Author and Context. O m n i b u s IV

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1 P o e t i c s Some years ago, our family gathered together in our living room to watch a comedy entitled Throw Momma from the Train. Our son Paul was 14, our daughter Joanna was 10, and our daughter Mary was seven. You might be wondering why a parent would let young children watch something entitled Throw Momma from the Train. I honestly cannot remember nor otherwise account for this lapse in parental judgment. The movie is a comical take-off on Alfred Hitchcock s Strangers on a Train, in which two men agree to murder each other s nemesis. In this version, the character played by Danny DeVito throws the ex-wife of the Billy Crystal character off a cruise ship. In return, Billy Crystal will deal with Danny DeVito s mother played by Anne Ramsey as the most overbearing, obnoxious, hateful, non-maternal mother of all time by throwing her off of a train. As this plot unfolded, the young daughters were getting rather disturbed. They had already witnessed one murder. And the storyline was building up to the climax promised in the title. Noticing their agitation, I said, Don t worry. Nobody is going to die in this movie. Momma isn t going to get thrown off the train, and the lady that was thrown off the cruise ship is going to turn out not to be dead. How do you know? they asked. Because Aristotle said that in a comedy no one is slain. Sure enough, at the end of the movie, we learn that the woman we thought had been murdered had only fallen overboard and was living it up in a Polynesian island paradise. Far from throwing Momma off the train, Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal actually prevent her from falling off the train. The act of saving her life turns her into a loving mother. No one was hurt after all. And everyone lives happily ever after especially me, having been proven right and having my parental authority restored. Later, Joanna asked me, How did Aristotle know that? What a good question. Aristotle had not seen Throw Momma from the Train, having been born some 2,400 years too soon. Even if he was somehow able to get hold of a copy, and even if he somehow had a television monitor, and if he had acquired an even more primitive playback device than the already primitive VHS tape player that we were using, there would have been no place in ancient Athens to plug it all in. And yet, Aristotle knew how this movie would end. Not only that, he knew what would happen in all comedies. How did he know?

2 2 O m n i b u s IV I told her that Aristotle was talking about the nature of comedy. Comedy needs to be light-hearted enough to make us laugh. If someone were to be slain in a comedy, that would spoil the comic mood. Death is not funny. Death is tragic, which means that it belongs to the nature of tragedies. In comedies, the characters often think that bad things are happening, but they never are, really. Tragedies have sad endings, but comedies have happy endings. Actually, there are some modern day comedies that violate Aristotle s principles. For example, Weekend at Bernie s is about two characters that carry around a dead body, a movie I watched but our children did not. That is an example of a black comedy. Today, many people no longer believe in either Christianity or the ordered universe that Aristotle analyzes. They think that life has no meaning. So they think comedy is a way to show the absurdity of life. So people get killed in them. The Greeks also believed that comedies should ridicule vice; but many comedies today instead ridicule virtue. This is because many people today no longer have a basis for morality and ignore the difference between right and wrong. These modern comedies might make you laugh while they are going on, but they end up depressing us. I could tell that Throw Momma from the Train, despite the title, was a light-hearted comedy that was making fun of bad behavior. That made it more of a classical comedy. So I assumed that it would also follow Aristotle s rule about no one dying in a comedy. I like to think that our conversation played a role in making Joanna the classicist she is today. She survived my parenting and grew up to become a classics major who today teaches Latin and the online Omnibus courses. She is even a contributor to this volume. General Information Author and Context Aristotle was born in 384 b.c. in the city of Stagira. This was in Macedonia, about 30 miles from Thessalonica, to whom, much later, the apostle Paul would write his letters to the Thessalonians. When he was 17 or so, Aristotle went to Athens to study under Plato at his famed Academy. When Plato died 20 years later, Aristotle traveled in Asia (Minor) for a few years until his career took a new turn. King Philip of Macedon was looking for a teacher for his precocious but rather violent 13-year-old son. He wanted the best for his boy, so he hired Aristotle. Yes, Aristotle homeschooled Alexander the Great. Alexander proved a worthy pupil. Later he would send his old teacher specimens of the exotic new animals and plants that he was discovering in the course of conquering the world. It is said that the two had a falling out toward the end of Alexander s life due to Aristotle s harsh scolding of his former student when he started claiming to be a god. You can expect your Omnibus teachers to do the same if you ever claim to be a god. When Alexander became king in 336 b.c., Aristotle considered that a graduation and left for Athens. Here he founded a new school to rival Plato s Academy. He called it the Lyceum, after a nearby shrine to Apollo Lykeios literally, Apollo the Wolf. It was located just outside the walls of Athens in a grove of trees. Aristotle s school included a temple to the Muses and a building with lecture rooms and a library. Classes, though, would be conducted outdoors, as the teacher would lecture and have dialectical conversations with his students as they walked around amidst the trees. For this reason, the students at the Lyceum were called peripatetics, from the Greek word for walking around. There was a reason why Aristotle was not given leadership of the Academy after Plato s death and had to start his own school. Though Plato evidently followed and even extended the precepts of his teacher, Socrates, Aristotle found himself disagreeing with his teacher Plato. Plato was more interested in the realm of ideas. Aristotle was more interested in the realm of things. Plato dismissed poetry including myth, epic, tragedy, and comedy, which was known to skewer Socrates as in The Clouds by Aristophanes as being untrue. For Plato, art was a mere imitation of an imitation, one step further away from the universal reality that resided in the purely abstract realm of the ideals. Aristotle, though, who believed that the universals inhere in particular examples, saw great value in poetry and in aesthetics. He was writing at a time when Athenian drama had reached heights exceeded only in England at the time of Shakespeare. Aristotle knew the work of the great tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, all of whom had lived a century earlier. Each year the city continued to award vigorously-contested prizes for the best tragedies and comedies. Aristotle wanted to think through how poetry worked and why stories, plays, and specifically tragedy can move us so deeply. He wrote the Poetics in 335 b.c., which would have been the first year of his Lyceum. If you find its style to be somewhat meandering, just remember that it was probably composed or was possibly transcribed by his students as he was walking among the trees. When Alexander died in 323 b.c., Athenians found it safe to react against him and his supporters, including

