Aristotle’s Poetics is the first philosophical account of an art form and is the foundational text in the history of aesthetics. The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the Poetics is an accessible guide to this often dense and cryptic work. Angela Curran introduces and assesses: Aristotle’s life and the background to the Poetics the ideas and text of the Poetics , including mimēsis ; poetic technē; the definition of tragedy; the elements of poetic composition; the Poetics’ recommendations for tragic (...) plot patterns; catharsis ; epic and comedy; the nature of our emotional response to drama; the proper pleasure of tragedy; and the role that art plays in a human life the relevance of Aristotle’s work in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophical psychology to the Poetics a comparison of Plato and Aristotle on the value of mimetic art the continuing importance of Aristotle’s Poetics to contemporary philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of film. (shrink)

This paper wants to address the Aristotelian analysis of the concept of mimesis from a social and cultural angle. It is going to show that mimesis is crucial if we want to understand why the institution of the theatre played such a crucial role in the civic educational programme of classical Athens. The paper’s argument is that the magic spell of theatrical imitation, its aesthetic machinery was exploited by the city for civic educational function. Dramas, and in particular (...) tragedies helped to articulate the city’s political expectations from the citizens, and they achieved it with far better efficiency than any other medium of propaganda which was available in those days. It will first reconstruct the duality within the internal structure of the Aristotelian account of mimesis in Poetics: it will show both 1.) the aesthetic and 2.) the socio-cultural dimensions of his theory of civic initiation through dramatic imitation. In the second part it will compare this Greek cultural context with a similar context in Rome in the activity and writings of Cicero. Finally, the paper presents the Renaissance republican context of early modern Europe, which also connected politico-moral education with the idea of mimesis. (shrink)

Edited by Richard McKeon, with an introduction by C.D.C. Reeve Preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars, Aristotle’s works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle—constituted out of the definitive Oxford translation and in print as a Random House hardcover for sixty years—has long been considered the best available one-volume Aristotle. Appearing in paperback at long last, this edition includes selections from the Organon, On the Heavens, (...) The Short Physical Treatises, Rhetoric, among others, and On the Soul, On Generation and Corruption, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and Poetics in their entirety. (shrink)

Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the _Tractatus Coislinianus_, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the Poetics, and fragments of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time.

A complete translation of Aristotle's classic that is both faithful and readable, along with an introduction that provides the modern reader with a means of understanding this seminal work and its impact on our culture. In this volume, Joe Sachs (translator of Aristotle's _Physics, Metaphysics,_ and the _Nicomachean Ethics _)also supplements his excellent translation with well-chosen notes and glossary of important terms. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a (...) glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Aristotle’s immediate audience. (shrink)

Both Aristotle and Tolkien are authors of short works seemingly concentrated on one form of literary art. Both works contain references which seem to extend further than that single art and offer insights into the worth and purpose of art more generally. Both men understand the relevant processes of mind of the artist in a similar way, and both distinguish the value of works of art based on their effect on the audience. But Tolkien figures the natural human artistic bent (...) as an elvish strain in us, and in his legends the elves are passing away to make way for the new—human beings. The legendary tales are an image of the natural pagan man giving place to the new man coming to be after Christ. This implies that what Aristotle called the mimetic nature of man—the source of all artistic play and work—is being given a new shape and orientation. Further, the master of those who know, in explicating catharsis, must have been reaching for something that exceeded his grasp and he did not know it. The aim of this essay is to explore the agreements (seeming and real) and disagreements (seeming and real) between what can be built up as each author’s general literary and aesthetic ideas—so, the relation between pagan and Tolkien’s Christian poetics. This will include evaluating where each is more or less adequate to the task of a general aesthetic, ending in an exploration of the purpose of art for the “new man.”. (shrink)

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there ; subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343?2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son (...) Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school, the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda. They can be categorized as follows: I Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics ; Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics ; On Virtues and Vices. II Logical: Categories; Analytics ; Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica. III Physical: Twenty-six works including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV Metaphysics: on being as being. V Art: Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes. (shrink)

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know”.Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that "beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful," but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he means, (...) Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition. The more Socrates probes, the more absurd the responses from Hippias become. This is one of Plato's best comedies and one of his finest efforts at posing the difference between particular things and universals.Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definition and analysis of tragedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed "poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history." In this postmodern era when the arts have been separated from ethics, it is worthwhile to consider Aristotle's way of connecting goodness and beauty. (shrink)

v. 1. Nicomachean ethics. Politics. The Athenian Constitution. Rhetoric. On Poetics.--v. 2. Logic.--v. 3. Physics. Metaphysics. On the soul. Short physical treaties.--v. 4. On the heavens. On generation and corruption. Meteorology. Biological treatises.

