson, shakespeare, and aristotle on comedy researchgate. Poetics aristotle aristotles poetics aims to give an account of poetry. Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. Like its companion piece rhetoric, aristotles poetics is an exploration of aesthetics, a branch of philosophy concerned with the concept of beauty and other. Download citation jonson, shakespeare, and aristotle on comedy jonson. The poetics is much better known than the rhetoric, though only the first book of the former, a treatment of epic and tragic poetry, survives. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of aristotle 384322 b. Aristotle does this by attempting to explai n poetry through first principles, and by classifying poetry into it s different genres and component parts.