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In this short treatise, the first work of literary theory in the Western world, Aristotle asks what makes a good tragedy. He defines it as the imitation of a…
In this short treatise, the first work of literary theory in the Western world, Aristotle asks what makes a good tragedy. He defines it as the imitation of a serious action that, through pity and fear, brings about a catharsis of those emotions; ranks its six elements, with plot first and character second; and explains the reversal of fortune, the moment of recognition and the tragic hero's error, hamartia, with frequent examples from Sophocles' Oedipus the King.
Context and significance
Probably based on Aristotle's lecture notes from the fourth century BC, the Poetics survives incomplete, and a second book on comedy is thought to be lost. It reached medieval Europe partly through Arabic translations and the commentary of Ibn Rushd, and it shaped the theory of drama for two thousand years. Read Sophocles' plays, and see Aristotle's life.
About the author
Aristotle (384–322 BC), the son of a doctor from Stagira in northern Greece, studied at Plato's Academy for twenty years, tutored the young Alexander the Great and then founded his own school in Athens, the Lyceum, where he is said to have taught while walking.
He wrote on almost everything: logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetry, and his works became the foundation of learning for two thousand years. In the Arabic tradition he was called the First Teacher, and the great commentaries of Ibn Rushd carried his thought back to medieval Europe.