Plato and Aristotle both consider the arts to be forms of mimesis , but their meanings of mimesis do not entirely overlap. Plato employs the term mimesis with several meanings, which include reproducing the speeches, tones, and gestures of another person; the making of accurate copies or likeness of real objects; impersonating another person; and representing men in action. But his emphasis was on mimesis as the production of accurate copies of real objects , and the (...) reproduction of speeches and gestures of another person , and this has led him to conclude that artists are making redundant reproductions that contribute nothing to knowledge. Worse, these artists sometimes even mislead or deceive their spectators. He claims that painters deceive foolish men and children into believing that what they painted were real objects, and poets deceive by making false claims about the gods and heroes from legend . Hence, artists have no place in Plato’s ideal republic; and they must be expelled if they choose to stay. Although agreeing with Plato’s definition of mimesis, Aristotle defended the arts by emphasizing artistic mimesis as the representation of human action. As representations of human action, art goes beyond the production of accurate copies of the original because it has its own rules of unification and integration of parts, which enables the spectators to view artworks as coherent and intelligible wholes. Unlike the historian, the poet or dramatist describes events to satisfy the conditions of artistic unity, and it is never his intention to claim that the events he describes really took place . Plato never reached this conclusion that artworks are actually not merecopies but are entities existing in their own right, with their own rules of internal structuring that enable them to be presented as unified wholes, which means they can be intelligible to the audience without reference to originals existing in the real world. And this is because Plato did not emphasize art as representations of human action, and he chose instead to see them as mere copies or reproductions of originals existing in this world. My chief contributions would be, firstly, to show how Aristotle’s notion of mimesis distinguishes claims made in works of art from similar assertions made in the social sciences; and secondly, to support certain interpretations of artistic unity and coherence through my employment of textual analysis of the Poetics. (shrink)

This paper aims at interpreting (primarily) the first six chapters of Aristotle’s Poetics in a way that dissolves many of the scholarly arguments conceming them. It shows that Aristotle frequently identifies the object of his inquiry by opposing it to what is other than it (in several different ways). As a result aporiai arise where there is only supposed to be illuminating exclusion of one sort or another. Two exemplary cases of this in chapters 1-6 are Aristotle’s account of (...) class='Hi'>mimesis as other than enunciative speech (speech that makes truth claims, or representation) and his account of the final cause of tragedy in itself as plot, vis a vis its final cause as regards the audience, which is katharsis. Confusions arising from failure to see the otherness of representation and katharsis leads to an overly intellectualist understanding of the purpose of tragedy. (shrink)

I. ON Aristotle's supposed inconsistency in his treatment of Epic as a form of Mimesis. In his note on the Poetic c. i, 1447, a, 15, Mr. Ingram Bywater writes: ‘ In his use of mimesthai, in the Poetics Aristotle has fallen into a grave inconsistency, as he distinctly makes it in one place include narrative, and in another exclude it.’ Yet I venture to think that a careful examination of the two passages will show that Aristotle is perfectly (...) consistent, and that Mr. Bywater like his predecessors has completely misunderstood the second passage. (shrink)

This paper revisits Plato’s and Aristotle’s views on mimesis with a special emphasis on mythos as an integral part of it. I argue that the Republic ’s notorious “mirror argument” is in fact ad hominem : first, Plato likely has in mind Agathon’s mirror in Aristophanes’ Thesmoforiazusae, where tragedy is construed as mimesis ; second, the tongue-in-cheek claim that mirrors can reproduce invisible Hades, when read in combination with the following eschatological myth, suggests that Plato was not committed (...) to a mirror-like view of art; third, the very omission of mythos shows that the argument is a self-consciously one-sided one, designed to caricature the artists’ own pretensions of mirror-like realism. These points reinforce Stephen Halliwell’s claim that Western aesthetics has been haunted by a «ghostly misapprehension» of Plato’s mirror. Further evidence comes from Aristotle’s “literary” discussion: rather than to the “mirror argument”, the beginning of the Poetics points to the Phaedo as the best source of information about Plato’s views on poetry. (shrink)

The paper, which compares Plato and Aristotle's different approaches towards artistic activity, is divided into three parts. The first part discusses Plato's Ion on mimesis and technē, as well as the role that poetry plays in the Republic. The second section offers an account of Aristotle's idea of happiness as the end of action. The last section of this study deals with an attempt to reconcile Plato and Aristotle's attitude towards mimetic art in a treatise by a Neoplatonic renaissance (...) thinker, Torquato Tasso. El artículo compara las concepciones de actividad artística en Platón y Aristóteles y se divide en tres partes. En la primera, se discuten la mimesis y la technē en el Ion de Platón, así como el papel de la poesía en la República. En la segunda, se hace un recuento de la idea de felicidad de Aristóteles como fin de la acción. En la última se discute el intento de reconciliación de las posiciones de Platón y Aristóteles reali-zado por el pensador neoplatónico renacentista, Torquato Tasso. (shrink)

Includes selections from Metaphysics, Logic, Physics, Psychology, Ethics, Politics, and Poetics.

