Poetics (Aristotle)

Aristotle's Poetics (Ancient Greek: Περὶ ποιητικῆς Peri poietikês; Latin: De Poetica; c. 335 BCE) is the earliest surviving work of Greek dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to solely focus on literary theory. In this text, Aristotle offers an account of ποιητική, which refers to poetry or, more literally, "the poetic art," deriving from the term for "poet, author, maker," ποιητής. Aristotle divides the art of poetry into verse, drama (comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play), lyric poetry, and epic poetry. The genres all share the function of mimesis, but differ in:

Musical rhythm, harmony, meter, and melody;

The goodness of the characters; and

The mode of storytelling.

The surviving book of Poetics is primarily concerned with drama. The analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.

Although the text is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, "every detail about this seminal work has aroused divergent opinions." A few scholarly debates on the Poetics have been most prominent: the meanings of catharsis and hamartia, the Classical unities, and whether Aristotle contradicts himself between chapters 13 and 14.

Background

Aristotle's works on aesthetics consist of the Poetics, Politics (Bk VIII), and Rhetoric. The Poetics was lost to the Western world for a long time, but was rediscovered in the West during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.