Poetics

Background video:

What makes a story great?

Aristotle defined this for us

Aristotle:
Ancient greek philosopher, student of Plato
Work continues to shape the field of ethics politics and literature
Written 335BC
Earliest surviving piece of literary theory
Offers analysis of the practise of storytelling etc.
Aristotle argues: humans are drawn to imitiation- why stories are important

Section on comedy lost

What exists focuses on tragedy
Methods in them can be seen in today’s media

6 principles:
1) Plot
2) Character
3) Thought
4) Diction
5) Spectacle
6) Song

Chapter 1: Plot
Most important element of a narrative medium
A good plot has a beginning, middle and end
The arc of a story can be split into rising and falling action
- ‘Complication and unravelling’

Three crucial beats for tragedies:

Peripeteia- a sudden reversal of fortune e.g. Danny crowned May Queen
Anagnorisis- when a character makes a critical discovery e.g. Danny discovering the
infidelity
Catharsis- the emotional relief in an audience e.g. Danny purges the feelings built up
through film,
- Normally all three used for satisfying ending

Importance of causality
- Compelling stories should have scenes wit a clear cause and effect between each
other

Three Act structure:

Each plot point builds on each other before the ultimate climax
“If any one scene is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed or disturbed’
- If it can be removed without this, it has no place
- Each scene directly related to the last, building on what comes before
Episodic- acts without logical sequence

Unity of Action:
The story should revolve around a single drive
‘Unity of action isn't simply achieved by focusing on one main character’
‘Unity of plot does not consist in the unity of the hero, for infinitely various are the incidents in
one man’s life which cannot be reduced to unity’
KENNETH MCLEISH, 1997

Aristotle:
aged 49, he set up a teaching institution of his own in Athens; it survived for almost a
millennium, one of the longest-lasting ‘universities' of the ancient world.

Aristotle held that nothing lay outside his interest or the scope of his science. His
chief researches were into the phenomena of Nature, and he made minute study of
rocks, plants, animal form and movement, the stars and the morphology of
the Earth. He was interested in human behaviour, and wrote about character,
relationships and politics. He lectured on ethics, morality, religion, psychology,
grammar and the techniques of persuasion

By time of Aristotle, The work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and others,

so far from being a goal to which other writers aspired, had come to be regarded
as out of tune with the sensibilities and style of the new generation; spectacle
had begun to take the place of substance

Aristotle in Poetics seems persistently to imply, without ever saying explicitly, that if
more writers of the present followed the routes taken by geniuses of the past -
routes he sets out in detail - both drama and its spectators would be far
healthier.

In summary, he said that if you believe that the prime human objectives are to
discover what 'virtue' is and then aspire to it, you should deal only in truth, in actuality

POETICS CHALLENGES THIS:

Aristotle poses that the pleasure from the arts is moral and didactic force
- We see imitations of reality and compare to reality itself
- This is enjoyable, and morally intrusive
This happens regardless of whether the actions in the art ar good or bad
Chief duty of the artist: provide imitations technically as perfect as we can make
them
- Aristotle tells us how to do this

POETICS IS ESSENTIALLY A MAP ON BEST PRACTISE IN LITERARY FORMS.

- He most rates tragedy and epic

Aristotle’s time thought modern art to be jaded and degenerate, falling short of the
big aims of the artists past
E.g. Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus
LOGIC:
Aristotle guided y his own passion for logic and order
He believes wor should be unified, congruent
Axiomatic that chaos inferior to order
- Therefore, everything in the universe has a hierarchy
- Men superior to women, both above slaves
- Good people above the bad, and reasons can be deined
Chaos is created when someone tries to upset their hierarchical position e.g. gods
try to become mortals, or mortals try to be gods

HAMARTIA: a lapse from the ideal state of doing things

E.g. tripping over a stone, calling someone by the wrong name
Only when the dropped stitch is put right, can order be returned

What happens to pick up the dropped stitch is essential, but what happens because
of this action is incidental
- E.g. Oedipus was put right and believed in fate again via Tiresias, then his
personal reaction to blind himself was incidental

HAMARTIA IN THE RENAISSANCE

Becoming moral blindness
Christian scholars who found Poetics in Renaissance changed the whole idea
Aristotle: the restoration of order is enoug to keep Gods happy
Judeo-Christian: God must be INVOLVED to get redemption
- Human beings must acknowledge guilt
- So idea evolved to come one of moral failings
Characters became GUILTY, and to get restitution they had to realise their guilt and
atone for it. Their suffering became their penance