Metaphysics -- Parts of animals -- Ethics -- Politics -- Poetics.

vol. I. Logic: Categoriae. De interpretatione. Analytica priora. Analytica posteriora.--vol. II. Natural philosophy: Physica. De caelo. De generatione et corruptione.--vol. III. Psychology: De anima. Parva Naturalia.--vol. IV. Metaphysics: Metaphysica.--vol. V. Ethics: Ethica Nicomachea.--vol. VI. Politics and poetics: Politica. De poetica.

This paper aims at interpreting (primarily) the first six chapters of Aristotle’s Poetics in a way that dissolves many of the scholarly arguments conceming them. It shows that Aristotle frequently identifies the object of his inquiry by opposing it to what is other than it (in several different ways). As a result aporiai arise where there is only supposed to be illuminating exclusion of one sort or another. Two exemplary cases of this in chapters 1-6 are Aristotle’s account of (...) class='Hi'>mimesis as other than enunciative speech (speech that makes truth claims, or representation) and his account of the final cause of tragedy in itself as plot, vis a vis its final cause as regards the audience, which is katharsis. Confusions arising from failure to see the otherness of representation and katharsis leads to an overly intellectualist understanding of the purpose of tragedy. (shrink)

Contains the _Poetics _ and the first twelve chapters of the_ Rhetoric_, Book III.

The aim of this article is to present a new Polish translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, namely, those of its central chapters (6–19) that deal with the Stagirite’s explication of the mimesis of tragedy. When interpreting the first five chapters of the treatise, it is important to recognize the mimetic distinctions and forms according to means and objects as well as the question of how poetic creativity takes shape (generally from improvisation through epic to comedy and tragedy). On the basis (...) of these preliminary assumptions, Aristotle proceeds to define tragedy and analyze its components, forms and functions in more detail. Unlike the previous Polish translations of the Poetics, we have attempted here to render Aristotle’s essential technical expressions as faithfully as possible, without distorting them in accord with various concepts of modern aesthetics or literary criticism. We have also sought to preserve the Stagirite’s typical composition and his complex argument. Only in this way can the sense of Aristotle’s leading assumptions and distinctions be properly discerned. For the ease of reading, we also introduce more paragraphs and relevant subject headings into the text. (shrink)

