POETICS
Aristotle
Written 4th century B.C.
Greek essay
⭐⭐⭐
I read this for my WEM (plays) reading challenge, but it is not a play at all. It is an essay on poetry, particularly drama, including forms and parts, marks of success and failure, as well as Aristotle's criticisms and resolutions.
According to the author, the art of poetry, particularly tragedy, is the imitation of life. Drama is the vehicle which poets use to imitate "people doing things." Imitation comes naturally to human beings...and it is pleasurable.
There are two kinds of poetry: comedy and tragedy. Aristotle's narrative on comedy has been lost, but the remainder of his essay focused on tragedy. He noted that over time, spoken word plays developed and then plot-construction and stories.
Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; [a]ffecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.
The plot is the source and the soul of tragedy...
A good tragic plot should be complex and imitate true life events. However, it should not present decent characters beginning with good fortune and falling into horrific circumstances because this would exasperate the audience. Nor should depraved characters begin with poor fortunes and excel because this is least tragic. The best tragic plot begins with an intermediate character who experiences a life change not of his own moral fault, but by a mishap outside of his control.
The plot should also take the character through a realization of his downturn and an understanding of why the reversal of fortune. An excellent tragic plot succeeds when it produces pity and fear. Pity is what we experience when we empathize with the character and fear when we recognize that the same could happen to us.
WHO WANTS TO READ THIS?
I suppose this is an excellent source for those studying drama or poetry, and certainly it has been used as required reading in high school and college. Simple, insightful, and well organized. Who said the Greeks were difficult to read?
Does the book show the translator? I know that makes a huge difference when I'm reading russian novels.
ReplyDeleteThat was me, obviously. Been having some real issues with chrome and google accounts, so I'm trying Brave. Man, what a flipping nightmare.
Deletekeeping my fingers crossed this comment actually works!
Hey, what kind of issues are you having? Did you have to comment a few times to make it stick? I have issues with WordPress. On most WP blogs, my comment goes straight to elsewhere. And I have no other way to comment. I feel so unloved. :(
DeleteAnyway, the translator for Poetics was Malcolm Heath.
Google has updated a bunch of stuff (not just chrome) and chrome wouldn't let me access any google products without making some changes to my privacy options. I changed them, and it still wouldn't work. So I tossed it and went for brave, sigh.
DeleteSorry to hear that about you and WP. That's one of the reasons I try to make my comment section as open as possible. But WP doesn't necessarily make it obvious that non-wp people CAN comment.
Thanks. Have you run across Heath before in other translated works?
Nicely explicated. Aristotle made clearly understandable. I hope that you will get to do his Ethics at some future point. I listened to a Great Books course on it in yesteryear and now am looking forward to your concise treatment of Aristotle's helpful work when the time comes.
ReplyDeleteWell, I had no plans to read Ethics. Is there is a particular translator I should look for?
DeleteGlad you're interested. My Penguin Classics edition was edited by J.A.K. Thomson, Professor Emeritus of Classics at King's College, London until his death in 1959. Quite eminently qualified to handle this task, don't you know? I Googled him. Also, C. Fadiman listed him in his Reading Plan bibliography so you can't go wrong, with him or Aristotle.
Delete