Aristotle

Please answer the following questions, basing your answers on a close reading of our translation of Aristotle’s Poetics in its entirety. Please select each correct answer by highlighting the sentence/phrase (in bold or yellow).  Please be advised that there very likely will be more than one correct answer; you are asked to select each and every correct one. Upload your completed quiz to the turnitin.com link below before 11:59 pm Friday, October 3. Please do not upload a sheet marked with just your numbers.  This assignment is worth 100 points.

I.    The following can be said regarding Aristotle’s account of mimesis in the Poetics:
A.  The human being is the most imitative of the living animals.
B. It is absolutely clear that Aristotle’s account of imitation is consistent with the expansive sense of artistic creativity familiar to modern people and modern conceptions of creative genius.

C.  The subject matter/object of imitation is action.

D. We enjoy the imitations in which the artist reminds us of knowledge we already possess of types of people.  Such inferences are a kind of learning.

E.  Artistic imitation reproduces rather than challenges class distinctions, e.g. the distinctions between the noble and the base/ the aristocracy and plebians/ spoudaioi and phauloi.

F. Aristotle still cannot believe “it’s not butter!”

II.    True or False: Aristotle thinks that the art form tragedy is in its infancy; he believes that it will continual to develop through unpredictable artistic innovation.
T.
F.

III.    True or False:  According to Aristotle both Epic Poetry (Homer) and Tragedy deal with the nobler, more serious people and their actions.
T.
F.

IV.    True or False: Aristotle’s formal definition of the essence of tragedy can be paraphrased as that which expands our moral imagination such that our emotional identification with those less fortunate than ourselves is increased and our capacities as social critics are developed.
T.
F.

V.    Aristotle says that following about the plot of a tragedy:

A. It is the soul of tragedy.

B. It is the most important element.

C. It is a “unity” and the formal element according to which the events are structured.

D. It generally is confined to events occurring within a single day (24 hours/rotation of the sun).
E. It is satisfying insofar as it implies cognition, in the same way that a chalk outline will give more pleasure than colors arranged confusedly, i.e. from an intellectual perspective, in the manner in which a recognizable form that can be embraced by the mind is superior to unformed content.

F. Necessarily has a beginning, middle and end.   And if well-constructed will have nothing arbitrary in the end, middle and beginning points.

E.  Will be beautiful (kalos) if it is a size (magnitude) that can be known in a satisfactory sense, being neither too big nor too small.

F.  Need not have any connection with logical order, e.g. with a necessary or probable sequence of events.  A well-constructed plot may be such that it appears as events have come about completely by chance.

G.  All of the above.

VI.    Aristotle thinks that the best tragic plots will include a reversal of fortune or situation (peripateia) that inspires fear and pity.  Only in this way can the proper effect of tragedy come about; the tragic pleasure accompanying the purgation (catharsis) of these emotions.  Accordingly he asserts the following:

A. there are plays involving the rise and fall of characters of certain moral characters that inspire feelings of philanthropia but these are not, in Aristotle’s own account, the best.

B. the hero of the play should not be distinguished as a moral (or immoral) figure, but rather as a great person with a tragic flaw.

C. we don’t identify with persons who are our moral superiors or inferiors, but with those “like ourselves.”

VII.    True or False?  The Spectacle (the actual public performance) has an emotional attraction but is the least essential part of tragic imitation.
T.
F.

VIII.    True or False? According to Aristotle the pleasure one has in a happy ending is not tragedy pleasure but evidence of weakness.
T.
F.

IX.    True or False? Only a few families furnish the material of tragedy.
T.
F.

X.    True or False? Aristotle believes that it is inappropriate for women in tragedy to exhibit the courage (he thinks is) specifically characteristic of men.
T.
F.

Provided by The Internet Classics Archive.
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http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/poetics.html

Poetics
By Aristotle

Translated by S. H. Butcher
(with slight corrections by Professor Sotos)

———————————————————————-

SECTION 1

Part I

I propose to consider poetics itself and its various forms (eidos); the capacity (dynamis) appropriate to each form and how it is necessary to arrange the plot (mythos…the formal element) if the poetic thing is to be kalos (beautiful and high-class). Differentiating the how many and the what sort, still further I propose to treat whatever else falls within the same method of philosophical inquiry. Following, then, the order of nature (phusis), let us first begin with first principles.

Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the
music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all,
taken as a whole, imitation (mimesis). They differ, however, from one another in three distinct respects- 1. the species-type (genos) or medium of imitation; 2. the objects imitated; 3. and the manner of imitation. [the in what/through what, the what, the how].

For as there are persons (painters) who, either by conscious art or mere unconscious knack, imitate objects through the medium of color and form, or again by the voice (singers); so generally in the arts above mentioned (Epic, Tragedy, Comedy and Dithyrambic poetry) the imitation (mimesis) is produced by rhythm, language, or ‘harmony,’ either singly or combined (in these media).

Thus in the music of the flute and of the lyre, ‘harmony’ and rhythm
alone are employed; also other arts, such as the shepherd’s
pipe, are essentially similar to these. In dancing, rhythm alone
is used without ‘harmony’; for dancing imitates (mimesis) character (ethos), suffering (pathos) and action (praxis), by rhythmical movement. [character, suffering and action are what is imitated, as we see shortly in Section II]

There is another art which imitates (mimesis) in the medium of language alone, and that either in prose or verse- which verse, again, may either combine different meters or consist of but one kind- but this has hitherto
been without a name. For there is no common term we could apply to
the mimes (short works) of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues on the one hand; and, on the other, to poetic imitations in iambic, elegiac, or any similar meter. People do, indeed, add the word ‘maker’ or ‘poet’ to the name of the meter, and speak of elegiac poets, or epic (that is, hexameter) poets, as if it were not the imitation (mimesis) that makes the poet, but the verse that entitles them all to the name. Even when a treatise on medicine or natural science is brought out in verse,
the name of poet is by custom given to the author; and yet Homer and
Empedocles have nothing in common but the meter, so that it would
be right to call the one a poet (Homer), the other a physicist (Empedocles) rather than a poet. On the same principle, even if a writer in his poetic imitation were to combine all meters, as Chaeremon did in his play the Centaur, which is a medley composed of meters of all kinds, we should bring him too under the general term poet. [a key historical point is that philosophy and natural science first emerged within the poetry of the primarily oral culture that preceded the Sophist Enlightenment and later philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.]

So much then for these distinctions.
There are, again, some arts which employ all the media above mentioned-namely, rhythm, tune, and meter. Such are Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry, and also Tragedy and Comedy; but between them originally the difference is, that in the first two cases these means are all employed in combination, in the latter, now one means is employed, now another.

Such, then, are the differences of the arts with respect to the medium
of imitation.

Part II [the objects imitated, the what, the subject matter]

The imitators imitate men acting (action) and it is necessary for men acting to be either serious, high-class men (spoudaioi) or lowly, base men (phauloi). For ethical characters (ethos) almost always align with these types as do all distinctions according to excellence (arête) and baseness (kakia). It follows that we must represent men either as either our superiors, our lessors, or at the same level as ourselves. It is the same in painting. Polygnotus depicted men as mightier, Pauson as worse, Dionysius drew them similar.

Now it is evident that each of the modes of imitation above mentioned
will exhibit these differences, and become a distinct kind in imitating
the distinct habits of the different classes of men. Such differences may be found even in dancing, flute-playing, and lyre-playing. So again in language (logoi, speeches), whether prose or verse unaccompanied by music. Homer, for example, makes men superiors; Cleophon as they are; Hegemon the Thasian, the inventor of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the Deiliad, make/imitate inferiors. The same thing holds good of Dithyrambs and Nomes; here too one imitates different types, as Timotheus and Philoxenus differed in representing their Cyclopes. The same distinction marks off Tragedy from Comedy; for Comedy aims at imitating the inferiors of us now; Tragedy the superiors.

Part III

There is still a third difference- the manner (the how) in which each of these objects may be imitated. For the medium being the same, and the objects the same, the poet may imitate by narration- in which case he can either take another personality as Homer [inspired by the Muses] does, or speak in his own person, unchanged- or by a direct enactment of all roles.

These, then, as we said at the beginning, are the three differences
which distinguish artistic imitation- the medium, the objects, and
the manner. So that from one point of view, Sophocles [the great tragedian of the classical period] is an imitator
of the same kind as Homer- for both imitate higher types of character;
from another point of view, and of the same kind as Aristophanes [the great writer of the Old Comedy in the classical period]- for
both imitate persons acting and doing. Hence, some say, the name of
‘drama’ is given to such poems, as representing action. For the same
reason the Dorians claim the invention both of Tragedy and Comedy.
The claim to Comedy is put forward by the Megarians- not only by those
of Greece proper, who allege that it originated under their democracy,
but also by the Megarians of Sicily, for the poet Epicharmus, who
is much earlier than Chionides and Magnes, belonged to that country.
Tragedy too is claimed by certain Dorians of the Peloponnese. In each
case they appeal to the evidence of language. The outlying villages,
they say, are by them called komai, by the Athenians demoi: and they
assume that comedians were so named not from komazein, ‘to revel,’
but because they wandered from village to village (kata komas), being
excluded contemptuously from the city. They add also that the Dorian
word for ‘doing’ is dran, and the Athenian, prattein.

This may suffice as to the number and nature of the various modes
of imitation.

Part IV

Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them
(metaphysical) causes rooted in (eternally fixed) nature. First, imitation is inborn in human beings from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and having seen he happens to learn and to syllogize with respect to each thing, for example that this man is “a such and such’ type of person.

And no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts of experience. Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again is, that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited. Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, ‘Ah, that is he.’ For if you happen not to have seen the original, the pleasure will be due not to the
imitation as such, but to the execution, the coloring, or some such
other cause.

Imitation, then, exists for us according to nature. Also according to nature (kata physis) are ‘harmony’ and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. In the earliest times, those most musically-inclined by nature incrementally developed their inherent aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry.

Poetry now diverged in two directions, according to the inherent aptitude /characters (oikeia ethos) of the poets. The more serious poets imitated noble actions (kaloi praxeis) and the actions of such (serious) men (spoudaioi). The more trivial sort imitated the actions
of meaner persons, at first composing satires, as the former (serious ones) did hymns to the gods and the praises of famous men. A poem of the satirical kind cannot indeed be put down to any author earlier than Homer; thoughmany such writers probably there were. But from Homer onward, instances can be cited- his own Margites, for example, and other similar compositions. The appropriate meter was also here introduced; hence the measure is still called the iambic or lampooning measure, being that in which people lampooned one another. Thus the older poets were distinguished kas writers of heroic or of lampooning verse.

As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he
alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation so he too
first laid down the main lines of comedy, by dramatizing the ludicrous
instead of writing personal satire. His Margites bears the same relation
to comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to tragedy. But when Tragedy
and Comedy came to light, the two classes of poets still followed
their natural bent: the lampooners became writers of Comedy, and the
Epic poets were succeeded by Tragedians, since the drama was a larger
and higher form of art.

Whether Tragedy has as yet perfected its proper types or not; and
whether it is to be judged in itself, or in relation also to the audience-
this raises another question. Be that as it may, Tragedy- as also
Comedy- was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the
authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs,
which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by
slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural (physis) form, and there it stopped.

Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the importance
of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the dialogue. Sophocles
raised the number of actors to three, and added scene-painting. Moreover, it was not till late that the short plot was discarded for one of
greater magnitude (megethos), and the grotesque diction of the earlier satiric form for the stately manner of Tragedy. The iambic measure then replaced the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally employed when the poetry was of the satyric order, and had greater with dancing. Once dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure. For the iambic is, of all measures, the most colloquial we see it in the fact that conversational speech runs into iambic lines more frequentlythan into any other kind of verse; rarely into hexameters, and only when we drop the colloquial intonation. The additions to the number of ‘episodes’ or acts, and the other accessories of which tradition
tells, must be taken as already described; for to discuss them in
detail would, doubtless, be a large undertaking.

Part V

Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation (mimesis) of characters of a lower type (phauloi)- not, however, in the full sense of the visciousness;  the ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly/shameful (aischros). It consists in some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain.

The successive changes through which Tragedy passed, and the authors
of these changes, are well known, whereas Comedy has had no history,
because it was not at first treated seriously. It was late before
the Archon granted a comic chorus to a poet; the performers were till
then voluntary. Comedy had already taken definite shape when comic
poets, distinctively so called, are heard of. Who furnished it with
masks, or prologues, or increased the number of actors- these and
other similar details remain unknown. As for the plot, it came originally
from Sicily; but of Athenian writers Crates was the first who abandoning
the ‘iambic’ or lampooning form, generalized his themes and plots.

Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in
verse of characters of a higher type (spoudaioi). They differ in that Epic poetry admits but one kind of meter and is narrative in form. They differ,
again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavors, as far as possible,
to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly
to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no limits of time.
This, then, is a second point of difference; though at first the same
freedom was admitted in Tragedy as in Epic poetry.

Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar
to Tragedy: whoever, therefore knows what is good or bad Tragedy,
knows also about Epic poetry. All the elements of an Epic poem are
found in Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found
in the Epic poem.

Part VI

Of the poetry which imitates in hexameter verse, and of Comedy, we
will speak hereafter. Let us now discuss Tragedy, resuming its formal
definition (according to its metaphysical essence ousia), as resulting from what has been already said.

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious (spoudaios), complete (telos, with finalized perfection) and of a certain magnitude/serious grandeur (megethos), 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 (catharsis) of these emotions.

By ‘language embellished,’ I mean language into which rhythm, ‘harmony’ and song enter. By ‘the several kinds in separate parts,’ I mean, that some parts are rendered through the medium of verse alone, others again with the aid of song.

Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily follows
in the first place, that Spectacular equipment will be a part of Tragedy.
Next, Song and Diction, for these are the media of imitation. By ‘Diction’ I mean the mere metrical arrangement of the words: as for ‘Song,’ it is a term whose sense everyone understands.

Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies
personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities
both of character(ethos) and thought (dianoia); for it is by these that we qualifyactions themselves, and these- thought and character- are the two
natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions again all
success or failure depends.

Hence, the Plot (mythos0 is the imitation of the action- for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents/construction of events.

By Character (ethos) I mean that in virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents.

Thought (dianoia) is required wherever a statement is proved,
or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.

Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality- namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song. Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation, one the manner, and three the objects of imitation. And these complete the list.

These elements have been employed, we may say, by the poets to a man; in fact, every play contains Spectacular elements as well as Character, Plot, Diction, Song, and Thought.

But most important of all is the Plot (mythos) structure of the incidents. For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men (anthropoi, humanity in a general or broad sense), but of an action and of life, and life
consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.

Now character determines men’s qualities, but it is by their actions
that they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action, therefore, is
not with a view to the representation of character: character comes
in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence the incidents and the plot
are the end (telos) of a tragedy; and the end (telos) is the chief thing of all.

Again, without action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without character. The tragedies of most of our modern poets fail in the rendering of character; and of poets in general this is often true. It is the same in painting; and here lies the difference between Zeuxis and Polygnotus.

Polygnotus delineates character well; the style of Zeuxis is devoid
of ethical quality. Again, if you string together a set of speeches
expressive of character, and well finished in point of diction and
thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so
well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet
has a plot and artistically constructed incidents.

Besides which, the most powerful elements of emotional interest in Tragedy- Peripeteia or Reversal of the Situation, and Recognition scenes- are parts of the plot. A further proof is, that novices in the art attain to finish of diction and precision of portraiture before they can construct the plot. It is the same with almost all the early poets.

The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul
of a tragedy; Character holds the second place. A similar fact is
seen in painting. The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will
not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait. Thus
Tragedy is the imitation of an action, and of the agents mainly with
a view to the action.

Third in order is Thought- that is, the faculty of saying what is
possible and pertinent in given circumstances. In the case of oratory,
this is the function of the political art and of the art of rhetoric:
and so indeed the older poets make their characters speak the language
of civic life; the poets of our time, the language of the rhetoricians.
Character is that which reveals inclination (proairesis), showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids. Speeches, therefore, which do not make this manifest, or in which the speaker does not choose or avoid
anything whatever, are not expressive of character. Thought, on the
other hand, is found where something is proved to be or not to be,
or a general maxim is enunciated.

Fourth among the elements enumerated comes Diction; by which I mean, as has been already said, the expression of the meaning in words;
and its essence is the same both in verse and prose.

Of the remaining elements Song holds the chief place among the embellishments The Spectacle (the public performance) has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. [For Aristotle there is no essential difference between reading a tragedy and seeing it performed in public] Besides, the production
of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist
than on that of the poet.

Part VII

These principles being established, let us now discuss the proper
structure of the Plot, since this is the first and most important
thing in Tragedy.

Now, according to our definition Tragedy is an imitation of an action
that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude; for there
may be a whole that is wanting in magnitude. A whole is that which
has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does
not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something
naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which
itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or
as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows
something as some other thing follows it. A well-constructed plot,
therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to
these principles.

Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any
whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement
of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends
on magnitude and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot
be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object being seen
in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of
vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once,
the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for
instance if there were one a thousand miles long. As, therefore, in
the case of animate bodies and organisms a certain magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length which can be easily embraced by the memory/coherently recalled. The limit of length in relation to dramatic competition and sensuous presentment is no part of artistic theory.

For had it been the rule for a hundred tragedies to compete together,
the performance would have been regulated by the water-clock- as indeed we are told was formerly done. But the limit as fixed by the nature of the drama itself is this: the greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous. And to define the matter roughly, we may say that the
proper magnitude is comprised within such limits, that the sequence
of events, according to the law of probability or necessity, will
admit of a change from bad fortune to good, or from good fortune to
bad.

Part VIII

Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in the unity
of the hero/built around the development of an individual. For infinitely various are the incidents in one man’s life which cannot be reduced to unity; and so, too, there are many actions of one man out of which we cannot make one action. Hence the error, as it appears, of all poets who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other poems of the kind. They imagine that as Heracles was one man, the story of Heracles must also be a unity. But Homer, as in all else he is of surpassing merit, here too- whether from art or according to (his) nature (physis)- seems to have happily discerned the truth. In composing the Odyssey he did not include all the adventures of Odysseus- such as his wound on Parnassus, or his feigned madness at the mustering of the host- incidents between which there was no necessary or probable connection: but he made the Odyssey, and likewise the Iliad, to center round an action that in our sense of the word is one.

As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the imitation is one when the object imitated is one, so the plot, being an imitation of an action, must
imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts
being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole
will be disjointed and disturbed. For a thing whose presence or absence
makes no visible difference, is not an organic part of the whole.

Part IX

It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the
function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen-
what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.
The poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose.
The work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still
be a species of history, with meter no less than without it. The true
difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may
happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing
than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the
particular. By the universal I mean how a person of a certain type
on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the names she attaches to the personages. The particular is- for example- what Alcibiades did or suffered. In Comedy this is already apparent: for here the poet first constructs the plot on the lines of probability, and then
inserts characteristic names- unlike the lampooners who write about
particular individuals. But tragedians still keep to real names, the
reason being that what is possible is credible: what has not happened
we do not at once feel sure to be possible; but what has happened
is manifestly possible: otherwise it would not have happened. Still
there are even some tragedies in which there are only one or two well-known names, the rest being fictitious. In others, none are well known-
as in Agathon’s Antheus, where incidents and names alike are fictitious,
and yet they give none the less pleasure. We must not, therefore,
at all costs keep to the received legends, which are the usual subjects
of Tragedy. Indeed, it would be absurd to attempt it; for even subjects
that are known are known only to a few, and yet give pleasure to all.
It clearly follows that the poet or ‘maker’ should be the maker of
plots rather than of verses; since he is a poet because he imitates,
and what he imitates are actions. And even if he chances to take a
historical subject, he is none the less a poet; for there is no reason
why some events that have actually happened should not conform to
the law of the probable and possible, and in virtue of that quality
in them he is their poet or maker.

Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot
‘episodic’ in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without
probable or necessary sequence. Bad poets compose such pieces by their
own fault, good poets, to please the players; for, as they write show
pieces for competition, they stretch the plot beyond its capacity,
and are often forced to break the natural continuity.

But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action,
but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best produced
when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened