Main Issues Set By Aristotle In His Poetics

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[pic] Introduction Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who lived from 384 BC - 322 BC. The ideas of this great philosopher still exist and are still studied. Aristotle was Plato’s famous pupil and he refused to accept some of Plato’s ideas. In his “Poetics” he shows his own ideas about poetry, tragedy, comedy and epic. His analysis is the core of his argument and “the manuscript is either class notes written by Aristotle himself, or by one of his students.” (Abdulla 47) Therefore, the book can also be regarded as Aristotle’s answer to Plato’s derogatory view of art. This essay will explain in brief what the main issues, set by Aristotle in his Poetics, are. Imitation “At the beginning of the Poetics, Aristotle notes that “epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and most forms of flute and lyre playing all happen to be, in general, imitations” (Bressler 23) So, in this aspect Aristotle agrees with his tutor Plato; that every art is an imitation but he has his own original view on the term because according to Plato, art and poetry are only “imitations of imitations” and thus thrice removed from reality, while Aristotle argued that every imitation differs in the medium, object, and manner of imitation; the painter uses colors and the poet uses words. He also believed that imitation is an instinct of our nature, it is inborn in us and we find pleasure in things imitated. Therefore, “in Aristotle’s view, not all imitations by poets are the same because “writers of greater dignity imitated the noble actions of noble heroes; the less dignified sort of writers imitated the actions of inferior men.” (Bressler 24) and if by imitation he meant the imitation of “men in action” then by this quote we know that with “the writers of greater dignity” he means writers that write tragedy and “the less dignified sort of writers” are comedy
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