EXAM ENERGY ESSENCE 8667844485

EXAM ENERGY ESSENCE

PGTRB – ENGLISH

UNIT – 8.1

POETICS - ARISTOTLE

ARISTOTLE (384 BC – 322 BC)

Aristotle, the most distinguished disciple of Plato, is widely known as the tutor to Alexander
the Great. Aristotle’s enormous contribution to the history of thought spans several areas:
metaphysics, logic, ethics, politics, literary criticism, and various branches of natural science,
most of which are collected from notes made by his students at the school Aristotle
established in Athens, Lyceum. He is believed to have written nearly half a dozen critical
treatises, of which only two are extant – Poetics and Rhetoric, the former dealing with the art
of poetry and the latter with the art of speaking. Aristotle’s metaphysics introduces the
concept of substance, which comprehends the connection between existence and essence. His
studies on logic are based on syllogism, consisting of a major premise, a minor premise,
conclusion. and an inferred

Early life

Aristotle was born in the small Greek town of Stagiros (later Stagira) in the northern Greek
district of Chalcidice. His father, Nicomachus, was a physician who had important social
connections. Aristotle's interest in science was surely inspired by his father's work, although
Aristotle did not display a particularly keen interest in medicine. The events of his early life
are not clear. It is possible that his father served at the Macedonian court (the political leaders
of Macedonia, an ancient empire) as physician to Amyntas II (died c. 370 B.C.E. ) and that
Aristotle spent part of his youth there.

At the age of seventeen Aristotle went to Athens, Greece, and joined Plato's (c. 428–c. 348
B.C.E. ) circle at the Academy, a school for philosophers. There he remained for twenty
years. Although his respect and admiration for Plato was always great, differences developed
which ultimately caused a break in their relationship. Upon Plato's death Aristotle left for
Assos in Mysia (in Asia Minor, today known as Turkey), where he and Xenocrates (c. 396–c.
314 B.C.E. ) joined a small circle of Platonists (followers of Plato) who had already settled
there under Hermias, the ruler of Atarneus. Aristotle married the niece of Hermias, a woman
named Pythias, who was killed by the Persians some time thereafter.

In 342 B.C.E. Aristotle made his way to the court of Philip of Macedon (c. 382–c. 336 B.C.E.
). There Aristotle became tutor to Alexander (c. 356–c. 323 B.C.E. ), who would become
master of the whole Persian Empire as Alexander the Great. Little information remains
regarding the specific contents of Alexander's education at the hands of Aristotle, but it would
be interesting to know what political advice Aristotle gave to the young Alexander. The only
indication of such advice is found in the fragment of a letter in which the philosopher tells

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Alexander that he ought to be the leader of the Greeks but the master of the barbarians
(foreigners).

Peripatetic School

Aristotle returned to Athens around 335 B.C.E. Under the protection of Antipater (c. 397–c.
319 B.C.E. ),Alexander's representative in Athens, Aristotle established a philosophical
school of his own, the Lyceum, located near a shrine of Apollo Lyceus. Also known as the
Peripatetic School, the school took its name from its colonnaded walk (a walk with a series of
columns on either side). The lectures were divided into morning and afternoon sessions. The
more difficult ones were given in the morning, and the easier and more popular ones were
given in the afternoon. Aristotle himself led the school until the death of Alexander in 323
B.C.E. , when he left Athens, fearing for his safety because of his close association with the
Macedonians. He went to Chalcis, Greece, where he died the following year of intestinal
problems. His will, preserved in the writings of Diogenes Laertius (third century C.E. ),
provided for his daughter, Pythias, and his son, Nicomachus, as well as for his slaves.

His writings

Aristotle produced a large number of writings, but few have survived. His earliest writings,
consisting for the most part of dialogues (writings in the form of conversation), were
produced under the influence of Plato and the Academy. Most of these are lost, although the
titles are known from the writings

Aristotle. of Diogenes Laertius and from others. Among these important works are Rhetoric,
Eudemus (On the Soul), On Philosophy, Alexander, Sophistes, On Justice, Wealth, On Prayer,
and On Education. They were a wide variety of works written for the public, and they dealt
with popular philosophical themes. The dialogues of Plato were undoubtedly the inspiration
for some of them, although the fall out between Plato and Aristotle reveals itself to a certain
extent in these works, too.
A second group of writings is made up of collections of scientific and historical material,
among the most important of which is the surviving fragment of the Constitution of the
Athenians. This formed part of the large collection of Constitutions, which Aristotle and his
students collected and studied for the purpose of analyzing various political theories. The
discovery of the Constitution of the Athenians in Egypt in 1890 shed new light on the nature
of the Athenian democracy (a government of elected officials) of Aristotle's time. It also
revealed the difference in quality between the historical and scientific works of Aristotle and
those that followed.

Aristotle Biography - life, name, death, history, school, young, son, information, born, time,
year Theophrastus (c. 372–c. 287 B.C.E. ) had kept Aristotle's manuscripts after the master's
death in 322 B.C.E. When Theophrastus died Aristotle's works were hidden away and not
brought to light again until the beginning of the first century B.C.E. They were then taken to
Rome and edited by Andronicus (first century B.C.E. ). The texts that survive today come
from Andronicus's revisions and probably do not represent works that Aristotle himself

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prepared for publication. From the time of his death until the rediscovery of these writings,
Aristotle was best known for the works that today are known as the lost writings.

Philosophical and scientific systems

The writings that did survive, however, are sufficient to show the quality of Aristotle's
achievement. The Topics and the Analytics deal with logic (the study of reasoning) and
dialectic (a method of argument) and reveal Aristotle's contributions to the development of
debate. His view of nature is set forth in the Physics and the Metaphysics, which mark the
most serious difference between Aristotelianism and Platonism: that all investigation must
begin with what the senses record and must move only from that point to thought. As a result
of this process of intellectualizing, God, who for Plato represents beauty and goodness, is for
Aristotle the highest form of being and is completely lacking in materiality. Aristotle's God
neither created nor controls the universe, although the universe is affected by this God. Man
is the only creature capable of thought even remotely resembling that of God, so man's
highest goal is to reason abstractly, like God, and he is more truly human to the extent that he
achieves that goal.
Aristotle's work was often misunderstood in later times. The scientific and philosophical
systems set forth in his writings are not conclusions that must be taken as the final answer,
but rather experimental positions arrived at through careful observation and analysis. During
the slow intellectual climate of the Roman Empire, which ruled over much of Europe for
hundreds of years after Aristotle died, and the totally unscientific Christian Middle Ages
(476–1453), Aristotle's views on nature and science were taken as a complete system. As a
result, his influence was enormous but not for any reason that would have pleased him.

Aristotle shares with his master, Plato, the role of stimulating human thought. Plato had a
more direct influence on the development of that great spiritual movement in late antiquity
(years before the Middle Ages), and Aristotle had a greater effect on science. Antiquity
produced no greater minds than those of Plato and Aristotle. The intellectual history of the
West would be extremely different without them.

Poetics

Comprising 26 small chapters,

Poetics gives the impression of being a summary of his lectures to his pupils, written either
by them or by himself. It is incomplete and is mainly concerned with tragedy, which was in
his day, the most developed form of poetry. Poetics has been analysed for its study on
tragedy, its distinctions of tragedy, epic, and its comments on plot and character. These
notions of a work of art remain influential to this day, such that literary works are analysed
through such categories as theme, plot, character and authorial presence in the text. Aristotle
sees that epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and music are alike in that they all
imitate. They differ in the medium, objects, and manner of imitation. But he maintains that
good art is neither useless nor dangerous, but natural and beneficial.
Aristotle’s Defense of Art