In this text, which employs the analytic-comparative method, we read the Poetics of Aristotle in a new way to take an example of translation as an artistic creation. We can present the result of the essay as a metaphor called “the art of translation”, and then we refer to four evidences which can support our metaphor: reading the text as seeing the world, understanding the meaning as perceiving the main action, representing the text as recreating an image, and word making (...) as the art of poetic. If we want to explain the useful dimension of our research, it can be said: every translation has a moral dimension which depends on its imitation of the author’s line and reader’s culture, and also has an artistic dimension that attends to the beauty of text and new vision of culture. According to Moderation theory of Aristotle, an ideal intercultural translation sees the right of author and reader by the equal criterion. Then it shows a production that is combined with “representation”, a term which can embrace the beauty and ethic in the art of translation. Keywords: poetics, representation, artistic creation, art of translation, cultural relationship 1. Mimesis in art and translation As Aristotle has said about art and poetry, they are based on Mimesis or imitation. It means that he believes art is Mimesis. But his theory about this issue is totally different to Plato’s thought. He thinks that Mimesis is not imitation of Ideas as Plato thought. Mimesis in his thought is imitation from the existence, aspect or form of things in this world. So he emphasizes that Mimesis is imitation of something or maybe happenings outside of man. After collecting all of Aristotle’s thoughts, especially about poetry, it seems clear that the imitation or Mimesis is a representation of the subject of imitation in which sometimes the subject of imitation has been represented better than its fact, like tragedy, and sometimes worse, like Comedy. It seems that we can see translation as imitation, understanding the latter as in Aristotle’s conception of art mentioned above. Indeed, a translator at the beginning of is translation process looks at the text deeply and tries to understand it as well as possible. After that, he thinks about the value of translations. In this step, if the text has repeatability in other languages and cultures, the translator starts the imitation from an original text to create another text. It seems that this process is like what an artist does to create artworks. 2. resemblances between art and translation On the basis of Aristotle’s Poetics, we want to explain some resemblances between art and translation to describe our conception of translation as an art. We think those resemblances can convince us to see translation as an art. The first resemblance between creation of artworks and translation is at the first step of them. The first resemblance between the artistic creation and translation is in their first step. Viewing the environment and finding something for imitation is the first step of artistic creation, which is like confronting and reading a text for translation. It is clear that viewing the environment deeply and reading a text carefully are necessary for artistic creation and translation because a surface of them cannot be suitable and helpful for Mimesis or imitation. The second step of artistic creation and translation is the accurate understanding of the subject of imitation. In Fact, deep and accurate understanding is necessary for exact imitation. Without comprehensive understanding, imitation of things is not possible. Both artist and translator in the process of imitation should take this step. In the other words, it seems that by deep and exact understanding they can find the direction of similarity between subject of imitation and artwork or translated text. Rewriting text in a new language like representing an image is the third step of imitation that is visible in the process of artistic creation and translation. In this step, combining their understanding and viewing the environment, translator and artist try to create the subject of imitation in a new style and a new form. The last step of imitation in artistic creation and translation is that of choosing colors in art and words and other literary elegances in translation, and using them. In this step, paying attention to details of their work, artist and translator try to create a new thing that is similar to the subject of imitation, although it is a new thing and there may be some differences between them. As was stated, the understanding of the subject of imitation by artist and translator is a very important step, in which, however, their thought of the subject of imitation is not totally the same as it, and so, during creating the new thing their understanding and thought can affect the form and the style of the new thing. 3. conclusion In conclusion, it seems that, because of the similarity between art and translation based on Aristotle’s conception of art, we can move from ethical and aesthetic functions of art, and artist’s moral duty in creating art, to the same aspects in translation and translator. In other words, based on Aristotle conception, while translator makes a faithful imitation and a creative presentation of the source, after the ethical decision to translate and promote the original text, he should pay attention to linguistic and cultural details of his translation. In this regard, while observing his audience in the target language, he also refreshes his insights and attitudes because this two-sided view, the center of gravity of moderation, will take into account the aspects of beauty and ethics in the cultural interactions of societies. References - Aristotle,, Ethics of Nicomachus, translation of Mohammad Hasan Lotfi, Tehran, New Design. - Aristotle,, About the Art of Poetry, Translated by Soheil Mohsen Afnan, Tehran, Hekmat. - Aristotle,, Fan al-Sha’r, Abdul Rahman Badawi’s research, Beirut, Dar al-Safat. - Aristotle, Sermon, Translation by Ismail Sa’adat, Tehran, Hermes. - Aristotle,, Metaphysics, Sharaf al-Din Khorasani Translation, Fourth Edition, Tehran, Wisdom. - Plato,, Period of works, translation by Hasan Lotfi, Tehran, Kharazmi. - Bermann, Sandra and Wood,, Michael, Nation, language, and the ethics of translation, Princeton University Press. - Koskinen, Kaisa,, Beyond Ambivalence; Postmodernity and the Ethics of Translation, University of Tampere. - Meschonnic, Henri,, Ethics and Politics of Translating, Translated and edited by Pier-Pascale Boulanger, Benjamins Translation Library. - Venuti, Lawrence,,The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge. (shrink)

This essay traces the trajectory of Gadamer’s retrieval of mimesis by reconstructing his interpretation of Aristotle’s Poetics. Mimesis names the transformationthat takes place when the work constitutes a structure (Gebilde) that offers a presentation (Darstellung) in which the spectator participates. The reconstructiontreats Gadamer’s interpretation of mythos, mimesis, and katharsis as he appropriates them to his understanding of the work as a “transformation into structure” which is a “transformation into the true” that effects a self-transformation in the spectator. (...) By transforming mimesis Gadamer retrieves this ancient concept for the hermeneutic understanding of the work of art as an event of being. (shrink)

This essay traces the trajectory of Gadamer’s retrieval of mimesis by reconstructing his interpretation of Aristotle’s Poetics. Mimesis names the transformationthat takes place when the work constitutes a structure (Gebilde) that offers a presentation (Darstellung) in which the spectator participates. The reconstructiontreats Gadamer’s interpretation of mythos, mimesis, and katharsis as he appropriates them to his understanding of the work as a “transformation into structure” which is a “transformation into the true” that effects a self-transformation in the spectator. (...) By transforming mimesis Gadamer retrieves this ancient concept for the hermeneutic understanding of the work of art as an event of being. (shrink)

