Aristotle and The Poetics PDF

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Alan Kreizenbeck's personal lecture notes on Aristotle....

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1 THTR 310 History of Theatre Alan Kreizenbeck

Aristotle and The Poetics Defending poetry, held drama to be the highest form of poetry. So, remember he is talking about poetry, not necessarily theatre. Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. -The medium is language -The method is acted: or, what is told is seen as if happening in the present. The result is catharsis: the excitement and execution of feelings, perhaps a purging of feelings and thoughts, perhaps a heightened awareness of existence and its contradictions. Aristotle recognized six elements in dramatic poetry (tragedy): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Plot Character Thought Language Music Spectacle

(Various translations of The Poetics may use slightly different terminology for some of these.) For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. -One of the things that this means is that the plot is the most important component of tragedy. Again, if you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point of diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents.

1. Plot has: a. A logical cause and effect, a unity with a beginning, middle, and an end. 1

2 b. Unity is felt, the audience perceives the play as a whole, completed and completed experience. c. Exposes or expresses a “universal” truth. d. Uses legendary or mythic figures as its main characters. e. Contains: VERY IMPORTANT 1. A REVERSAL—THINGS DO NOT TURN OUT AS EXPECTED OR AS PLANNED FOR 2. CATASTROPHE—SUFFERING AS A RESULT OF THE REVERSAL 3. RECOGNITION—AWARENESS OR COMING TO GRIPS WITH THE UNIVERSAL TRUTH EXPOSED BY THE REVERSAL AND CATASTROPHE. 4. Besides which, the most powerful elements of emotional interest in Tragedy Peripeteia or Reversal of the Situation, and Recognition scenes--are parts of the plot f. Should involve a fall from a high social position to a low one. g. Should excite pity and fear in the audience: pity for the character suffering the reversal and loss of status; fear that it could happen to me, or fear of the incomprehensibility of the god’s action. h. The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in painting. The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait. Thus, Tragedy is the imitation of an action, and of the agents mainly with a view to the action and now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse. 2. Character: Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids. Speeches, therefore, which do not make this manifest, or in which the speaker does not choose or avoid anything whatever, are not expressive of character. a. b. c. d.

A good person, but not perfect True to human nature, a generalized creation Consistent in their actions Suffers reversal through some mistake, not because they are bad.

3. Thought: We know a character’s character by what he or she does, but characters also have speeches that do not necessarily contain explicit action, so… thought is the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given circumstances. Speeches, therefore, which do not make this (action) manifest, or in which the speaker does not choose or avoid anything whatever, are not expressive of character. Thought, on the other hand, is found where something is proved to be or not to be, or a general maxim is enunciated. -Thought can provide the justification for performing an action, but do not contain the action itself. 4. Language: is suited to the character’s social status and to their emotional state, so as emotions vary, so can language. Language can be metaphorical.

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5. Music: Can mean the music performed by the chorus during the production, but also the melody of the language and the rhythm of the performance and the spoken word. There is a fair chance that most of the speeches were either sung or spoken like recitative in opera, while other parts were always sung - not much just spoken. 6. Spectacle: the least important element because it was the easiest way to manipulate the audience’s emotions (NOT their brains) so the least meaningful. Lots of spectacle in Greek drama is described, and interestingly enough, frequently by characters with low social status. The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet and actors.

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