ARISTOTLE: SOME KEY CONCEPTS FROM HIS WRITINGS
AP Lit/Comp
Dickinson
Aristotle's former teacher Plato disapproves of the art of drama because
1. Its character as mimesis 1forces on it a profound alienation from true reality.
2. Artistic mimesis addresses itself essential to the emotional, rather than the intellectual, aspect of the psyche.
For Aristotle, different art forms use mimesis with different means of representation, different manners of communicating
that representation to an audience, and different levels of ethical behavior represented. For Aristotle, mimesis comes from
a fundamental "desire to know." Human learning is inherently mimetic. People derive a pleasure of "learning and
inference" from mimesis. Poetry is "more philosophical and significant" than history because it aims to represent the
universal instead of the particular, which is history's object.
Tragic Plot: Literary mimesis represents a complete and unified action with a beginning, middle, and end linked by
necessary and probable causes. The art form should also be small enough for the audience to clearly remember it. Art
succeeds when the beginning, middle, and end of an action are clearly and persuasively motivated (i.e. are sufficiently
mimetic for learning and inference). Good plots should include Peripeteia--reversal of fortune--and Anagnorsis--recognition
of some unknown person or fact. Overly simple plots fail when there is no peripeteia. Episodic plots fail when there is no
anagnorisis. Both peripeteia and anagnorisis should arise naturally out of the plot.
Tragic mimesis should evoke pity and fear. Pity toward someone who has suffered undeserved misfortune, fear when we
realize it is someone like ourselves.
Though pity and fear are painful in real life, in tragedy they are integrated into a structure whose goal is the intellectual
pleasure produced by mimesis. Hamartia is a tragic mistake or flaw. In the past it was often discussed as a moral flaw. Now
many argue that it is an intellectual mistake that does not undermine the dignity of someone "like us" (i.e. for whom we
feel pity and fear).
Catharsis has been interpreted in three ways:
1. Medical. Catharsis as a homeopathic purgation. This interpretation is based on Aristotle's use of the term in the
Politics.
2. Moral Purification. Catharsis as a way of experiencing pity and fear virtuously (i.e. in moderation). This
interpretation is based on the Nicomachean Ethics.
3. Cognitive. Catharsis as a pleasure taken from the learning and inference that mimesis gives. This interpretation
based on the Poetics. Taken in this light, catharsis is akin to "clarification."
For Aristotle, all forms of mimesis, including tragic and comic mimesis, have as their goal the evocation of intellectual
pleasure. In the Rhetoric Aristotle states that the direct opposite of pity is righteous indignation (nemesan or nemesis),
which is a feeling of pain at undeserved good fortune just as pity is a feeling of pain at undeserved misfortune.
So… the relative importance of four of the six elements of good drama according to Aristotle
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
A tragic plot, unified in action, and including both reversal of fortune and recognition on the hero’s part; plots
whose events happen best when they come about contrary to one’s expectation, yet logically, one following from
the other (not at random), and whose events arouse pathos (fear and pity) in a cathartic event.
The main character who is noble, admirable,
Whose thought reveals the nature of a his moral choices,
And whose conveyance of that thought (verbal expression) is noble, elevated, and worthy of our attention,
Whose songs
and visual adornments complete the play.
1
Mimesis means imitation (from the Greek, it has been pronounced both “mim-e-sis” or mim-ay-sis). In terms of the Mimetic Theory, mimesis is
best understood as desire passed from one individual to another. We do not simply imitate each other’s actions, attitudes and beliefs but more
fundamentally we imitate one another’s desires. On reflection, this may seem obvious, but for the most part, this imitation happens at the
unconscious level.
http://www.sou.edu/English/Hedges/Sodashop/RCenter/Theory/People/aristotl.htm
Notes based on Leon Golden's Article on Aristotle for the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism, edited by Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins
University Press, c1994. Reference Area PN81 .J554 1994
ARISTOTLE: SOME KEY CONCEPTS FROM HIS WRITINGS
AP Lit/Comp
Dickinson
http://www.sou.edu/English/Hedges/Sodashop/RCenter/Theory/People/aristotl.htm
Notes based on Leon Golden's Article on Aristotle for the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism, edited by Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins
University Press, c1994. Reference Area PN81 .J554 1994