Summary: Poetics

The subject of this treatise is the poetic art itself, its species, the effect proper to each of them. The work is intended to be not only descriptive, but prescriptive: it sets out how to compose the fable if poetic composition is to be beautiful ¹.

It is here that Aristotle gives his famous definition of art as imitation (mimesis). The various arts are distinguished from one another by this essential character: either they imitate differently, or they imitate different things.

For example, painting imitates by drawing, singing by voice; dancers imitate by rhythms and movements characters, passions and actions.

Aristotle notes that there is no name that designates the art that imitates in general through language, and that would group together both Socrates' dialogues and poet's verses, i.e. philosophy, poetry, literature...

On the other hand, imitation can improve, preserve or depreciate the object imitated. Thus, while tragedy represents the superior man (through the depth and gravity of feeling it displays), comedy pokes fun at men's foibles and delights in depicting men as inferior to what they actually are.

Where does poetry come from? Where does it come from that men like to write or hear poems? For Aristotle it comes from two causes:

Imitating is natural to men, and their skill in it surpasses that of animals. It is from this process that their first knowledge comes. And imitation is not only a source of knowledge, but also of pleasure. Aristotle notes, for example, the apparent paradox that we are repulsed by the sight of a corpse, but we take pleasure in seeing it depicted in a painting, for example in a war scene.

However, it is not always as an imitation that a work is appreciated: it may also be appreciated for its colours, the technique employed in making it, or any other reason.

Aristotle defines comedy as the imitation of men of inferior moral quality ², but above all we find his famous definition of tragedy, as purification (catharsis). Indeed, insofar as it suscitates pity and fear, it operates the purgation proper to such emotions ³.

The spectacle is only incidental in art, for the power of tragedy subsists even without a contest or actors ⁴ or the man in charge of props, he adds.

Aristotle then turns to the notion of beauty. What makes one thing beautiful, and not such and such another? What is beauty?

This depends for Aristotle on two essential characters: extent and order. Indeed, Aristotle notes that a beautiful animal can be neither extremely small nor extremely large (for in that case, we do not embrace it with our gaze ⁵).

Aristotle applies this principle in art and takes the example of the fable. Similarly, a fable must, in order to be appreciated, have a certain length. If it is too long, the memory will not be able to retain it.

There must therefore be a certain unity in a fable. A fable that is too long loses its coherence and ends up boring the viewer. The right length is that which allows a sequence of events that follow one another according to plausibility or necessity to take the hero from misfortune to happiness or from happiness to misfortune ⁶.

Aristotle calls this consistency unity of action. A successful play is one in which no part can be subtracted without upsetting the whole.

The poet differs from the historian in that he does not seek to recount things as they happened but as they might happen. It is this, and not the fact that one expresses himself in prose and the other in verse, that allows us to distinguish them (indeed, we could put the work of a historian like Herodotus into verse, it would still be history).

This makes it possible to hierarchise these two disciplines:

So poetry is more philosophical and of a higher character than history, because poetry rather tells the general, history the particular ⁷.

Some criteria can be proposed for judging the quality of a fable. Thus, for example, a fable is successful when the succession of episodes is determined by plausibility or necessity.

Also, when the thread of the narrative experiences twists and turns, namely the reversal of the action in the opposite direction ⁸.

Aristotle now focuses on the tragedy. What is a successful tragedy? How can it be made to produce its proper effect (fear and pity)?

The tragedy would miss its effect if it presented a good man passing from happiness to misfortune (this inspires repugnance), or a bad man passing from misfortune to happiness, or vice versa.

In fact, tragedy (the most significant example of which remains Œdipus by Sophocles) must present the story of a man similar to us who does not deserve his misfortune, the story of a man who without being eminently virtuous and just, falls into misfortune not because of his wickedness and perversity, but as a result of one or other mistake he has made [....] as for example Oedipus ⁹.

The traditional fables must be respected (Oedipus must kill his father), but the poet must make judicious use of the data of tradition ¹⁰.

Aristotle remarks that in every tragedy there is a part which is plot and a part which is denouement ¹¹, and both must be done properly yet it is always necessary to triumph equally over the two difficulties ¹².

He lists the five criticisms that can be made of a play, and generally of a work of art: it is impossible, implausible, unnecessarily mean, contradictory, or contrary to the requirements of art.

¹ Poetics, 1, 1447a
² 5, 1449a
³ 6, 1449b
⁴ 6, 1450b
⁵ 7, 1450b
⁶ 7, 1451a
⁷ 9, 1451b
⁸ 11, 1452a
⁹ 13, 1453a
¹⁰ 14, 1453b
¹¹ 18, 1455b