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One of the most important features involved in Aristotle’s defense of art is his rejection of
Plato’s dualism. Plato believed in mind-body dualism and emphasized that mind is superior to
body. But for Aristotle, man is not an “embodied” intellect, longing for the spiritual release of
death, but rather an animal with, among all other faculties, the ability to use reason and to
create. Yet another feature is his rejection of Plato’s rationalism. According to Aristotle, we
must study humans as we would study other animals to discover what their “nature” is. We
should look among the species and see who are the thriving and the successful and in what
activities do they engage. This is the way to determine what is and is not appropriate for the
human and human societies. Along with the rejection of Plato’s dualism and rationalism as
against sensual knowledge, Aristotle strongly regarded mimesis as having some intellectual
elements in it and not blind imitation or blind mirroring. Underlying Aristotle’s arguments in
Poetics are the principles of empirical method, acceptance of plurality and the principle of
moderation. To these we might add the notions of unity, probability, necessity, rationality,
universality and truth. All these notions, together with Aristotle’s ethical and political
principles, define his characteristics of good literature. The issues at stake here include the
meaning and desirability of realism, presentation of character, use of detail, use of language,
and the way in which various components of literary work are mutually integrated and
harmonized.

(1) Art is not useless

According to Aristotle, art is not useless. It is natural for human beings to imitate, since it is
an intellectual activity. Any human society which is healthy will be a society where there is
imitative art, says Aristotle.

In his view, art production and training is a necessary part of any education since it uses and
encourages the imaginative manipulation of ideas as nothing is more natural than for human
beings to create using their imagination. Since art is imitation,
it is an imaginative use of concepts. Hence at its heart, art is ‘conceptual’ and ‘intellectual’.
(2) Art is not deceptive

Artists, portray according reality to to Aristotle, must accurately be successful, i.e., in drama,
psychological reality must be accurately portrayed in order for the character to be believable
and their actions understandable. Also he says that art teaches effectively and it teaches the
truth. For example: drama is convincing and powerful because it reveals the truth of human
nature. He introduces the concept of “organic unity” which is the idea that in any good work
of art each of the parts must contribute to the overall success of the whole. Just as in
biological organisms, each part contributes to the overall health and well-being of the
creature, so too in a good work of art, each element must contribute to the thematic
development. This is another way in which a work of art reflects or imitates reality. Unified
action is defined by Aristotle as one that, “with its several incidents so closely connected that
the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole”.
(3) Sensuous art is not a bad thing

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Aristotle did not believe that the mind was one thing and the body was something else and
therefore Aristotle did not have the bias against physical pleasures that Plato did. The only
way of acquiring knowledge at all, according to Aristotle, was through the senses and so
developing, exercising and sharpening those senses through out was a healthy thing to do. Art
was not solely concerned with the sensual pleasures, but rather was/should be an intellectual
and conceptual affair.

(4) Good art is tied to morality and truth

According to Aristotle, successful tragic drama always teaches morality. He believed

that drama imitated not only “events” but actions. As such they imitated intended behaviours,
psychological forces and the unseen “inner life” of persons. He unwillingly set up two
functions for a work of art to fulfill – to imitate nature’s perceptual detail and to imitate
nature’s “organic unity”.

Aristotle agreed that art did stir up negative emotions, but he claimed it then purged these in a
harmless, healthy way. This led to the principle of Catharsis.
Catharsis

“Catharsis”, meaning “purification” in Greek, is a term borrowed from medical terminology

by Aristotle to explain the function of Tragedy. He states that the purpose of tragedy is to
arouse “pity and fear” and thereby effect the catharsis of these emotions. The interpretation
generally accepted is that through experiencing fear vicariously in a controlled situation, the
spectator’s own anxieties are directed outward, and, through sympathetic identification with
the tragic hero, his insight and outlook are enlarged. Tragedy then has a healthy and
humanizing effect on the spectator or the reader.

Aristotle’s Observations on Tragedy

Poetry, being an imitative art, can imitate two kinds of actions: the noble actions of good men
or the mean actions of bad men. From the former was born the epic and from the latter, the
satire. From these in turn arose tragedy and comedy. Tragedy bears the same relation to the
epic as comedy to the satire. It follows therefore that the epic and tragedy are superior to the
satire and comedy, which concern themselves with the mean action of low men. According to
Aristotle, tragedy is superior to the epic, as it has all the epic elements in a shorter compass,
with moreover music and spectacular effects which the epic does not have, and being more
compact in design.

Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy

“Tragedy”, says Aristotle, “ 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”.
Six Constituent Elements

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Aristotle finds six constituent parts in tragedy: Plot, Character, and Thought, which are the
objects it imitates or represents; Diction and Song, which are the medium it employs to
imitate these objects; and Spectacle which is its manner of imitating them.