POETICS WAS NEVER MEANT TO HAVE A MORAL STRUCTURE

- This is what has slipped into Western view of tragedy

Second most important idea:

The THREE UNITIES

1) Unity of Action- Aristotle

2) Unity of Place- Renaissance
3) Unity of Time - Rennaissance
Action: The events of a tragedy should be coherent and inevitable, following one
step to the next to the conclusion
Place: Everything should be in a single location
Time: Events of a play should not exceed a single time-splan

ARISTOTLE’S POETICS:
Muthos- the basic elements should be assembled to produce a successful
composition

Imitation:
Chief purpose of all composition is imitation (mimesis) of reality
Ethos: imitation what people are like
Pathos: imitate what happens to the people
Praxis: imitate what they do

WHAT SEPARATES THE ART FORMS IS THE FORM OF THE IMITATION THEY
USE
Imitation is made of actions:
- People must be good or bad
- People imitated must be better or worse than us (caricatures)

The kind of imitation:

- If he things to be imitated and the means are the same, i.e. not overblown
- Then there are three kinds of imitation they can use:
a) the narrative and the assumed character of the person
b) remaining the same throughout
c) Make it appear that the characters imitated are doing what is being shown
??????

Origins and Early Development of Drama

First:
Instinct to imitate there since childhood, how we learn
- Humans love melody and rhythm
- Paired together, evolved into verse literature
Second: Satire and Tragedy

- The creators of the initiated actions, and the characters who performed them

Third: Authors developed tragedy and comedy, moving away from epics and satire
- Evolved from improvisation, tragedy from the dithyramb (wild choral hymn to
Dionysus_
- Comedy with phallic songs

Aeschylus the first to move from one actor to two

Sophocles the first to use three and paint scenery
- Gradually got its length and artistic density

Fourth: increase in other units

- Dialogue scenes, costumes, choreography etc.

Comedy:
Comedy is imitation of ‘worse’ people
Comedy is created when the average person falls from the ideal with ‘the ridiculous’
The ridiculous is a mistake or lapse in perfection which does NOT cause pain or
harm to others
- Development of comedy not known as no one took it seriously for so long

Constituent Elements of Tragedy:

Tragedy is the imitation of an action which is serious, complete and substantial. It
uses language enriched in different ways, each appropriate to its part (of the action).
It is drama (that is, it shows people performing actions) and not narration. By evoking
pity and terror it brings about the purgation (catharsis) of those emotions.

Tragedy depends on six elements:

1) Plot - MOST IMPORTANT.
2) Character
3) Language - arranging words to have meaning
4) Thought
5) Visual/ Spectacle l
6) Music/Lyricsim- the organisation of the words second most important
Muthos (Plot)
We must see the actions of the characters. In life, we have our morals but our
actions are what determines our existence.
- So in plays, we must SEE the actions and they must REFLECT the moral
qualities
Muthos is how the material is organised, and is most important in a tragedy
- Without plot, we do not have tragedy
Aristotle argues you can have excellent language, reason, expression but without
plot it is nothing. Person will do all these things poorly but a compelling plot will win.

Must have beginning, middle, end

Three crucial beats for tragedies:
Peripeteia- a sudden reversal of fortune e.g. Danny crowned May Queen
Anagnorisis- when a character makes a critical discovery e.g. Danny discovering the
infidelity
Catharsis- the emotional relief in an audience e.g. Danny purges the feelings built up
through film,
- Normally all three used for satisfying ending

ARISTOTLE CLAIMS THAT PLOT AND WORDS MOST IMPORTANT IN A TRAGEDY,

VISUAL IS NOT.
“Tragedy can make its effect independently of performance and the look of a stage
production’

Muthos must follow beginning middle end in that logical order

- MUST IMITATE A SINGLE UNIFIED AND COMPLETE SEQUENCE OF
EVENT
- Common mistake of including everything that ever happened to one person,
and assuming it is all relevant as it is about the protagonist

Tragedies can be as long as they need to be ‘Their length would be determined by

the clock’

