ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 1 - IMITATION (Medium)

 Epic poetry, Tragedy, Comedy, Dithyrambic: poetry, music of the flute and of the lyre -
>are modes of imitation.
 the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case
distinct.
 imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or 'harmony,' either singly or
combined.
 the music of the flute and of the lyre, shepherd’s pipe, -> 'harmony' and rhythm alone
 dancing,->rhythm alone (dancing imitates character, emotion, and action, by
rhythmical movement.)
 Prose or verse imitates by means of language alone
 the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogue -> no common term
can be applied.
 epic (that is,hexameter) poets,
 Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common but the met the one poet, the other
physicist
 a writer in his poetic imitation were to combine all metres, as Chaeremon did in his
Centaur.

 some arts which employ all the means above mentioned, namely, rhythm, tune, and
metre. Dithyrambic, Nomic poetry, Tragedy and Comedy;
 Dithyrambic, Nomic poetry ->these means are all employed in combination
 Tragedy and Comedy->, now one means is employed, now another.

ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 2 - IMITATION (Object)

 Objects of imitation are men in action-> men must be either of a higher or a
lower type
 men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are.
 In painting. Polygnotus depicted men as nobler than they are, Pauson as less
noble, Dionysius drew them true to life
 Homer, makes men better than they are; Cleophon as they are;
 Hegemon the Thasian, the inventor of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of
the Deiliad, worse than they are.
 Dithyrambs and Nomes; here too one may portray different types
 Timotheus and Philoxenus differed in representing their Cyclopes.
 Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual
life.
ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 3 - IMITATION (Manner)
 For the medium being the same, and the objects the same, the poet may imitate by
narration—in which case he can either 1) take another personality as Homer does,
2) or speak in his own person, unchanged—
3) or he may present all his characters as living and moving before us.
 Sophocles is an imitator of the same kind as Homer—for both imitate higher types of
character;
 another POV, Sophocles of the same kind as Aristophanes—for both imitate persons
acting and doing.
 name of 'drama' is given to such poems, as representing action
  Dorians claim the invention both of Tragedy and Comedy.
 The claim to Comedy is put forward by the Megarians-> originated under their
democracy,(Greece)
 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. -> the evidence of
language.
 'doing' is {delta rho alpha nu} , {kappa omega mu 'alpha zeta epsilon iota
nu}, 'to revel,'
ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 4 – ORIGIN OF POETRY
 Poetry sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. -> instinct for
imitation, instinct for harmony and rhythm, metres
 First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood
 Man is the most imitative of living creatures
 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.
 cause -> to learn gives the liveliest pleasure,
 if you happen not to have seen the original, the pleasure will be due not to the
imitation but to the execution, the colouring, or some such other cause.
 Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, metres
 Persons starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till
their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry.
 Poetry now diverged in two directions, The graver spirits imitated noble
actions, and the actions of good men.
 The more trivial sort imitated the actions of meaner persons, at first composing
satires, as the former did hymns to the gods and the praises of famous men.
 poem of the satirical kind – Homer’s Margites (one of the first)
 measure is still called the iambic or lampooning measure
 the older poets were distinguished as writers of heroic or of lampooning verse.
 in the serious style, Homer alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation,
first laid down the main lines of Comedy, by dramatising the ludicrous instead of writing
personal satire.
 His Margites bears the same relation to Comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to
Tragedy.
 the lampooners became writers of Comedy, and the Epic poets were succeeded by
Tragedians
 Tragedy originated with the authors of the Dithyramb
 Comedy originated with those of the phallic songs
 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.
 The iambic measure then replaced the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally
employed when the poetry was of the Satyric order, and had greater affinities with
dancing.
 the iambic is, of all measures, the most colloquial
 The additions to the number of 'episodes' or acts
ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 5 – COMEDY
 Comedy is an imitation of characters of a lower type,
 the Ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. 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.
  Comedy has had no history,
 late before the Archon granted a comic chorus to a poet; the performers were till
then voluntary.
 the plot, it came originally from Sicily;
 but of Athenian writers Crates was the first who, abandoning the 'iambic' or
lampooning form

 difference ->, Epic poetry admits one kind of metre, and is narrative in form.
o They differ, in their length: for Tragedy endeavours, 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.
 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.

ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 6 – TRAGEDY

 Tragedy, then, 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.
 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.
 Tragedy is the imitation of an action
 Thought and character—are the two natural causes from which actions spring
 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.
 the Plot is the imitation of the action: for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the
incidents.
 By Character I mean that in virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents.
 most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For Tragedy is an imitation, not of
men, but of an action and of life.
 Dramatic action is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes
in as subsidiary to the actions.
 The tragedies of most of our modern poets fail in the rendering of character
 the difference between Zeuxis and Polygnotus. Polygnotus delineates character well:
the style of Zeuxis is devoid of ethical quality.
 the most powerful elements of emotional: interest in Tragedy Peripeteia or Reversal of
the Situation, and Recognition scenes—are parts of the plot.
 The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy:
 Character holds the second place.
 Thought,—that is, the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given
circumstances.
 the older poets make their characters speak the language of civic life; the poets of our
time, the language of the rhetoricians.
 Thought, on the other hand, is found where something is proved to be, or not to be, or
a general maxim is enunciated.
  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.
 Song holds the chief place among the embellishments.
 The Spectacle 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.
 the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist
than on that of the poet.

ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 7 – PLOT

1. The requirement for an ideal construction of Plot is that it should be a composite whole
consisting of a well-defined Beginning, Middle and End.
2. A Beginning is not something that comes after something else as a consequence, it does
not follow anything by causal necessity. It has naturally something else after it. This does not
mean that a tragedy should begin with a beginning. It should be self-explanatory, not needing
knowledge of any earlier circumstances to understand the story.
3. An End is which naturally follows something before it, either by necessity, or by a rule, and
nothing comes after it.
4. A Middle is by nature after one thing, and another follows it.
5. A plot should have magnitude because beauty depends on magnitude and order. It should
neither be too long that while reaching its end, the beginning is forgotten, nor should it be too
short for it not to be appreciated enough. But should be of an adequate length to understand
the whole in its arrangements in three parts.
6. The length should be such that it can be retained by the memory. The magnitude should be
such that it can be embraced in one view.
7. Aristotle compares the plot to a living creature or an animal. He uses the concept of
‘organic unity’ that was also used by Plato.
8. Organic Unity implies a symmetrical and proportionate relationship or coherence between
the parts and the whole.
9. For example in a living organism each part has a relationship with the other and a distinct
relationship to the whole. Removal of any one part will disrupt the whole.
10. A general rough formula of this is stated by Bywater, a length that allows the hero passing
by a series of probable or necessary stages from misfortune to happiness or vice versa.
ARISTOTLE CHAPTER 8 – Unity of Action
1. The unity of plot does not consist of having one man as its subject.
2. A man goes through many incidents or experiences in his life, performing many deeds,
which
cannot be brought under a single unity.
3. Homer as a genius having a grasp over subjects, understands this premise and shows his
understanding in his Odyssey. This poem does not consist of all incidents of the hero’s life.
He selects only those which have a direct bearing upon the plot as a whole.
4. It is an artist’s understanding of what he wants to convey through his composition that he
may chose incidents that correspond to his needs in plot construction.
5. The action of a Tragedy should be such that the removal of any part or episode will
dislocate
the meaning of it as a whole. It will become incomplete.
6. 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.