Poetics
335BCE
Aristotle
384~322BCE
1
 Athens
347BCE as the apprentice of Plato
 Macedonia
the Great
343/335BCE the tutor of Alexander
 Athens
323BCE established his own school:
Lyceum; peripatetic; Peripateticism porch
 Chalcis 322BCE
“to prevent the Athenians
from sinning twice against philosophy”
2
3
 Career: Scientific writings, political and ethical theory,
metaphysics,
Practical analysis (Poetics, Rhetoric)
 Opinion: Forms are always embodied in some way.
(dis-agree with Plato)
“Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is the truth.”
 Style: Expository and analytical (P --- ironic and
dialectic)
4
Philosophy of Aristotle
 Four Causes: material – formal – efficient – final
 Opinion: Forms are always embodied in some way. (dis-agree
with Plato)
The origin of a thing determines what it is. (agree with Plato)
[Greece] Aristotle
Translated by S. H. Butcher
 《诗学-诗艺》：亚理士多德、贺拉斯，罗念生、杨周翰译，人民文学出
版社，1962年版
 《诗学》: 亚里士多德, 陈中梅译注,商务印书馆, 1999年版
5
Chapter 1~5
Three ways for imitation
 1) Means
Kinds of means: form, color, voice,
rhythm, language, harmony
6
2) Objects

☆The imitator represents actions.
 Since the objects of imitation are men in
action, and these men must be either of a
higher or a lower type
 The agents should be either good or bad.
Since the line between virtue and vice is one
dividing the whole of mankind.
7
 This difference it is that distinguishes
Tragedy and Comedy also;
 The one would make its personages
worse, and the other better, than the
men of the present day.
8
3) Manners
 The manners
simple narration (The dithyramb)
the poet everywhere appears and never
conceals himself
imitation (The tragedy and comedy )
he assimilation of himself to another, either by
the use of voice or gesture
a union of the two (The epic, other styles
of poetry )
9
4) Origins
 4) Origins of poetry and human nature
 Imitation is natural to man from
childhood. --- Learning first by
imitation.
 Delight in learning. --- The sense of
harmony and rhythm.
10
Imitation,
then, is one instinct of our nature.
 Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony'
and rhythm, meters being manifestly
sections of rhythm.
 Persons, therefore, starting with this
natural gift developed by degrees their
special aptitudes, till their rude
improvisations gave birth to Poetry.
11
5) Compare
 5) Compare the Three:
Comedy-Tragedy-Epic
Comedy, an imitation of men worse than the average.
Epic poetry is one kind of verse and in narrative form.
in its length, no fixed limit of time.
 ☆Tragedy should be within a single circuit of the sun.
All the parts of an epic are included in Tragedy, but those of
Tragedy are not all of them to be found in the Epic.
12
13
14
15
16
6) Tragedy
 The definition of Tragedy:
 1/is the imitation of an action that is serious and
also, as having magnitude, complete in itself;
 2/in language with pleasurable accessories each kind
brought in separately in the parts of the work;
 3/in a dramatic not a narrative form;
with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to
accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
17
 ☆The six parts of Tragedy:
Means (Diction, Melody) Objects (Plot,
Character, Thought) Manner (Spectacle)
 ☆The order of the six parts:
Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Melody,
Spectacle
18
Chapter 23 ----26
Comparing the Epic & the
Tragedy
 23) forms
 ①a single action, whole and complete,
with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
 ②History: one period; several events;
no single result /// Drama: single action
 ③Homer: detaches a single portion,
and admits as episodes many events
19
24) kinds
 ①kinds---simple, or complex, or
'ethical‘ (Character) or pathetic (Suffering)

②parts--- Reversals of the Situation,
Recognitions, and Scenes of Suffering
 the Iliad is at once simple and 'pathetic'
the Odyssey complex (for Recognition scenes
20
run through it
 ☆The Poet
 should say very little in propria persona, as
he is no imitator when doing that.
 tell a story with additions.
 Use paralogism to frame lies in the right way.
Bath-story in Odyssey p40
21
 ☆A likely impossibility is preferable to an
unconvincing possibility.

the poet should prefer probable
impossibilities to improbable possibilities.
 For instance: Hamlet
 ☆character and thought are merely obscured
by a diction that is over-brilliant
22
25) As regards Problems and
their Solutions
 ⑴ imitate three objectsthings as they were or are,
things as they are said or thought to be,
things as they ought to be.
 ⑵ Two kinds of errors:
 His art itself is at fault.
Lack of power of expression Unrecognizable worse
 The technical error.
Not to know describe in incorrect ways lesser error
23
 (3) five sources from critical objections
 impossible, irrational, (no inner necessity)
morally hurtful, contradictory, contrary to
artistic correctness
 Sophocles drew men as they ought to be;
 Euripides drew men as they are.
24
26) Tragedy is superior
 ☆Is the Tragedy a vulgar art?
 No, the critic is to Interpreter overdid; the
movement of ignoble people
 the Tragedy has an the epic elements
 the music and spectacular effects-- the most
vivid of pleasures
 it has vividness of impression in reading as
well as in representation
 the art attains its end within narrower limits
25
☆So,
 Tragedy is higher form of art, attaining
the poetic effect better than the Epic.
26
27