An Essay on Aristotle’s 'poetics'

An Essay on Aristotle’s Poetics

As described in the first sentence of “On the Art of Poetry”, Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) aims in his thesis to deal with poetry in general, its different genres, and the distinguishing attributes of each one of these genres.

Aristotle took the concept of “imitation” from Plato, but unlike his teacher who gave it only the narrow meaning of ‘copying’; he gave it a more broader and maturer interpretation. Aristotle’s thesis is believed to have came as a response to Plato’s views who says that poetry is a mere act of copying that appeals to the irrational and normalizes the immoral (Murray 17). Aristotle argues in the first chapter of his thesis that the act of writing poetry is driven by the natural human desire to imitate. This imitation, from his perspective, can take the form of imitating moral actions and therefore have a useful and enlightening impact on people. Poetry, according to aristotle, moves people and leads to the purgation of emotions, which he calls ‘catharsis’. By the catharsis of one’s emotions such as pity and fear, Aristotle means “their restoration to the right proportions, to the desirable 'mean' which is the basis of his discussion of human qualities in the Ethics” (Murray 19). Put differently, Poetry for Aristotle can have the power of purifying and training the emotions mainly through the use of fictional characters.

Since all arts are forms of ‘imitation’, they ought to be distinguished according to their ‘nature of imitation’. The three main factors that Aristotle establishes his distinction between the different kinds of arts on are: the objects they represent, their media, and their manner of representation.

The manner of imitation is done through the use of a narration where the poet speaks in his own person, uses a narrative only, or a mixture of both. In Aristotle’s own words, a narration “may be done partly by narration and partly by the assumption of a character other than one's own, which is Homer's way; or by speaking in one's own person without any such change; or by representing the characters as performing all the actions dramatically” (Aristotle 34).

Acknowledging the unique structure of each kind, Aristotle classifies poetry into: “Epic and tragic poetry, comedy too, dithyrambic poetry, and most music composed for the flute and the lyre” (31); and as a confirmation he adds that they “can all be described in general terms as forms of imitation or representation” (31). In both literary and musical arts; rhythm, music, and formal metre are the media used to mimic reality. They are either used in combination or separately –depending on the artistic need (dancing, for instance, uses rhythm alone).

To Aristotle, all imitative art “represent men in action” (33) and “these men must