Aristotle's Poetics Flashcards
Imitation
Objects we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity
Memorized quote
Tragedy, then is an IMITATION of an ACTION that is SERIOUS, COMPLETE, and of a CERTAIN MAGNITUDE; In the form of ACTION, through PITY AND FEAR effecting the proper PURGATION of these emotions
Action
Plot, is the first principle, and soul of a tragedy
Serious
COMEDY aims as representing men as worse, TRAGEDY as better than in actual life
Complete
Beginning, middle, and end
Certain magnitude
Beauty depends on magnitude and order
Unity of action
Plot must imitate one action
Ex: finding killers of Laius
Unity of time
Confine itself to a single revolution of the sun
Unity of place
Follows the unity of time
Pity and fear
Pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves
Purgation or catharsis
Cleansing of the emotions
Tragic hero
Man who is not good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought by some error or frailty
Hamartia
Tragic flaw, error in judgement
Hubris
Overweening pride
Simple or complex
Change is accompanied by reversal, recognition, or BOTH
Reversal of the situation; peripetia
Actions veers round to its opposite
Ex. Messenger comes to cheer Oedipus and free him from alarms about his mother, but reveals who Oedipus really is, and does the opposite
Recognition
Change from IGNORANCE to KNOWLEDGE
Kinds of recognition
Signs: scars on ankles
Process of reasoning: arises from incidents themselves where startling discovery is made by natural means
Ex: BETTER than it should be perpetuated in ignorance and the discovery made afterwards
Scene of suffering
Destructive or painful action
Chorus
Ideal spectators and part of the action
Deus ex machina
“God out of the machine”; irrational out of the plot
