Poetics

treatise by Aristotle
Also known as: “Poetica”

Learn about this topic in these articles:

Assorted References

  • art criticism
  • historiography
  • place in development of Greek literature
    • Kazantzákis, Níkos
      In Greek literature: Philosophical prose

      Rhetoric, and above all, the Poetics, had an immense effect on literary theory after the Renaissance. In the ancient world, Aristotelian doctrine was known mainly through the works of his successor Theophrastus (c. 372–288/287), now lost except for two books on plants and a famous collection of 30 Characters, sketches…

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  • theory of dramatic unities
    • In unities

      …by French classicists from Aristotle’s Poetics; they require a play to have a single action represented as occurring in a single place and within the course of a day. These principles were called, respectively, unity of action, unity of place, and unity of time.

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analysis of

    literature

    • In literature: Western

      His Poetics (the surviving fragment of which is limited to an analysis of tragedy and epic poetry) has sometimes been dismissed as a recipe book for the writing of potboilers. Certainly, Aristotle is primarily interested in the theoretical construction of tragedy, much as an architect might…

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    • George Gascoigne
      In literary criticism: Antiquity

      In his Poetics—still the most respected of all discussions of literature—Aristotle countered Plato’s indictment by stressing what is normal and useful about literary art. The tragic poet is not so much divinely inspired as he is motivated by a universal human need to imitate, and what he…

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    • comedy
      • In comedy: Origins and definitions

        Aristotle, in his Poetics, states that comedy originated in phallic songs and that, like tragedy, it began in improvisation. Though tragedy evolved by stages that can be traced, the progress of comedy passed unnoticed because it was not taken seriously. When tragedy and comedy arose, poets wrote one…

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    • drama
      • Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and Her Children)
        In dramatic literature: Western theory

        …of dramatic theory, the fragmentary Poetics of Aristotle (384–322 bce), chiefly reflecting his views on Greek tragedy and his favourite dramatist, Sophocles, is still relevant to an understanding of the elements of drama. Aristotle’s elliptical way of writing, however, encouraged different ages to place their own interpretation upon his statements…

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    • poetry
      • Aristotle
        In Aristotle: Rhetoric and poetics

        The Poetics is much better known than the Rhetoric, though only the first book of the former, a treatment of epic and tragic poetry, survives. The book aims, among other things, to answer Plato’s criticisms of representative art. According to the theory of Forms, material objects…

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    • prosody
      • In prosody: Theories of prosody

        …genres; thus, Aristotle (in the Poetics) noted, “Nature herself, as we have said, teaches the choice of the proper measure.” In epic verse the poet should use the heroic measure (dactylic hexameter) because this metre most effectively represents or imitates such qualities as grandeur, dignity, and high passion. Horace narrowed…

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    • tragedy
      • Aeschylus
        In tragedy: Classical theories

        perhaps intentionally, by Aristotle’s Poetics. Aristotle defends the purgative power of tragedy and, in direct contradiction to Plato, makes moral ambiguity the essence of tragedy. The tragic hero must be neither a villain nor a virtuous man but a “character between these two extremes,…a man who is not eminently…

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    • dance
      • Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Peasant Dance
        In dance

        Thus, Aristotle’s statement in the Poetics that dance is rhythmic movement whose purpose is “to represent men’s characters as well as what they do and suffer” refers to the central role that dance played in classical Greek theatre, where the chorus through its movements reenacted the themes of the drama…

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    influence on

      • French Neoclassicists
        • In Pierre Corneille: Early life and career.

          …on a misunderstanding of Aristotle’s Poetics, in which the philosopher attempted to give a critical definition of the nature of tragedy. The new theory was first put into dramatic practice in Jean Mairet’s Sophonisbe (1634), a tragedy that enjoyed considerable success. Corneille, not directly involved in the call for regular…

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      • German literature
        • In German literature: Early Enlightenment

          …a literal interpretation of Aristotle’s Poetics, he argued that Nature was governed by reason and that it was the task of poets to imitate reason as it manifested itself in Nature. He also initiated a reform of the German theatre aimed on the one hand against the Baroque extravagance of…

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      • Italian humanism
        • Cicero
          In humanism: Tasso’s Aristotelianism

          …scholars focused particularly on the Poetics. In constructing his epic poem, Tasso was strongly influenced by Aristotle’s views regarding the philosophical dimension of poetry. Loosely paraphrasing Aristotle, he held (in his Apologia [1585]) that poetry, by incorporating both particulars and universals, is capable of seeking truth in its perfect wholeness.…

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      • modern thought
        • Justus of Ghent: Aristotle
          In Aristotelianism: From the Renaissance to the 18th century

          In the literary field, Aristotle’s Poetics, practically unknown until 1500, was now read and analyzed in both the Greek and Latin versions; its doctrines were compared and partly made to harmonize with the then-prevailing views of the ancient Roman poet Horace, and Aristotle’s view that art imitates nature prevailed for…

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      terminology

        • anagnorisis
          • In anagnorisis

            …discussed by Aristotle in the Poetics as an essential part of the plot of a tragedy, although anagnorisis occurs in comedy, epic, and, at a later date, the novel as well. Anagnorisis usually involves revelation of the true identity of persons previously unknown, as when a father recognizes a stranger…

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        • catharsis
          • In catharsis

            …used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator. The use is derived from the medical term katharsis (Greek: “purgation” or “purification”). Aristotle states that the purpose of tragedy is to arouse “terror and pity” and thereby effect the catharsis of these emotions.…

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        • hamartia
          • In hamartia

            …the term casually in the Poetics in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some “error of judgment” (hamartia). This imperfection later came to be interpreted as a moral flaw, such as Othello’s jealousy or…

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        • peripeteia
          • In peripeteia

            …discussed by Aristotle in the Poetics as the shift of the tragic protagonist’s fortune from good to bad, which is essential to the plot of a tragedy. It is often an ironic twist, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex when a messenger brings Oedipus news about his parents that he thinks…

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        • poetic diction
          • In poetic diction

            …is Aristotle’s remark in the Poetics that it should be clear without being “mean.” But subsequent generations of poets were more scrupulous in avoiding meanness than in cultivating clarity. Depending heavily on expressions used by previous poets, they evolved in time a language sprinkled with such archaic terms as eftsoons,…

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        • verisimilitude
          • In verisimilitude

            Aristotle in his Poetics insisted that literature should reflect nature—that even highly idealized characters should possess recognizable human qualities—and that what was probable took precedence over what was merely possible.

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