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Aristotle begins his discussion by establishing a general definition of poetry–a
broad category including all forms of literary production and performance
recognized in Aristotle's time–and by distinguishing among different genres
of literary production and performance.
The essential feature of all forms of poetry is they are all modes of imitation
or mimesis.
Artistotle 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 remainder of Book I is devoted to a discussion of the different
media of imitation; Book II treats the objects of imitation and Book III
discusses the mode of imitation.
The Medium of Imitation
The three basic media which Aristotle recognizes are rhythm, language, and
harmony. He proceeds to categorize different arts based on the medium or media
they use. Music combines both rhythm and harmony, while dance uses only the
rhythmical movement of the dancers to convey its message.
When Aristotle turns to the arts that use language alone, we glimpse a
formative moment in the history of literary genres. Aristotle addresses the
phenomenon of texts written expressly as texts, without musical accompaniment,
and acknowledges a certain indecision about how to categorize the different
kinds of texts of this nature. Later in the Poetics he will provide an
extended discussion of the epic,
using Homer's work as an example, which will resolve some of the problems he
indicates here.
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. These include 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),
and the dramatic genres of tragedy
and comedy,
in which the chorus conveys the elements of the play's text in song and dance.
The Objects of Imitation
In the opening lines of this brief chapter Aristotle makes the somewhat startling
suggestion that all poetry is the representation of the actions of human
beings. While we might expect a discussion of the "objects" of poetic
representation to include 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 of humans as better than they really are, 2)
depictions of humans as they are in reality, and 3) depictions 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 Timotheus and Philoxenus,
who represent the Cyclopes differently in their works. Some general generic
distinctions, however, can be made, especially between comedy,
which tends to represent its characters in negative terms, and tragedy,
which portrays humans as more noble than they are in actuality.
The Mode of Imitation
Aristotle's third means of distinguishing among different poetic genres, the mode
of representation, can be divided into two categories: narrative
and drama.
In narrative, Aristotle tells us, the poet represents a course of events as a
story, either assuming the perspective of another person or speaking directly
to the audience in his or her own person. Dramatists place a course of events
before us by means of actors who represent the events by taking on the roles of
different persons involved.
The interrelationships between Aristotle's different distinctions becomes
clear in the next passage, in which Aristotle notes that in terms of object,
Sophocles and Homer are comparable, since both tend to make their characters
more noble than people in real life, but that in terms of mode Sophocles
and Aristophanes
(a comic dramatist) are the same kind of poet.
In the closing passages of this chapter, Aristotle explores the rival claims
to the invention of tragedy and comedy by the Dorians and the Megarians. This
debate may strike us as arcane, but the etymological evidence for the origin of
the word "comedy" is worth our attention, as it might give hints
about the social status of this genre in its early history. The Dorians claim
that word is derived from their word for "village," implying that the
troupes of comic actors were driven from urban centers and wandered from
village to village as itinerant players. Today, the more accepted etymology
derives "comedy" from the word komoidia, which describes the
singing and dancing associated with festivals of Dionysus.
The Origins of Poetry
This chapter introduces the speculative dimension of the Poetics,
raising the question of the origins of poetry and the role of poetry in human
life. The impulse to produce poetry, and 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 imitation–think of how children
learn to speak their native languages, for example, or how they learn to equate
certain gestures with certain meanings–and that the pleasure we take in looking
at imitations in art is rooted in the pleasure we take in learning. Even
something that in real life would be repugnant, a centipede, for example, can
be the source of pleasure if we see an especially precise (or, for a more
modern consciousness, an especially imaginative) rendering of it in art.
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, while "ignoble" or "trivial" persons chose to
compose parodies lampooning the foolish behavior of their fellow humans.
Aristotle gives the works of Homer credit for establishing the main lines of
both the "serious" and the "low" forms of poetry,
attributing to Homer a lost epic called Margites which depicts comic
episodes in the life of Margites, a buffoon.
The History of Tragedy and Comedy
Continuing his history of the development of tragedy and comedy, Aristotle
argues that both genres began as improvisations based on earlier forms, tragedy
slowly emerging from dithyrambic
poetry and comedy developing out of the phallic
songs performed at festivals of Dionysus. Aristotle seems to recognize that
the genres continue to develop and may not have reached their final form.
A more detailed history of the formal development of tragedy follows. The
dramatist Aeschylus
(author of Agamemnon and several other tragedies) introduced a second
actor, moving much of the representative function of the play in the dialogue
between actors and reducing the role of the chorus in the narration. Sophocles
(author of Oedipus the King and several other tragedies) added a third
actor and developed the use of painted backdrops–the beginnings of what we now
consider "stagecraft."