REVERSAL AND DISCOVERY

Peripeteia- reversal ‘
- Circumstances change to their direct opposite, and should be shocking or
plausible
- E.g. Corinthian tells Oedipus the good news he doesn’t need to fear marrying
his mother but reveals to his Jocasta she is his son
Anagnorisis- change from ignorance to knowledge
- Combining with peripeteia makes best kind
Pathos- painful or fatal incident
Components of Tragedy
Dramatic structure
- Plays divided into intro, episode, conclusion and choral songs
- Prologue is everything in a tragedy, before the parados (first opening song of
the chorus at the beginning)
- Episodes come between choral songs
- Exodos- the closing, final part of the tragedy not followed by a song
- Stasima are the cholar odes, Kommos is musical lamentation between actors
and the chorus
Structural Components of a tragedy to be used together with the constituent
elements

Muthos 2
When constructing a muthos, what should we aim for/avoid? How can object of
tragedy best be achieved?
- Should be complex
- Made to represent incidents which inspire pirt of three
SHOULD NOT DO:
Good man goes from happy to unhappy
Bad man goes from unhappy to happy
- Audience will not relate or enjoy, but hate it
- We want natural justice
Even a bad man from happy to unhappy without arc
- We don’t relate to the bad character, and we don’t pity his just desserts

Heroes should be:

- Not saints, sufferings caused not be innate wickedness but by hamartia (error)
- We identify their innocence and helplessness in making the wrong choice
- Heroes should be people of high degree and reputation
Outcome should be distinct and not double

MUTHOS SHOULD BE STRONG ENOUGH THAT IF YOU NEVER SEE THE PLAY
PERFORMED, JUST HEARING THE STORY SHOULD CREATE A REACTION OF
TERROR/PITY

Traditional myth-stories should not be altered

- Worst choice in muthos ist o have a character plan a deed in full knowledge of
the outcome, and then not do it
Character
4 points to aim for:
1) Be good
2) Appropriate- e.g. manly characters
3) Fit their reality
4) Conssitent

Discovery:
Six types:
1) Discovery by marks or objects- worst kind.
2) Contrived by author- just telling the characters the thing
3) Memory
4) Deduction
5) False deduction by the audience
6) Events themselves

Writers
“Writers need to have sympathetic natures or be slightly mad”

Plays should begin as sketches in general outline and only be filled in after
- Added material should always fit the story

All tragedies need complication (desis) and resolution (lusis) knotting and unknotting
- Complication is everything from te start of the story to the moment of the
reversal
- Resolution is everything after the change of fortune
Tragedies should not have lots of stories
Chorus’ should be one of the actors

EPIC
Imiation of events in verse by narrative without actions
- Muthos shoube constructed on dramatic principles
- Structure not different to that of history
Differs in length and metre
Tragedy is unable to represent several different events happening at the same time,
it has to restrict itself to what the actors are performing at any single moment’

Epic is different, narrative forms allows simultaneous presentations of stories

ERROR- INCIDENTAL OR INTRINSIC?

Incidental: a mistake made in detail
Inherent: a mistake made because they do not have the skills to do it
CRITICISMS
1) The impossible must be justified, but it is still preferable to possible but
implausible
2) Popular tradition may be used to defend choices
3) Contradictions should be examined
4) Improbabilities in the plot and bad character- reasonable to criticise

EF’S VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET: SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK A PLAY

Philip E. Larson:
If criticism “is unwilling to rest content with the evaluation of ephemera,” he wrote,
“[it] must attempt to describe a potential object, one
that neither the dramatist, the critics, nor the reader has ever seen, or will see.”1

We must assume in plays there are no accidents

- Nothing is without signifiance
- Plays ask us to have total awareness

1) World of the play

Play is not flat literature
- We have to be able to see the world of the play, and then we can figure outt
the role of the language
We have to see the planet of the play
- What does it look like? Where are we?
- How does time behave?
- What is the climate like?
- What is the mood?
HAS TO BE EVIDENCE OF THE PLANET INTHE TEXT.

2) Social/society world of the play

Is the world a public or private space?
What kinds of patterns of the figure arrange in?
How do they appear- are they exaggerated- puppets- clowns- like us?
Who was the power?

3) What Changes in the play?

Within the play, what changes in their world from start to finish?
Time passes? Seasons?
Change in laguage?
Change in tone, mood, dress?
The action- have we moved from confused lovers to a wedding etc.
What doesn’t change- fixed points
 4) What changes in you (the reader of the play)
What does the world ask of me as I move through it? How am I meant to feel?
What am I meant to leave with?
Is this intention clear?

5) Theatrical mirrors
How are the performances signalling to you from the world?
How many copies of other worlds are in there?
How does this add to what they want to give you?

6) The characters
FINALLY- you are ready to look at the characters
Everything you take from the characters must reflect the conditions of the world you
have explored