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Aristotle

Aristotle on the art of poetry

  • ale mhas quoted2 years ago
    It may be argued that, if the less vulgar is the higher, and the less vulgar is always that which addresses the better public, an art addressing any and every one is of a very vulgar order
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    The construction of its stories should clearly be like that in a drama; they should be based on a single action, one that is a complete whole in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end, so as to enable the work to produce its own proper pleasure with all the organic unity of a living creature.
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    Homer, admirable as he is in every other respect, is especially so in this, that he alone among epic poets is not unaware of the part to be played by the poet himself in the poem.
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    The poet being an imitator just like the painter or other maker of likenesses, he must necessarily in all instances represent things in one or other of three aspects, either as they were or are, or as they are said or thought to be or to have been, or as they ought to be.
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    As Tragedy is an imitation of personages better than the ordinary man, we in our way should follow the example of good portrait-painters, who reproduce the distinctive features of a man, and at the same time, without losing the likeness, make him handsomer than he is.
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    The action, proceeding in the way defined, as one continuous whole, I call simple, when the change in the hero's fortunes takes place without Peripety or Discovery; and complex, when it involves one or the other, or both.
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    As for the two remaining parts, the Melody is the greatest of the pleasurable accessories of Tragedy. The Spectacle, though an attraction, is the least artistic of all the parts, and has least to do with the art of poetry.
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come second—compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait.
  • Martin Zdravkovhas quoted3 years ago
    In a play accordingly they do not act in order to portray the Characters; they include the Characters for the sake of the action. So that it is the action in it, i.e. its Fable or Plot, that is the end and purpose of the tragedy; and the end is everywhere the chief thing.
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