#ARISTOTLE TIME IS THE MOST UNKNOWN FULL#

Of all the вЂkindsвЂ™, tragedy as we have seen, AristotleвЂ™s first concern and he begins with a definition based largely on his previous generalizations.

#ARISTOTLE TIME IS THE MOST UNKNOWN FULL#

In his poetics he briefly mentions scenery, song and diction as three subordinate elements in tragedy, and then he turns to concentrate his full attention on the three inner elements, viz. He confines himself to the examination of tragedy as a form of literature. One noticeable thing about AristotleвЂ™s discussion of tragedy is that though he was acquainted with the technique of dramatic performance, he says nothing about the attic stage and the performance of the plays. In giving us his theory of tragedy he has given us something very like a theory of fine Art.вЂќ He clearly reveals his intention when he says that вЂњwhoever knows what is good and bad in tragedy knows also about Epic poetry.вЂќ He repeatedly says that, вЂњTragedy is superior in that it functions better than an art.вЂќ He is so much interested in tragedy because he takes it to be вЂњthe most representative of the arts or rather, that one which, when examined, will most revealed the qualities essential in art in so far as it is art.вЂќ He вЂњgives his main attention to tragedy because it is for him the grand type of all the arts. Of these twenty-six chapters, fourteen chapters are devoted to tragedy. In the first place the treatise is found to be surpassingly short. But in his Poetics, Aristotle concentrated mainly on tragedy, says a few things about epic poetry, and almost nothing about comedy and lyric poetry. The forms of literature existing in his days were epic poetry, lyric poetry, tragedy and comedy. That is why till recently the poetics was regarded as the Bible of literary criticism. Hence, there is a point in what Dryden said about his theories: вЂњIt is not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides: and in it he had seen ours, might have changed his mind.вЂќ Still, there are aspects of his theories in the light of which drama and poetry of all ages, climes and countries can be examined. Throughout his analysis of poetry he retains a cool, dispassionate and objective attitude, which is the typical attitude of the scientist towards the object he examines.ДЄristotle had read extensively and intensively the Greek literature existing his time, and he deduced his aesthetic principles from that literature. Like a scientist, he examines poetry to discover its true nature and function. He was a scientist, and his approach to poetry is scientific. But he was gifted with an acute power of analysis and reasoning. Poetry for him did not have that fascination and for Plato, who though having a profound respect for Homer and the tragic poets was driven to condemn poetry on morals and philosophical grounds. Aristotle, removing this confusion, creates the study of aesthetics.ДЄristotle, perhaps, did not have the fine sensibility of his master. Plato confuses the study of art with the study of morals. He dissociated art from morality with the result that he was the first man in history to formulate purely aesthetic principles to which the artist should conform. It was of PlatoвЂ™s disciple Aristotle who, for the first time examined poetry purely as a form of art without considering its influence on the state or the citizen. Aristotle throughout his work is covertly criticizing Plato his mind is filled with platonic ideas and everywhere in his discussion he draws upon PlatoвЂ™s doctrines and terminology, reinterpreting or confuting, while engaged in developing new doctrines if his own. The ideas of Plato run through the works of Aristotle, his disciple. However, the Poetics is undeniably a seminal work, in literary criticism.

Its twenty-six short chapters are not always coherent.

The text of the Poetics as such remains fragmentary and incomplete. although written in the distant past its themes and discussions are of timeless value and fundamental to the aesthetic and literary criticism. AristotleвЂ™s poetics is the first important document in the history of Western criticism. The same period which had produced Plato, one of the great masters of criticism, witnessed the arrival of another outstanding genius in the person of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), a pupil of the former philosopher, whose work he was to develop on lines of his own thereby bringing to light in connection with art leading principles of great and permanent value.

How would you justify AristotleвЂ™s preference for plot over character as the most essential element in the construction of tragedy?

Aristotle time is the most unknown