Poetics by Aristotle

Free download audio book.

Original Title: Poetics

ISBN: 0140446362
ISBN13: 9780140446364
Autor: Aristotle/Malcolm Heath (Translator)
Rating: 3.2 of 5 stars (472) counts
Original Format: Paperback, 62 pages
Download Format: PDF, DJVU, iBook, MP3.
Published: September 26th 1996 / by Penguin Classics / (first published -335)
Language: English
Genre(s):
Philosophy- 903 users
Classics- 395 users
Nonfiction- 369 users
Poetry- 130 users
Language >Writing- 79 users

Description:
The plot is the source and the soul of tragedy

In his near-contemporary account of Greek tragedy, Aristotle examines the dramatic elements of
plot, character, language and spectacle that combine to produce pity and fear in the audience, and
asks why we derive pleasure from this apparently painful process. Taking examples from the plays
of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, The Poetics introduces into literary criticism such central
concepts as mimesis (imitation), hamartia (error), and katharsis (purification). Aristotle explains
how the most effective tragedies rely on complication and resolution, recognition and reversals,
centring on characters of heroic stature, idealized yet true to life. One of the most powerful,
perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history, the Poetics has informed
serious thinking about drama ever since.

Malcolm Heaths lucid English translation makes the Poetics fully accessible to the modern reader.
It is accompanied by an extended introduction, which discusses the key concepts in detail and
includes suggestions for further reading.

About Author:

(Greece: )
(Arabic: )
Aristotle (384322 B.C.E.) numbers among the greatest philosophers of all time. Judged solely in
terms of his philosophical influence, only Plato is his peer: Aristotle's works shaped centuries of
philosophy from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance, and even today continue to be studied
with keen, non-antiquarian interest. A prodigious researcher and writer, Aristotle left a great body
of work, perhaps numbering as many as two-hundred treatises, from which approximately thirty-
one survive. His extant writings span a wide range of disciplines, from logic, metaphysics and
philosophy of mind, through ethics, political theory, aesthetics and rhetoric, and into such primarily
non-philosophical fields as empirical biology, where he excelled at detailed plant and animal
observation and taxonomy. In all these areas, Aristotle's theories have provided illumination, met
with resistance, sparked debate, and generally stimulated the sustained interest of an abiding
readership.
Because of its wide range and its remoteness in time, Aristotle's philosophy defies easy
encapsulation. The long history of interpretation and appropriation of Aristotelian texts and
themesspanning over two millennia and comprising philosophers working within a variety of
religious and secular traditionshas rendered even basic points of interpretation controversial.
The set of entries on Aristotle in this site addresses this situation by proceeding in three tiers. First,
the present, general entry offers a brief account of Aristotle's life and characterizes his central
philosophical commitments, highlighting his most distinctive methods and most influential
achievements. Second are General Topics which offer detailed introductions to the main areas of
Aristotle's philosophical activity. Finally, there follow Special Topics which investigate in greater
detail more narrowly focused issues, especially those of central concern in recent Aristotelian
scholarship

Other Editions:

- Poetics (Paperback)

- Poetics (Paperback)
- Poetics. English (Kindle Edition)

- Poetics (Paperback)

- Aristotle: Poetics; With: Longinus: On the Sublime & Demetrius: On Style (Loeb Classical Library
No. 199)

Books By Author:
- Politics

- The Nicomachean Ethics

- Metaphysics

- De Anima (On the Soul)

 - Physics

Books In The Series:

Related Books On Our Site:

- On Great Writing (On the Sublime)

- Phaedrus
- Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry

- The Way Things Are: The De Rerum Natura

- Anatomy of Criticism

- Alcestis
 - Plato I: Euthyphro. Apology. Crito. Phaedo. Phaedrus. (Loeb Classical Library,
#36)

- A Defence of Poetry

- Ptolemy's Almagest

- The Birth of Tragedy

 - On Old Age, On Friendship & On Divination

- On the Aesthetic Education of Man

- Plutarch's Lives, Vol 2

Rewiews:
Dec 29, 2016
Glenn Russell
Rated it: it was amazing

During the golden age of ancient Greece bards roamed the countryside mesmerizing crowds by
reciting the epics of Homer. Thousands of men and women gathered and were moved to tears by
tragedies performed outside in amphitheaters during sacred festivals. Such an amazingly powerful
and profound experience for an entire population. What was going on here; why were people so
deeply affected? Well, one of the sharpest, most analytic minds in the history of the West set
himself the task of answering ju

During the golden age of ancient Greece bards roamed the countryside mesmerizing crowds by
reciting the epics of Homer. Thousands of men and women gathered and were moved to tears by
tragedies performed outside in amphitheaters during sacred festivals. Such an amazingly powerful
and profound experience for an entire population. What was going on here; why were people so
deeply affected? Well, one of the sharpest, most analytic minds in the history of the West set
himself the task of answering just this question - his name was Aristotle.
Indeed, Aristotle's Poetics is one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. For over two
thousand years, philosophers, scholars and thinkers have been pouring over each phrase and
sentence of the master's words as if they were nuggets of gold. There are enough commentaries
to fill several thick volumes in a university library. Quite something since the entire Poetics is a
mere twenty pages. But what coverage! To list several: plot, character, language and two
concepts supercharged with meaning: mimesis (imitation) and catharsis (inspiring pity or fear).

Of course, in our contemporary world we don't listen to bards recite epics or go to amphitheaters
to watch tragedies, but we have abundant experience of these dramatic elements since we,
among other things, read novels and watch films. So, to provide a taste of Aristotle's work, I offer
my modest comments along with quotes from the text. Please take this as an invitation to explore
the Poetics on your own. Below is a link to a fine translation and a second link to an extraordinarily
clear, brief, easy-to follow commentary.

"Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature.
First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and
other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns
his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. . . . to learn gives
the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general" ---------- Ah, pleasure! And
pleasure in learning about life through imitation/fiction. Even if the story involves a Siberian prison
camp or an insane chase of a white whale, there is a kind of pleasure in identifying with a
character and living through the character's plight. Our humanness is enriched.

"Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude." -
--------- The Maltese Falcon begins with very serious action: a murder. And the story is complete
since at the end the case is solved and the criminals answer for their crimes. How many novels
and films follow this formula? Round to the nearest million.

"Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily follows in the first place, that
Spectacular equipment will be a part of Tragedy." ---------- Even back in ancient Greece, Aristotle
acknowledge how special effects can really juice the action.

"The most powerful elements of emotional interest in Tragedy- Peripeteia or Reversal of the
Situation, and Recognition scenes- are parts of the plot." ---------- I don't know about you, but I
recall with the film Gone Girl my interest would ratchet up a few notches with every reversal and
recognition. I can just imagine Gillian Flynn pouring over her Aristotle.

"The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the
whole be perspicuous." ---------- When I go to a three hour movie or pick up a nine hundred page
novel, my first thought: this had better be good. And when it is good, a great pay-off for time spent.
"Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity." ----------
Admit it, we remember most those times when we are emotionally wrenched.

Poetics, on line: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poe...

Commentary: http://www.english.hawaii.edu/critica...

120 likes
23 comments

Margaret
I do appreciate your project of taking on the greats. And this little piece by Aristotle has certainly
been influential over the years.
I suspect that
I do appreciate your project of taking on the greats. And this little piece by Aristotle has certainly
been influential over the years.
I suspect that what Aristotle wrote about tragedy is more descriptive than prescriptive--he chose
his most favored tragedies and proclaimed that what they did is also what ought to be done. And
certainly much of what he wrote has become so fundamental and basic that it remains powerfully
present today, even in our lesser works.
We do have a sense of tragedy today. What I think we're missing is epic. Most of our epic heroes
seem to be cartoonish--we've lost that sense of the making of a great people. Instead we make
movies about Ironman and Wonder Woman. We're too goofy (or cynical) to believe in epic for real.

Dec 30, 2016 08:05PM

Glenn Russell
Margaret wrote: "I do appreciate your project of taking on the greats. And this little piece by
Aristotle has certainly been influential over the year
Margaret wrote: "I do appreciate your project of taking on the greats. And this little piece by
Aristotle has certainly been influential over the years.
I suspect that what Aristotle wrote about tragedy is more d..."
Thanks for your reflections here, Margaret. Certainly there is a huge dose of goofiness,
cartoonishness and cynicism in our culture, particularly popular culture. Perhaps this is one key
reason films like Return of the Jeti are so appealing - the nobility of the hero's journey is valued (I
recall Joseph Campbell alluding to this director being influenced by traditional epics).
My own sense is the hero's journey (when taken) in our modern world tends to be an inner journey
with Joseph from Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game a more accurate model than
Odysseus. I've had the good fortune to have known a number of men and women who have taken
the inner journey - Peter Matthiessen and Glenn H. Mullin, to name two who are known publicly
through their books. Is such inward turning the stuff of epic? Perhaps not in the more conventional
sense, particularly since the journey is not taken as a culture or a people but one individual at a
time.

updated
Dec 31, 2016 01:03AM