Although Aristotle attributes to metaphor - as an instrument that makes poetic imitation possible to the highest degree - an important function, he does not arrive at the conclusion that the essence of poetics is the metaphor. This is due, on the one hand, to the almost total identification of the poem with the tragedy, showing little interest in what we consider lyric poetry; on the other hand, for the little attention given to religious poetry. If the Stagirite had analyzed (...) these genres, he would have discovered that both have in common the attempt to express the ineffable. Metaphor is the privileged tool to talk about something that we can not conceptualize, because it is partially unknown to us - subjectivity - or because this reality (the divine) transcends all kinds of sensible experience. Hence, the metaphor becomes not only an analogical knowledge of sensible reality, but also communication of ineffable realities. (shrink)

Aristotle’s claim that poetry is ‘a more philosophic and better thing’ than history (Poet 9.1451b5-6) and his description of the ‘poetic universal’ have been the source of much scholarly discussion. Although many scholars have mined Poetics 9 as a source for Aristotle’s views towards history, in my contribution I caution against doing so. Critics of Aristotle’s remarks have often failed to appreciate the expository principle which governs Poetics 6-12, which begins with a definition of tragedy and then elucidates the terms (...) of that definition by means of a series of juxtapositions. The juxtaposition between poetry and history is one such instance which seeks to elucidate what sort of plot exemplifies a causal unity such that the events of a play unfold with likelihood or necessity. Within that context, Aristotle compares history and poetry in order to elucidate the object of poetic mimesis rather than criticize history as a discipline. Viewing Aristotle as antagonistic towards history fails to appreciate the expository structure of the Poetics and obscures the resource which history provides to the poet, a point which I explore by considering what Aristotle would have thought of an ‘historical’ tragedy like Aeschylus’ Persians. (shrink)

Mimesis is one of the oldest, most fundamental concepts in Western aesthetics. This book offers a new, searching treatment of its long history at the center of theories of representational art: above all, in the highly influential writings of Plato and Aristotle, but also in later Greco-Roman philosophy and criticism, and subsequently in many areas of aesthetic controversy from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Combining classical scholarship, philosophical analysis, and the history of ideas--and ranging across discussion of poetry, (...) painting, and music--Stephen Halliwell shows with a wealth of detail how mimesis, at all stages of its evolution, has been a more complex, variable concept than its conventional translation of "imitation" can now convey. Far from providing a static model of artistic representation, mimesis has generated many different models of art, encompassing a spectrum of positions from realism to idealism. Under the influence of Platonist and Aristotelian paradigms, mimesis has been a crux of debate between proponents of what Halliwell calls "world-reflecting" and "world-simulating" theories of representation in both the visual and musico-poetic arts. This debate is about not only the fraught relationship between art and reality but also the psychology and ethics of how we experience and are affected by mimetic art. Moving expertly between ancient and modern traditions, Halliwell contends that the history of mimesis hinges on problems that continue to be of urgent concern for contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)

La présente étude propose une relecture de trois théoriciens dont les investigations continuent à servir de pierre angulaire à la théâtrologie : celles d'Aristote dont La Poétique, outre le fait qu'elle consacre le théâtre occidental, sert de fondement à l'esthétique dramatique et celles, plus récentes, d'Antonin Artaud et de Bertolt Brecht qui, bien qu'ils aient réfuté radicalement les théories aristoté- liciennes, ne se sont pas moins distingués l'un de l'autre pour donner les deux grandes voies que l'on sait à la (...) réflexion dramaturgique contemporaine. Ces spéculations seront envisagées sous l'éclairage décisif de la mimèsis et de la catharsis qui ne se posent pas chez eux comme des notions distinctes, mais comme l'avers et l'envers d'un même travail sur un réel à chaque fois redéfini, qu'il s'agisse de l'obéissance aristotélicienne à une stricte logique narrative, de l'utopique déculturation artaudienne ou de l'engagement brechtien.The author proposes a review of three major theoreticians whose works are considered to be the corner-stones of theatrical studies : Aristotle, whose Poetics, the first reflexion on Occidental theatre, also serve as the foundation of the aesthetics of drama, and, closer to us, Antonin Artaud and Bertolt Brecht who, although unanimous in rejecting the Aristotelian theory, have quite different views on contemporary theatre. Their definitions are analyzed in the light of mimesis and catharsis, which are not taken here as separate notions, but rather as a mean of grasping the fluctuant outlines of the concept of "reality", be it Aristotle's obedience to a strict narrative structure, Artaud's denial of culture or Brecht's political commitment. (shrink)

