Poetry is imitation.
Aristotle treats epic, tragedy, comedy, and the rest as modes of imitation that differ in their medium, their objects, and their manner.
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Poetics
Aristotle analyzes poetry as the imitation of action and argues that a well constructed plot is the soul of tragedy.
Mind Map
Map of the book's core ideas
Core Message
What the book is really saying
Plot comes before character.
Tragedy imitates an action and a life, so the structure of incidents is primary. Character matters, but it serves the action rather than the reverse.
A whole must have order and magnitude.
A tragedy should be complete, with a beginning, middle, and end joined by probability or necessity, and of a size the memory can hold.
Poetry expresses the universal.
Because it shows what kind of person would probably or necessarily act in a given way, Aristotle judges poetry more philosophical than history.
Summary
The essence in plain English
Poetics is a working analysis of how poetry is made and why it affects us. Aristotle begins from a single idea: epic, tragedy, comedy, dithyramb, and instrumental music are all forms of imitation. They differ in the medium they use, the objects they represent, and the manner in which they represent them. This framework lets him classify the arts and then concentrate on tragedy.
His definition of tragedy is the center of the work. Tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, presented in heightened language, performed rather than narrated, and working through pity and fear to bring about the purgation of those emotions. From this definition he derives the six parts of tragedy: plot, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle.
Aristotle ranks these parts. The structure of the incidents, the plot, is the first principle and the soul of the tragedy, because tragedy imitates action and life rather than men in the abstract. Character holds second place, thought third, and spectacle least, since the power of tragedy can be felt even apart from performance. This ordering is the book's most influential claim about dramatic art.
He then sets out what makes a plot good. It must form a whole with a beginning, a middle, and an end, where each part follows by causal necessity rather than chance. The most powerful effects, reversal of fortune and recognition, belong to the plot itself. The best tragic plot turns a person who is neither wholly good nor wicked from prosperity to misfortune through some great error or frailty rather than through vice.
Across the work Aristotle distinguishes poetry from history. The poet relates not what has happened but what may happen according to probability or necessity, which is why poetry tends toward the universal while history records the particular. He extends the same standards of unity, magnitude, and probability to epic, and closes by comparing epic and tragedy and judging tragedy the higher form.
Key Concepts
The ideas to keep
Imitation
Aristotle treats the arts as modes of imitation that differ in medium, object, and manner. Poetry imitates men in action.
Why it matters
It is the foundation of the whole work. Defining poetry as imitation lets Aristotle classify the arts and explain the pleasure they give.
Plot as the Soul of Tragedy
Because tragedy imitates an action and a life, the arrangement of the incidents is primary; character is subsidiary to it.
Why it matters
It reverses the intuitive priority of character over story and makes structure the chief object of the dramatist's art.
Error or Frailty
The ideal tragic figure is neither eminently good nor wicked, and falls from prosperity through some great error rather than through depravity.
Why it matters
It explains how a plot arouses pity and fear, since pity answers undeserved misfortune and fear the fall of someone like ourselves.
Mental Models
Reusable ways to think
Probability and Necessity
Events in a good plot should follow one another by what is likely or required, not by accident.
How it helps
It gives a test for whether a story holds together: each incident should seem to grow from what came before.
A Whole of the Right Magnitude
A complete work has a beginning, middle, and end, and a size that can be embraced in a single view or held in memory.
How it helps
It offers a standard for unity and length, treating a work like an organism whose parts must be ordered and proportioned.
The Universal over the Particular
Poetry shows how a certain type of person would probably or necessarily speak or act, rather than recording specific facts.
How it helps
It clarifies what fiction is for: to reveal general truths of human action rather than to report what merely happened.
Selected Quotes
Short passages from the source
The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place.
Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.
whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty.
Source
Text used for this page
Source text: Project Gutenberg edition of The Poetics of Aristotle.
HTML text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1974/pg1974.txt
Project Gutenberg states that this ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
Project Gutenberg titles this edition The Poetics of Aristotle and names S. H. Butcher as translator; the original work is ancient and no modern publication year is used here.