Aristotle concludes this chapter with remarks about the changes in the meter
used for composing tragedies, which shifted from trochaic tetrameter, a meter
better suited to delivery coupled with dance movements to one closer to the
cadences of conversational speech, the iambic.
Comedy
Aristotle cautions his readers to understand the characters presented in comedy
as more ridiculous than evil; the defects of these characters do not
necessarily lead to pain or destruction.
Epic and Tragedy
After a brief discussion of the scarcity of historical information about the
development of comedy, Aristotle turns to a comparison of the epic
and the 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.
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.
The Plot
The precision with which Aristotle conducts his analysis of tragic drama is at
times almost amusing. In this chapter, he repeats part of his definition of
tragedy, that it is "an imitation of an action that is complete, and
whole, and of a certain magnitude" (52), and goes on to define exactly
what he means by "whole." A whole has a beginning, a middle, and an
end. A beginning is something that is not caused by something else and from
which something follows. A middle follows something and is followed by
something. An end follows something and is not followed by anything.
While these statements may seem patently obvious, they illustrate the
theoretical rigor of Aristotle's approach. A plot cannot begin just anywhere;
the opening of tragedy must represent the factors that initiate the chain of
events that leads irrevocably to the conclusion.
By "magnitude" Aristotle means something like
"proportionality." The audience must be able to grasp the whole of
the plot with relative ease. If the play is too short, we lose a sense of
development; if it is too long, we lose track of what is happening and our appreciation
of the story is impaired.
The rule that the duration of the events represented in a tragedy should
encompass not much more than a single day–a rule that became hard and fast for
some later theorists of tragedy such as the French Neo-Classicists–appears in
Aristotle as more of a suggestion, a "rule of thumb." In fact,
Aristotle seems to reject any rigid application of time parameters as he
concludes this chapter. A play should last, he tells us, as long as it needs to
in order to represent a reversal of fortune: a change from good to bad or from
bad to good.
The Unity of the Plot
In Book VIII, Aristotle again emphasizes the importance of a coherent plot,
observing that some poets assume that if they write about the exploits of one
character–Hercules, for example–their plots will automatically gain unity
because the character's life can be viewed as a unity.
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. A successful plot relies on the discernment of
the poet, who must identify that set and sequence of events that can be
presented to the audience as a whole.
The test of the unity of a plot is that no part can be removed without
changing and distorting the meaning of the whole. This interrelationship
between part and whole remains fundamental to the field of literary
hemeneutics, which maintains that each part of a work must be understood in
relation to the whole, while the whole can only be grasped by understanding
each of its parts.
Poetry and History
Since life is not a plot, it is not sufficient 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. A poet "should the maker of
plots rather than verses" (54), for plots, more than merely organizing
events into a coherent structure, serve to represent the universal laws of
probability. The true difference between historians and poets, Aristotle
states, is that the former records what has happened, while the latter
represents what may happen.
Poetry is more "philosophical" than history, according to
Aristotle, because in order to unfold a plot in a manner that is convincing to
the audience, the poet must grasp and represent the internal logic, the
necessity, of the outcome of those events.
Aristotle condemns poets that simply string episodes together, and reminds
his readers that tragic plots must not only be coherent but also inspire
"fear or pity" in the audience. He concludes this chapter with a
suggestive analysis of surprise in drama: a surprising development in a tragedy
is most effective when it does not merely produce shock at an unexpected
occurance, but rather has an "air of design" (54) and seems to be the
necessary, inevitable (but still frightening) outcome of a chain of actions.
Simple and Complex Plots
Aristotle, always concerned to establish categories to assist him in his
analysis, offers in this brief chapter a distinction between the simple
plot and the complex
plot. These definitions will become more clear as Aristotle develops them
in following chapters.
The simple plot represents a change of fortune which does not come
about through a reversal of the situation and does not involve recognition on
the part of the hero.
In the complex plot, the change of fortune emerges of necessity from
the events preceding it. It is brought about through a reversal of the
situation or recognition, or both.
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" (86).
The significant difference, Aristotle concludes, lies in whether the final
outcome of the plot is simply post hoc ("after") or, as in the
case of complex plots, propter hoc ("because of").
Peripeteia
One of the components of the complex plot, the reversal of the situation, is an
event that occurs contrary to our expectations and that is therefore
surprising, but that nonetheless appears as a necessary outcome. The Greek term
for this reversal is peripeteia.
Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis
is the Greek term for "recognition," another component of the complex
plot, and describes the often sudden revelation (such as Oedipus's discovery
that he has, despite his efforts to avoid it, fulfilled the prophecy that he
will kill his father and marry his mother) that propels a tragedy to its
conclusion.