In Poetics chapter 9, Aristotle famously claims that poetry is more philosophical than history. What does this mean? I argue that he is talking about the metaphysics of events. Poets seek causal coherence among the events in their stories. Historians must report what happened whether or not the events of history exhibit causal coherence. This makes the poet's job more philosophical than the historian's, for the poet is seeking a unified plot -- an action-type -- that serves as the backbone (...) of the story he is trying to tell. The poet's final script is a token of an Aristotelian universal, the universal being an action-type that could have been fleshed out in many different ways, although with similar characters. Hence, the poet shows us what he thinks it is likely or necessary for agents of different types to do in the circumstances that confront them. Aristotelian mimesis, on this account, is the poetic representation of "one action," that is, of one action-type. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar la relevancia de la máthesis para la concepción de la mimesis aristotélica. A partir de las observaciones de la Poética, delimitaré las características del aprendizaje tomando como eje su objeto, modalidad y consecuencias. Para ello analizaré, en primer lugar, el objeto sobre el que recae el aprendizaje mimético, esto es, los hombres que actúan. Luego examinaré la modalidad de presentación de sus acciones para que sea posible el aprendizaje, prestando especial atención (...) al papel que desempeña el error trágico o hamartía. Finalmente, resaltaré los aspectos por los que, a mi entender, la mímesis tiene consecuencias éticas y políticas relevantes en el marco del proyecto educativo de Aristóteles, y que permiten pasar de una consideración de la mímesis en el plano individual a una consideración sobre su función en el ámbito político.: The aim of this paper is to show the relevance of mathesis for the Aristotelian concept of mimesis. From the framework of Poetics, i try to demarcate the characteristics of learning, taking into account its object, modality, and consequences. In order to do this, I will analyze, first, the object of mimetic learning, that is, men who act. Then, I will examine the modality of presentation of their actions that make learning possible, paying special attention to the role played by tragic mistake or hamartía. Finally, I will highlight the aspects on account of which, in my opinion, mimesis has relevant ethical and political consequences in the framework of Aristotle's educational project, and which allow passing from a consideration of mimesis on an individual level to a political level. (shrink)

The Shield of Heracles by Hesiod and Homer’s Iliad, XVIII show how mimesis should be considered: it is a process that should be seen different according to the levels that it refers to. There is one object constructed by a craftsman (first level of representation), after that a poet may write about this object and its construction (second level of representation). Then yet another poet could write, on the model of the previous text, his poem with his personal idea.Explaining (...) first, the meaning of representation, arts and mimesis in Plato (Ion, Phaedrus, Cratylus, Sophist, Laws, Republic-Book X) and in Aristotle (Poetics, Nichomachean Ethics), I would like to explain how mimesis was considered according to the terms of form and representation. After that I would carry out atextual analysis of The Shield of Heracles and Iliad, to demonstrate that even if Hesiod’s text is quite similar to Homer’s, the context, the meaning, the backgroundof the authors and the narrative structures are different. The different levels of pertinence and the different points of view demonstrate that mimesis is not a process that produces hierarchy in retrospect, but it is something heading to the direction of what “it is not created yet”. (shrink)

The Shield of Heracles by Hesiod and Homer’s Iliad, XVIII show how mimesis should be considered: it is a process that should be seen different according to the levels that it refers to. There is one object constructed by a craftsman (first level of representation), after that a poet may write about this object and its construction (second level of representation). Then yet another poet could write, on the model of the previous text, his poem with his personal idea.Explaining (...) first, the meaning of representation, arts and mimesis in Plato (Ion, Phaedrus, Cratylus, Sophist, Laws, Republic-Book X) and in Aristotle (Poetics, Nichomachean Ethics), I would like to explain how mimesis was considered according to the terms of form and representation. After that I would carry out atextual analysis of The Shield of Heracles and Iliad, to demonstrate that even if Hesiod’s text is quite similar to Homer’s, the context, the meaning, the backgroundof the authors and the narrative structures are different. The different levels of pertinence and the different points of view demonstrate that mimesis is not a process that produces hierarchy in retrospect, but it is something heading to the direction of what “it is not created yet”. (shrink)

La poética de Aristóteles gira alrededor de la definición de tragedia, y de un análisis de la construcción del Mythos, su contenido y sus exigencias formales. Así, la mímesis se liga a lo universal, lo verosímil y/o lo necesario; penetra en el plano de lo efectual, determinante en la consideración de lo trágico. De ello se desprende un diferencial platónico en la consideración de la Mímesis. El texto penetra el contenido de la Catharsis, término apenas mencionado en la definición de (...) tragedia pero en el que se contiene la fuerza problematizada de la concepción aristotélica de la poesía. Al final se intenta relacionar dicha noción con el Eleos (compasión) y el Phobos (temor), que soportan el carácter comunitario del quehacer poético. (shrink)

Some philosophers claim that Aristotle never had a theory of art—the Poetics deals essentially with tragic and epic dramas only. It contains a full definition of only one art form, i.e., tragedy. Even Aristotle’s discussion on artistic evaluation focuses chiefly on tragedy, such as how a tragic plot should be constructed, how characters in tragedy should be presented, etc. The other forms of art were treated simply as different forms of mimesis, with skeletal discussion of them at best. Nevertheless, (...) it can be argued that Aristotle offers enough guidelines and information to build a complete theory of art. In order to do this, one has to focus on his definition of tragedy, especially the six essential elements of tragic drama. By closely examining the roles these elements perform in tragedy, one can extend their characteristics into the other art forms, and construct a more complete theory of art from Aristotle’s Poetics. This paper has attempted to do this task. (shrink)

In the Poetics of Aristotle there is a definition of the human being that perhaps has not yet been well considered in educational theory and practice. This definition calls into question a dynamism that according to Plato was unavoidable for an appropriate understanding of the educational process that turns a human being into a beautiful, good and just citizen: mimesis. The paper's intent is to reconsider the definition of the human being, centred on mimesis, presented by Aristotle in (...) the Poetics to demonstrate if, and how, it might establish new paradigms for human coexistence. Aristotle's anthropological statement is included in a much wider discourse concerning philosophy of art; but if isolated from the context, it is an essential definition of human beings that can be synthesised as follows: human beings are the mimetic animal par excellence, and their process of understanding has a fundamental connection with such excellence. Ignorance and/or negligence of how relevant mimesis might be in the educational process may have decisively contributed to separate human beings from this core aspect of their humanity and therefore produced painful consequences in human coexistence. As long as education does not pay attention to the pedagogical implications of the definition taken from the Poetics, how can human flourishing be safeguarded? I argue that recognition of the centrality of mimesis in the educational process allows human edification to proceed devoid of ideological basis, be it secular or confessional; and overcomes the risk of relativism. Mimesis, formerly recognised by Plato as a link between what is expressed and what really is, is masterfully reinterpreted by Aristotle. Aristotle recognised its positive pedagogic value in the Poetics, and nowadays we can recognise how it offers existential dynamics that restore the vital human relationship between self and other. The sense of this proposal lies in giving mimesis the role it deserves in education, by raising the significance of how coexistence might benefit from a vast human dimension, capable of recognising our humanity beyond our rational capacity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NIETZSCHE AND MIMESIS by Mark P. Drost The phenomenon of imitation as it operates in Nietzsche's dieory of ecstasy is the central and most important element in his theory of tragedy and art in general. In Nietzsche's vision oftragedy we see diat this ecstasy is not limited to the individual artist, but it infects the tragic chorus and the spectators as well. Nietzsche's reinterpretation of the concept of (...) imitation is presented through the Apollonian and Dionysian artistic impulses which express themselves as distinct tendencies in die arts. In order to understand Nietzsche's concept of imitation one must trace the artwork back to the artist whose activity is an imitation of the Apollonian or die Dionysian state. The fusion of these artistic impulses in their highest development occurs in the chorus. The ecstatic impulse of the chorus results in a paradoxical act of self-displacement: a vision which exceeds the boundaries of the stage and diminishes die distance which is normally secured through the theatrical conventions of distance. We shall see how Nietzsche's vision oftragedy can be understood as a reinterpretation ofthe classical concept of imitation by contrasting it with Aristotle's theory. The classical concept ofart as imitation (mimesis) is best expressed in die Poetics ofAristotle. Under the term "mimesis" there is included an array of artistic activity, e.g., epic poetry, "the poetry of tragic drama, and, moreover comedy and dithyrambic poetry, and most flute-playing and lyre-playing" (1447al4). Since tragedy has its roots in poetry, the causes from which tragedy arises are similar to (if not identical with) the causes from which poetry arises. Poetic imitation itself appears to have two causes. First, imitation is natural to man from childhood (1448b2). Man is the most mimetic of creatures, and in childhood he learns by imitating the 309 310Philosophy and Literature people, diings, and events around him. Second, because he learns through them, man takes delight in seeing die images of things and recognizing that they are imitative. Since the pleasure of such recognition is so great, one can in fact take delight in seeing images ofthings which are painful to see in their original (1448b12). The former cause yields pleasure from the knowledge of the original while die second cause yields pleasure because one knows it is not an original. Thus the knowledge that what is being witnessed is an imitation is required for the mimetic pleasure to be experienced. Ifone has not seen the original, the pleasure one experiences is somediing different from die pleasure one takes in imitation (1448b6). It is not that imitation can never merely reproduce or copy its original in the manner of a perfect imitation, but artistic imitation requires that diere always be a sufficient difference between the representation and the original to allow for knowledge and die mimetic pleasure subsequent to it. The paradox of imitation is this: the more perfect the imitation is, the less it is known as a work ofimitation. In general, the greater die degree of the realism ofthe imitation, the greater is the need for some indication that it is art and not reality. With respect to this Arthur Danto says, "Mimesis itself, providing diat the conventions of dislocation are clear to the audience, in fact inhibits just those beliefs that would be activated widiout those conventions."1 The spectator could not obtain mimetic pleasure from the "perfect imitation" if the illusion it generated were so effective as to render the artistic medium completely transparent. The causes of mimetic pleasure are die fact diat one is presented widi an imitation and that one is aware of die difference (and/or similarity) between an object and its representation dirough an artistic medium which is never completely transparent. Although by perceiving an imitation we learn of the thing imitated, it is not essential to die concept ofimitation that there actually and empirically exist an original event or figure which explains the content of die imitation. Though the concept ofimitation is a relational concept, it is not so in the sense that there must be an originally existing personage or state ofaffairs against which we may measure the accuracy ofme mimetic representation. The... (shrink)

