Aristotle - Poetics

MIMĒSIS

CHAPTER 1: The Definition of Tragedy

TRAGEDY

COMEDY

EPIC

Same as tragedy insofar of the 'sizeable mimēsis' (p. 57), but is different as it only relies on metre, without music, and it is in narrative form.
Also differs in length, as it is 'unfixed in time' (p. 57).

As far as possible, keeps to 'the limit of one revolution of the sun or not much more or less'

Meaning imitation most simply.

SECTION A: Differences in mimēsis

Media

Not using speech

  • harmony and rhythm are the media of instrumental music
  • rhythm alone is the medium of dancing (p. 51)

Do use speech

  • Poetic kind
  • 'poet': general term meaning 'verse-makers', so can be attributed to 'those who publish a medical or scientific theory in verse'.
  • However, Homer and Empedocles are different writers and have nothing in common except their metre, so Empedocles must be called a 'scientific writer'.

Objects

People doing things, must be either good or bad.
Poets and painters represent people as better than they are (e.g. Homer), worse than they are (e.g. Hegemon of Thasos = the inventor of parodies) or the same as in real life (e.g. Cleophon).

Mode

One can represent the same objects in the same media either as:
i) in narration or becoming someone else
ii) speaking as oneself without change
iii) with all people engaged in the mimēsis physically doing things

All three are classed as the 'differentiae of poetic mimēsis'
If you focus on one, Sophocles could be in the same class as Homer (as both represent people as good), but if you use another, he will be in the same class as Aristophanes (as both represent people as actively doing things)

SECTION B: Proving that the forms are their own developed species

Some people thing that the verb drān, 'to do, is why plays are called dramas.

Comedy is claimed by the Megarians, from Mainland Greece, who say it arose when their democracy was established.

Tragedy is claimed by some of the Peloponnesians, who say that comedy is derived from comic actors wandering among the villages because they were driven from the cities in contempt.

CHAPTER 2: The Nature of Tragedy

SECTION A

Tragedy is a mimesis in dramatic, not narrative form, achieving catharsis of emotion. Arouses pity and fear.

SECTION B

Necessary elements of tragedy

  • plot
  • mimesis of character
  • spectacle
  • song-writing
  • verbal expression
  • mimesis of intellect

The plot is the principle, wile mimesis of character is second in importance

Characteristics of a plot

  • order
    • beginning, middle and end
  • amplitude
  • unity
    • Homer is a good example
  • probable and necessary connection

Species of plot

simple = change in fortune takes place without peripeteia or recognition
complex = change in fortune is accompanied by peripeteia or recognition.

Elements of plot

Peripeteia

When the course of events take a turn to the opposite in the way described

Recognition

Change from ignorance to knowledge

Pathos

An act involving destruction or pain

CHAPTER 4: Similarities between Epic & Tragedy

Species of epic

Epic must have the same species as tragedy, and Homer was the first to use these.
The Iliad is simple and full of pathos and the Odyssey is complex and full of character.

Homer is the only poet to realise what the epic poet should do in his own person i.e. to say as little as possible, as it is not through him speaking that he is a maker of mimesis.

Homer taught other poets the proper way to tell lies: through paralogism

Whenever a word is thought to signify a contradiction, there may be multiple meanings the word has in the phrase in question.
A convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility.