☆An Era: 4C BCE
| | 347BCE | as the apprentice of Plato | |
| | 343/335BCE | the tutor of Alexander the Great | |
| | 323BCE | established his own school: Lyceum; peripatetic; Peripateticism | porch |
| | 322BCE | “to prevent the Athenians from sinning twice against philosophy” | |
☆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)
$ 2 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)
《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
$ 3 About Text
Chapter 1~5 Three ways for imitation
1) Means
Kinds of means: form, color, voice, rhythm, language, harmony
(<epics<Painter> <fire>dance)
there is no common term we could apply to the Socratic dialogues
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.
☆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.
3) Manners p27
e.g.① narrative & another assumed character; (recite)
②remain same throughout;
③dramatically;
in the play the personages act the story
The manners | simple narration | imitation | a union of the two |
| Definition of the three manners | the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself | The assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture | |
Pattern | The poet is the only speaker | wholly imitative | |
Example | The dithyramb | The tragedy and comedy | The epic, other styles of poetry. |
4) Origins of poetry and human nature
☆Imitation is natural to man from childhood. --- Learning first by imitation.
Delight in learning. P28 --- The sense of harmony and rhythm.
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.
☆
| Individual poet | Represents actions, personage | poem | line of poetry | originate |
| graver | noble | Hymns panegyrics | tragedy instead of epics | Dithyramb |
| meaner | ignoble | invective | comedy instead of iamb | Phallic song |
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.
Chapter 6~18 About the Tragedy
7~13 Plot 15 Character 17~18 Diction
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.
☆The six parts of Tragedy: P30
Means (Diction, Melody) Objects (Plot, Character, Thought) Manner (Spectacle)
☆The order of the six parts:
Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Melody, Spectacle
7) Plot (Fable):
☆A well-constructed Plot P31;
☆some length; Beauty is a matter of size and order.
8) Plot must represent one action with a Unity, a complete whole.
9) The Function of Plot
☆
poetry history
not has happened but might happen
thing that might be thing that has been
universal single
more philosophic, more graver import
☆Not only a complete action, but also incidents arousing pity and fear
10) Parts of Plot
Peripety (Opposite/ Reversal) P33
Discovery (done/not done)
Suffering (Painful nature)
the most powerful elements of emotional interest in Tragedy- Peripeteia or Reversal of the Situation, and Recognition(discovery) scenes- are parts of the plot.
Reversal of the Situation is a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity.
Recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune.
The best form of recognition is coincident with a Reversal of the Situation, as in the Oedipus.
Oedipus
12) Quantity of Tragedy
Prologue, Episode, Exode, choral portion ……
13)
☆Plot avoids three forms P34
☆Tragic effect depends on great error, “not by vice and depravity but some error of judgment”.
Spectacle is less artistic.
15) Character
☆Good
☆Appropriate (manly, clever is not appropriate to women )
☆Make them like the reality
☆Make them consistent and the same throughout
17) ---18) Diction
⑴ constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction
①Put actual scenes
the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes.
②The very gesture of the personages
the poet should work out his play, to the best of his power, with appropriate gestures;
e.g. The Last Emperor Blue
Hence poetry implies either a happy gift of nature or a strain of madness.
happy gift --take the mould of any character
madness-- lifted out of his proper self
⑵ for the story
① sketch its general outline
simplify to a universal form
② fill in the episodes and amplify in detail
lengthen by the insertion of episodes
| episodes | drama | Epic poetry |
| short | give extension |
e.g. the story of the Odyssey
§§§§§§
⑴ Every tragedy falls into two parts
proceed to Complication (before change)---Denouement/Unraveling (to the end)
①Complication ----from the beginning of the action to the part which marks the turning-point to good or bad fortune.
②Denouement/Unraveling ----from the beginning of the change to the end.
⑵Four distinct species of Tragedy
①the Complex (Reversal and Recognition)
②the Suffering/Pathetic (where the motive is passion)
③the Character/Ethical (where the motives are ethical)
④the Simple [the purely spectacular element]
Many poets tie the knot well, but unravel it Both arts, however, should always be mastered.
⑶ Not write a tragedy on an epic body of incident
⑷The Chorus should be regarded as one of the actors, be an integral part of the whole.
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
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 run through it
☆Epic Tragedy
Length going on simultaneously limited to the part on the stage
connected with the actors
(Technology-----montage)
Meter heroic for life and action; for dance
☆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
☆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
25) As regards Problems and their Solutions
⑴ imitate three objects- things 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
For instance: cartoon of FZK
Sophocles drew men as they ought to be;
Euripides drew men as they are.
(3) five sources from critical objections
impossible, irrational, (no inner necessity)
morally hurtful, contradictory, contrary to artistic correctness
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
☆So,
Tragedy is higher form of art, attaining the poetic effect better than the Epic.