History Literature / Poetics

''Poetics'' is considered the most influential work of criticism ever, introducing ideas like three-act structure of beginning-middle-end as well as the dramatic unities. It defined the purpose of tragedy, the pros and cons of various kinds of plots, all of which actively shaped theatre for several centuries . As a result of the fortunes of history, Poetics had a bigger influence on French and German drama than English theatre (who largely followed the aesthetics of Roman Drama and criticism and as such routinely violated Aristotleian unities). The funny thing about this work is that while Greek tragedies are often studied through the lens of Aristotle's terminology, these tragedies were not really defined by these tropes themselves and indeed contain, as Aristotle himself notes, many an UnbuiltTrope. Aristotle was merely describing and analyzing existing drama after the fact.

It is based on his analyses of Greek epic poems, such as Homer's works, and of Greek [[{{Tragedy}} tragedies]]--[[HaveAGayOldTime a term which, at the time, did not require an unhappy ending]]; nowadays we tend to call it {{Drama}}. [[note]]("Epic", similarly, didn't only mean "big-scale/large-scope"; it was basically the ancient equivalent to the Action-Adventure genre.)[[/note]] Early on in the text, he even promises an in-depth look at {{Comedy}}. Sadly, [[WhatMightHaveBeen that section's long been lost]]--though we ''do'' get a few pointers in the text we have, on his basic thoughts on the genre. Full text [[http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html here]].

''Poetics'' is considered the most influential work of criticism ever, introducing ideas like three-act structure of beginning-middle-end as well as the dramatic unities. It defined the purpose of tragedy, the pros and cons of various kinds of plots, all of which actively shaped theatre for several centuries . As a result of the fortunes of history, Poetics had a bigger influence on French and German drama than English theatre (who largely followed the aesthetics of Roman Drama and criticism and as such routinely violated Aristotleian unities). The funny thing about this work is that while Greek tragedies are often studied through the lens of Aristotle's terminology, these tragedies were not really defined by these tropes themselves and indeed contain, as Aristotle himself notes, many UnbuiltTrope. Aristotle was merely describing and analyzing existing drama after the fact.

* CommonKnowledge: Though this text is the origin of many important literary concepts, it did not, as many claim, invent the concept of the TragicHero or the FatalFlaw. The concept of the "hero" isn't really part of Aristotle's terminology concerning character, and his concept of "hamartia" (a mistake or misjudgement that leads a character to misfortune), is not the same thing as a FatalFlaw.

* FatalFlaw: According to Aristotle, seeing a prosperous person fall is a good source of pathos, and that it's more pathetic to see a not-entirely-bad person suffer due to a fatal mistake than to see wholly good people suffer for reasons beyond their control.

* TragicHero: He defined this trope extensively in his work. To Aristotle, a tragic hero was an active figure who was largely sympathetic, noble in character and standing to whom adversity falls as a result of a TragicFlaw. For Aristotle, the tragic heroes were ideally Kings and Soldiers and modernist drama disagrees with Aristotle on this point. Arthur Miller wrote that the common man could also be a tragic figure.

* GreekChorus: Oddly enough, he just referred to it as the chorus. He advised using it as little as possible, because the story-teller should be telling a story, not giving commentary on it, unless, and only to the extent that, the commentary helps move the story.

* DeusExMachina: Hated it--in fact, condemns Euripides's ''Literature/{{Medea}}'' for putting the hero into a situation where this is the only means of getaway.

* DeusExMachina: Hated it--in fact, condemns Euripides's ''Theater\{{Medea}}'' for putting the hero into a situation where this is the only means of getaway.

* DeusExMachina: Hated it--in fact, condemns Euripides's ''Theater/{{Medea}}'' for putting the hero into a situation where this is the only means of getaway.

* DeusExMachina: Hated it--in fact, condemns Euripides's ''Medea'' for putting the hero into a situation where this is the only means of getaway.