Against the consensus that Aristotle in the "Poetics" sets out to give tragedy a role in exercising or improving the mature citizen's moral sensibilities, I argue that his aim is rather to analyse what makes a work of literature successful in its own terms, and in particular how a tragic drama can achieve the effect of suspense. The proper pleasure of tragedy is produced by the plotting and eventual dispelling of the play's suspense. Aristotle claims that poetry 'says what is (...) universal' not in order to suggest that poetry achieves anything of the effect of philosophy, but to explain how in creating his plots the poet takes into consideration what, in general, could be expected to happen. Chapter 4 of the "Poetics" is not a theory of mimesis but an analysis of the lowest common denominator of the pleasure we take in fictions. The inevitability or likelihood by which events in the tragic plot are to be connected has an aesthetic rather than a moral function. Doing away with the irrationality of chance and increasing the human intelligibility of the action is not its point; the point is to furnish the plot with the second half of the formula for successful suspense: that events in the plot should happen 'against expectation because of one another'. The first half of the formula is examined under the rubric of peripety or reversal. The formula as a whole describes the pivotal moment when the pieces of the plot suddenly fit with a configuration that only in retrospect can we see to have been falling into place all along. Pity and fear are the emotions on which Aristotle focusses because they are the emotions engaged by the tightening-towards-release of literary suspense. And the pleasure of catharsis is the pleasure of that release. (shrink)

Against the consensus that Aristotle in the "Poetics" sets out to give tragedy a role in exercising or improving the mature citizen's moral sensibilities, I argue that his aim is rather to analyse what makes a work of literature successful in its own terms, and in particular how a tragic drama can achieve the effect of suspense. The proper pleasure of tragedy is produced by the plotting and eventual dispelling of the play's suspense. Aristotle claims that poetry 'says what is (...) universal' not in order to suggest that poetry achieves anything of the effect of philosophy, but to explain how in creating his plots the poet takes into consideration what, in general, could be expected to happen. Chapter 4 of the "Poetics" is not a theory of mimesis but an analysis of the lowest common denominator of the pleasure we take in fictions. The inevitability or likelihood by which events in the tragic plot are to be connected has an aesthetic rather than a moral function. Doing away with the irrationality of chance and increasing the human intelligibility of the action is not its point; the point is to furnish the plot with the second half of the formula for successful suspense: that events in the plot should happen 'against expectation because of one another'. The first half of the formula is examined under the rubric of peripety or reversal. The formula as a whole describes the pivotal moment when the pieces of the plot suddenly fit with a configuration that only in retrospect can we see to have been falling into place all along. Pity and fear are the emotions on which Aristotle focusses because they are the emotions engaged by the tightening-towards-release of literary suspense. And the pleasure of catharsis is the pleasure of that release. (shrink)