Plot or ‘the arrangement of the incident’ is the chief part of tragedy, i.e., soul of tragedy.
Action ensues from character, which is moulded by Thought, which reveals itself in Dialogue
in Diction (language embellished with ornaments such as song). Finally, spectacle (stage
presentation), which is least connected with poetry, adds to the power of Tragedy.

The Three Unities

Plot being “the soul of a tragedy”, the artistic arrangement of its incidents is of the prime
importance. It should have unity of action or only those actions intimately connected with
one another and appear together as one whole, usually actions concerning one man. Aristotle
mentions the unity of time casually and only once, which is the conformity between the time
taken by the events of the play and that taken in their representation on the stage.

The unity of place, or the conformity between the scene of the tragic event or events and the
time taken by them to happen, is not mentioned at all. It is an addition of the Renaissance
critics.
In order to achieve tragic pleasure, it is necessary for a good tragic plot to arouse the
emotions of pity and fear in the spectator or the reader. There are two ways in which these
emotions may be aroused

– (1) by spectacular means such as physical torture, piteous lamentation, beggarly appearance
(for e.g.: Tamburlaine) and

(2) by the inner structure of the plot, such as a brother unknowingly killing a brother and
discovering the fact later, on intending good and doing evil, etc. It is this latter mode that
indicates a superior poet.
Simple and Complex Plots

There are two types of plots – simple plot and complex plot. In a simple plot, there are no
puzzling situations particular that enter into a complex plot, in peripeteia (reversal of fortune)
and anagnorisis (discovery). The two parts of plot are complication (tying the knot) and
denouement (untying the knot).
Tragic Hero

The tragic hero should be a character of noble stature having high position in the society. He
must be a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not
by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty (hamartia or error in judgement). For
Aristotle, character is what determines moral choice. He even classifies genres using this
principle. Tragedy imitates noble character (spoudaios), and comedy imitates base character.

Tragedy as Superior to Epic

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For Aristotle, tragedy appeals to a more refined audience and unfolds its action with narrower
limits. Its limited length attains greater unity and its concentrated effect is more pleasurable
than one which is spread over a long time and so diluted.

While Plato’s approach to literature was that of a social reformer, Aristotle’s is that of a
scientist. Plato wanted literature to do the work of morality. Aristotle expects it to be no more
than what it is – an art.

Mimesis
The first recorded use of mimesis as an aesthetic term is Plato’s: in the Poetics it is a
derogatory term for describing the poet’s counterfeit ‘creations’, which reflect and mimic the
transient appearances of this world. The concept of imitation is central to Aristotelian logic,
even as it is to the Platonic, but with Aristotle’s ‘imitation’ an essential difference. combines a
sense of the literary work as the representation of some preexistent reality, with a sense of the
work itself as an object, not merely a reflecting surface. The poet is not subservient to the
irrationality of the actual: the play or poem has its own natural form and objective status. In
the Poetics tragedy is like an organism – it grows, achieves its prime and decays. The poet
‘imitates’ best by allowing the work to achieve its own fitting formal excellence.

The Value of Aristotle’s Criticism

Aristotle’s approach to literature is that of a scientist. Aristotle wanted literature to be an art

and not to do the work of morality. He points the difference between politics and poetry.
Politics is a social science, therefore it should be judged by the contribution it makes to social
well-being. Poetry, on the other hand, should be judged by its capacity to please the audience.

He judges literature by aesthetic standards alone. Unlike Plato, he does not regard poetry as
twice removed from reality. Instead, he considers the representations in poetry as true to the
facts of human life. He points out its capacity to see the permanent features of life. He
suggests what kind of plot, character and style will interest spectators. He finds that peripeteia
and anagnorisis are the most interesting elements in a tragic plot, hamartia in the tragic hero,
and metaphor in style.

Tragedy, comedy and epic are all, in this way, considered with reference to the effect on the
minds and hearts of their spectators.

Poetics deals with the art of poetry and many more problems of literature and has therefore
attracted greater attention than any other works of criticism