The presence of either peripeteia or anagnorisis makes a plot
complex, but Aristotle indicates that in the most successful plots both are not
only present but also simultaneous.
Aristotle remarks again that tragic heroes (and the audiences of tragedies)
experience peripeteia (or "peripety") and anagnorisis as surprises.
Pathos
At the end of this chapter, Aristotle acknowledges the "scene of
suffering" which arouses strong emotions–pathos–from
the audience as a third component of the tragic plot. Examples of this scene of
suffering include the slaying of Agamemnon or the blinding of Oedipus.
The Unity of the Plot
In Book VIII, Aristotle again emphasizes the importance of a coherent plot,
observing that some poets assume that if they write about the exploits of one
character–Hercules, for example–their plots will automatically gain unity
because the character's life can be viewed as a unity.
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. A successful plot relies on the discernment of
the poet, who must identify that set and sequence of events that can be
presented to the audience as a whole.
The test of the unity of a plot is that no part can be removed without
changing and distorting the meaning of the whole. This interrelationship
between part and whole remains fundamental to the field of literary
hemeneutics, which maintains that each part of a work must be understood in
relation to the whole, while the whole can only be grasped by understanding
each of its parts.
Simple and Complex Plots
Aristotle, always concerned to establish categories to assist him in his
analysis, offers in this brief chapter a distinction between the simple
plot and the complex
plot. These definitions will become more clear as Aristotle develops them
in following chapters.
The simple plot represents a change of fortune which does not come
about through a reversal of the situation and does not involve recognition on
the part of the hero.
In the complex plot, the change of fortune emerges of necessity from
the events preceding it. It is brought about through a reversal of the
situation or recognition, or both.
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" (86).
The significant difference, Aristotle concludes, lies in whether the final
outcome of the plot is simply post hoc ("after") or, as in the
case of complex plots, propter hoc ("because of").
Peripeteia
One of the components of the complex plot, the reversal of the situation, is an
event that occurs contrary to our expectations and that is therefore
surprising, but that nonetheless appears as a necessary outcome. The Greek term
for this reversal is peripeteia.
Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis
is the Greek term for "recognition," another component of the complex
plot, and describes the often sudden revelation (such as Oedipus's discovery
that he has, despite his efforts to avoid it, fulfilled the prophecy that he
will kill his father and marry his mother) that propels a tragedy to its
conclusion.
The presence of either peripeteia or anagnorisis makes a plot
complex, but Aristotle indicates that in the most successful plots both are not
only present but also simultaneous.
Aristotle remarks again that tragic heroes (and the audiences of tragedies)
experience peripeteia (or "peripety") and anagnorisis as surprises.
Pathos
At the end of this chapter, Aristotle acknowledges the "scene of
suffering" which arouses strong emotions–pathos–from
the audience as a third component of the tragic plot. Examples of this scene of
suffering include the slaying of Agamemnon or the blinding of Oedipus.
The Parts of the Tragedy
The formal parts of the tragedy's performance are given here in a brief
outline.
Prologue
Extends from the opening of the play to the first full performance by the
chorus.
Episode
Those scenes of the tragedy which take place between choric performances.
Exode Extends from the final choric performance to the end of the
play.
Chorus
The choric performances are divided into two parts: the parode, the
first full performance of the chorus while it is processing into the stage
area, and the stasima, the choric performances that alternate with the
episodes of dialogue by the actors.
Commos
A performance within the tragedy in which both actors and chorus take part.
Character
Poets should pursue four goals in constructing their characters, according to
Aristotle.
Goodness
For Aristotle, the most important aspect of a character is goodness, which
seems to be linked to some sense of the character's intentionality. The sharp
hierarchization of ancient Greek culture is evident in Aristotle's remarks
about the possibility of a woman or a slave to exhibit goodness. Even though he
concedes that this is possible, the statement betrays the subaltern status of
both.
Propriety
The behavior of characters must be suitable for their social rank. Here again,
the stratification of the society of Aristotle's time is quite clear.
Verisimilitude
Characters must be believable. Attributes assigned to characters must conform
to what would be expected from the same kinds of persons in real life.
Consistency
The kinds of behaviors assigned to a character must not change suddenly and
inexplicably; if a character is meant to be represented as indecisive, erratic,
or otherwise inconsistent, this inconsistency must be consistently portrayed.
Deus ex machina
Aristotle is concerned with preserving the identification of the audience with
the actions depicted in the tragedy. Any of us who have read novels or seen
plays or films in which something doesn't "ring true" can understand
how flaws in plotting and characterization can interfere with our capacity to
get caught up in the story. Both character and plot must be consistent and
develop in ways that conform to the laws of probability, Aristotle argues. He
restricts the famous theatrical device of the deus
ex machina, the "god from the machine," from taking part in the
plot itself. The gods should not intervene to resolve an impossibly complicated
plot. They can, however, appear to cast judgment on the characters once the
plot has come to its necessary conclusion.
