Transcript Aristotle’s Poetica

Aristotle’s Poetica
*Conventions of Greek Drama*
Aristotle’s Poetica
• This text is Aristotle’s theory on drama, and the general
effects of drama on humanity.*
• It dates back more than 2300 years ago, and is written
about 100 years after the plays of Sophocles. Aristotle
looks back on Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, for
evidence on what makes good tragedy, and how tragedy
could be used for the edification of all of us. **
• Can art instruct us all to live better lives? Aristotle felt
that not only COULD it do so, but that tragedy was not
effective unless it DID so.
• Nietzsche would do the same, in developing his Birth of
Tragedy: Where the Poetica deals with Man and Fate,
Nietzsche is concerned with conflicting ideas of Passion
and Civilization. He looks to Hamlet for answers….
Aristotle’s Poetica
• “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that
is serious, complete and of a certain
magnitude; in language embellished with
each kind of artful ornament, the several
kinds being found in separate parts of the
play, in the form of action, not narration,
through pity and fear effecting the proper
purgation of these and similar emotions.”
Aristotle’s Poetica
• Imitation: Not life, but the quintessence of a serious
aspect of life. Not participatory; that is, no longer ritual
or rapture. The audience should suspend its disbelief.
• Magnitude: Good tragedy deals with a very primal,
universal life issue. In the tragedy, this problem affects
kings and others who are above ordinary. Even the
mighty can fall.
• Ornament: High diction, song, verse, dance, masks: all
to create a spectacle that is uplifting, elevating,
transporting….like a Gothic cathedral, or the ornaments
of the Mass. The audience is expected to keep its
aesthetic distance, and in part, ornament or spectacle
helps to achieve this: While transporting, it is also unreal.
Aristotle’s Poetica
• Several Parts: The plays are constructed in episodes
connected by action and the effects of the action:
Aristotle identifies only beginning, middle, and end,
although Greek drama has five episodes. Renaissance
drama is largely structured with this form as a model.
The dramas also include prologue and epilogue, envoi,
choral odes (strophe, antistrophe, epode) choral
dialogues and soliloquy.
• The plays were written in iambic trimeter, similar in
rhythm to the blank verse that Shakespeare used. Also
similar is that only men performed on the Greek stage,
although the use of masks made it easier for men to
perform women’s roles than in Shakespeare’s time.
Aristotle’s Poetica
• Action: No action is wasted! Every action has an effect that counts.
Each plot element is connected causally with the others. The plot is
accretive, building on actions of the tragic hero. Although fate is
inescapable, the tragic hero affects his own catastrophe through
hamartia. The plot builds to the anagnoresis, followed by
catastrophe.*
• mimesis: to show a narrative
• diegesis: to tell a narrative*
Dynamic Plot Structure: Elements of plot connected causally.
Episodic Plot Structure: Plot elements repeat as hero tries to reach his
goal.
Aristotle’s Poetica
• Purgation: Catharsis of the audience at the catastrophe
of the play. Once you experience terror vicariously, you
yourself can better cope with the trauma of life and gain
the heroic courage needed to continue to find meaning in
our meager lives. The tragedy provides the means by
which we can vicariously practice to find the strength to
face, not avoid, the inevitable traumas of life, even death
itself, and find meaning.
Conventions of a Tragic Hero*
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High or noble individual whose goal is noble
Has hamartia
His misfortune is greater than he deserves
He acts in ways that lead him into catastrophe,
although he believes he is doing the right thing!
(peripeteia)
• He sees the error of his ways, but it is too late
(anagnoresis) and he cannot avoid catastrophe.
Conventions of Greek Tragedy
• Hamartia or Tragic Flaw: A character flaw that results
in the tragic hero’s making poor choices, and not seeing
the flaws in his own actions. The tragic hero often will
proclaim defiance, never believes he is wrong, or
misguidedly welcomes adversity. Hubris: Excessive
pride.*
• Spectacle: Greek Tragedy is high form: Verse, music...
• Dramatic Irony: Audience is aware of the web the tragic
hero is weaving. This is important because tragedy is
meant to model or instruct. Our eyes are open to the
irrevocable path of fate, and to the hamartia of the tragic
hero. We are to have empathy for the tragic hero, yet
keep aesthetic distance to be able to “correct” the errors
of passion or hamartia.
Conventions of Greek Tragedy
• Dynamic Plot Structure: Different from epic poetry!
Every action matters! This bears weight on the tragic
hero’s hamartia.
• Peripeteia (Peripety): Reversal of fortune, most often
due to the actions of the tragic hero, who creates an
effect opposite of what is desired. The tragic hero
tightens the noose around his own neck, often
unwittingly.*
• Reversal: Moment in rising action when it seems that
the protagonist will take action in opposition of the goal
he seeks.
• Anagnoresis: Disclosure or epiphany of the protagonist
where he recognizes his place in the universe, too late,
and recognizes that he himself is the reason he is at
catastrophe.
Conventions of Greek Tragedy
• Agon: Serious universal human truth or question at the heart of
every good tragedy.
• Protagonist: The main character who takes one side of the
argument. NOTE: Greek tragedy had a limit of three main
characters. Comedy was more flexible.
• Antagonist: The force or character who takes the other side of the
argument. In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is both! The antagonist is NOT
the bad guy. If the agon is truly a serious human question, there is
no easy right or wrong! And this is why good tragedy is so
compelling: The hardest choices you will make in life will be the
ones with no easy answers.
• Other terms include: deuteragonist and tritagonist. (Second and third
characters in the play. The deuteragonist will function as antagonist
in many plays.)
Conventions of a Tragic Hero
• The Three Unities: Time, Place, Action (plot). This ideal
is not part of the Poetica, but comes from 17th and 18th
century neoclassical theater, as based on classical
theater. Drama could have only one setting and one plot,
and must take place during one day. This ideal was not
part of English Renaissance theater, largely because
Shakespeare ignored all of these aspects of Greek
theater in his plays.
• Divine Intervention: Often part of Greek theater to
propel the plot, and to provide the resolution. As in
Renaissance theater, gods or magical beings entered
and exited via deus ex machina.
• Prophecy: Provides the condition for the tragedy and
the setting for it. Human action provides the cause.*
Aristotle’s Poetica
• Tragedy provides deep emotional empathy for the tragic
hero. Through catharsis, the audience can understand
how realistic human flaws cause the tragic hero to
disregard divine warning or moral laws, and the
understandable mistakes in judgment that he makes is
edifying for us.
• The tragic hero can rise, assert splendor and even bring
down evil forces with him, acknowledging that there is no
escaping fate. Tragedy touches on the greatness of
humanity, and reveals an individual’s ability to ascend to
the heights of human potential in the face of an
antagonistic force he knows will eventually destroy him.
Aristotle’s Poetica
• It is important to remember that tragedy means
exactly that. There is no easy answer to the
agon—there are only conflicting, and seemingly
rational responses that are mutually exclusive
and serve to destroy the tragic hero. The
paradox is that there is nobility in the human
struggle to live honorably within our clouded
perception, and that of this struggle, wisdom
comes, always painfully, in the acceptance and
understanding of our humanity, and of our place
in the world: imperfect, flawed, mortal, yet
blessed with joy, love, hope—and endurance.