Aristotle's Poetics Flashcards
What are Aristotle’s seven characteristics of tragedy?
It’s mimetic, it’s serious, it tells a story of appropriate length, it contains rhythm and harmony, rhythm and harmony occur in different combinations in different parts of the tragedy, it’s performed rather than narrated, it arouses feelings of pity and fear and then purges these feelings through catharsis
What are the six component parts of tragedy from most to least important?
Plot, character, thought, diction, melody, spectacle
What does Aristotle call reversal of fortune?
Peripeteia
What does Aristotle call discovery?
Anagnorisis
What four things does Aristotle say a hero needs to have?
enjoys great reputation/ prosperity, not outstanding in virtue or just behaviour, falls into bad fortune but not through vice or wickedness
Plotline
The best tragic play has a single plotline which is complex. Three elements: suffering, recognition, reversal