Anagnorisis
Aristotle lists the ways in which recognition can take place in a tragic plot.
Signs
The least imaginative method for bringing about a recognition, according to
Aristotle, is through some identifying mark or sign. An example of this kind of
anagnorisis is Euryklea's recognition of Odysseus by the scar on his thigh.
Contrived Revelations
Aristotle also criticizes strained devices that require that characters reveal
their identities simply because a recognition must take place to advance the
plot.
Memory
Events in the plot may awaken memories in one of the characters, as the songs
of the harper in the Phaiakian court arose Odysseus's memories and bring about
the revelation of his identity.
Reasoning
Sometimes characters figure out another's identity through logical analysis.
Aristotle approves of this kind of anagnorisis; only anagnorisis arising
naturally from the unfolding of the plot is superior to that brought about by
reasoning.
Natural Outcomes of the Plot
The best kind of recognition scene is completely integrated into the action of
the plot. The messenger arriving to tell Oedipus to stop worrying about the
prophecy, for example, unwittingly brings about the revelation of Oedipus's
real identity.
The Trajectory of the Plot
In terms of the progression of the plot, Aristotle divides the tragedy in to
two parts, the complication
and the denouement
or "unraveling." The complication extends from the beginning
of the play to the moment of peripeteia and/or anagnorisis–the turning point of
the plot. The denouement includes this turning point and extends to the
conclusion of the play.
Aristotle seems to refine his categories of plot in this chapter, listing
the complex plot which turns on peripeteia 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.
This chapter concludes with an elaboration of earlier remarks on the unity
of the tragic plot. Aristotle again asserts that poets should not confuse the
epic, which can contain a number of plots and subplots, and the tragedy, which
must consist of one focused plot. He also remarks on the role of the chorus,
recommending that choral performances be integrated closely into the action of
the plot, rather than serving as mere interludes between episodes.
Criticism
Aristotle lays out the terms in which poetry can be evaluated. From the outset,
he recognizes that the standards of correctness and effectiveness that we apply
to the language of poetry are not the same as those we use to evaluate other
arts or even other uses of language–political speeches, for example. His
approach to criticism is corresponds to his basic assumption that all art is
mimetic; many of his remarks address the success of a work in representing
perceived reality.
Faults in poetic works can be organized into two general categories:
essential faults that impair the work as a while and accidental faults, such as
factual errors, that may be irritating, distracting, and disappointing, but do
not indicate a failure of artistic skill. Book XXV goes on to cover five
sub-categories of faulty representation: impossibility, irrationality,
moral harmfulness, contradiction, and failure to conform to
artistic rules.
All errors should be avoided, Aristotle asserts, but he seems interested in
establishing fair conditions for criticism. Throughout this chapter, he
reflects on ways each of the five criticisms might be refuted, stressing that
critics must always bear in mind the self-consistency and purpose of the work
as a whole. Aristotle does not appear to address these errors in any particular
order, and does not directly address the issue of moral harm. His remarks on
the remaining categories are as follows:
Impossibility
Aristotle argues that poets should not, in general, depict impossible events,
but that if the impossible event serves the artistic purpose, there is no fault
in it (magical realist fiction might be a contemporary example of this kind of
work). Aristotle reminds us that the "probable" is only
"probable," and that in reality improbable events really do occur
sometimes. Minor factual errors–representing a female deer as having antlers,
for example–should not be grounds for dismissing the whole work.
Irrationality
Irrational behavior in a character can be justified in the same way as the
impossible event: if it is necessary to the plot to have a character behave
erratically or irrationally, such a representation is justified. Gratuitous
badness in characters, however, should be condemned.
Contradiction When we meet with apparent contradictions in a
work of art, we must apply careful methods of analysis to determine whether the
word or phrase that seems to contradict an earlier expression in fact has the
meaning we are assigning it. Aristotle suggests that we credit the author with
enough intelligence to avoid blatant contradiction until we are convinced that
the inconsistency is in fact a mistake and not an artistic strategy.
Failure to Conform to Artistic Rules
Before we conclude that a passage is poorly written or that a speech is
unconvincing, we must examine the context of the passage in question to
determine if this apparent fault serves some particular purpose in the work. A
clumsy, unconvincing speech may perfectly suit the character who delivers it.
Careful attention to the way a poet is using language may reveal that an
phrase or passage that appears confusing or nonsensical is in fact
metaphorical, or intentionally ambiguous, or has some other function in
supporting the representation.
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