3 Poetics 3 his old teacher. Aristotle found himself about to be legally accused of not sufficiently believing in the mythological gods. Though Socrates, faced with the same charge, stayed in Athens, accepted the verdict of his trial and drank the hemlock, Aristotle disagreed once more with Plato, who celebrated the submission of Socrates. Saying that he did not want the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy, Aristotle fled the city. He died the next year, 322 b.c., at the age of 62. Significance According to the myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, was born when she sprang out of the head of her father Zeus, already fully grown and fully armed. Western literature is that way, springing fully grown and fully armed out of the head of Homer. Evolutionists believe that complex organisms including, presumably, literature developed gradually out of simpler forms. And yet, the very first literary author that we have, writing the very first sustained, long, fictional poetic narratives, is This bronze still among our very greatest authors, statue shows and in the Iliad and the Odyssey, we see Athena with her shield. literary art already fully formed and at a The owl level of quality few later works can measure up to. on the shield Philosophy is that way too, only with denotes two fully-armed intellectual warriors her springing up as if from nowhere. Plato and wisdom. Aristotle are still the two greatest philosophers, mighty adversaries yet kindred spirits like Achilles and Hector, with all other philosophers to come merely their minions or their feeble challengers. And in the Poetics we have literary criticism springing fully grown and fully armed out of the head of Aristotle. This is the first essay on literary art, and it is still one of the best. It will give you tools and a language to help you understand the other Greek plays that you will read in Omnibus. These plays and Aristotle s principles continued to shape European drama. An important strain of English drama the academic plays of the Renaissance, the neoclassicism of Ben Jonson, the plays of the Restoration and the Enlightenment continued this tradition. Much of the drama of the other European countries, especially France with its great playwrights such as Racine and Moliere, never strayed from the classical style. The only reason English-speakers have had more options is because of Shakespeare, who combined the multiple plotlines and narrative freedom of medieval drama such as the biblical mystery plays with the depth of character required by Aristotle. Though Aristotle concentrates here on plays, what he has to say about plot and character applies also to other kinds of literature, including much later literary forms such as the novel. Aristotle was analyzing existing plays, but in doing so, he established principles that later playwrights and other authors would follow. The Poetics is also a model for later literary criticism. From scholars who analyze literature to film critics who review movies, they all owe a debt to Aristotle s Poetics. Summary and Setting Aristotle s method is usually to break down everything he considers into categories which themselves often get subdivided; he then analyzes each possibility in exhaustive detail. At one point in the Poetics, in a discussion of poetic diction, he breaks down language into its nouns and verbs, and then breaks those down into syllables and then letters to not much effect, as far as we readers can tell! And yet, even while he seems lost in the woods, he tosses off observations about metaphorical language and how to create a poetic style that are incisive and priceless. So you will get lost as you walk with Aristotle through the groves of Lyceum. Do not be discouraged. He is referring to a multitude of plays, most of which have been lost. If only the barbarians had not burned the library at Alexandria! Do not get bogged down with what you do not understand. Watch for what you do understand. Keep in mind that when Aristotle refers to poetry, he has in mind not so much lyric poetry, which expresses an emotion, but narrative poetry, which tells a story. Specifically, he is thinking of epics and the two kinds of plays that were performed in Athens, tragedy and comedy, both of which were written in verse. Thus, Aristotle comments on the various kinds of poetic meter. Remember too that Greek plays incorporated music and dance, especially with the chorus that sang and danced its parts. Thus, Aristotle comments on melody and rhythm. Eventually, Aristotle gets around to his main topic: tragedy. He considers tragedy to be the highest form of literary art. According to Aristotle, tragedy is better than epic because a play can be taken in at one sitting; as a result,

4 4 o m n i b u s iv the audience can better experience its unity, a major value in classical aesthetics. Longer works, such as epics or the later-to-be-invented novel, take many sessions to read. How long did it take you to read the Odyssey? That breaks up the work, taking away from the intensity of its effect. We can experience an entire play, television program, or movie, though, in a couple of hours. We can read the whole thing at one time, which is good to do when you read the Omnibus plays; as a result, we get the whole impact at once. Actually, the authors of longer works made up for this problem with unity by breaking up their stories into separate books, as Homer did, and chapters, as novelists did, each of which usually has a unity of its own and can be read in one sitting. Tragedy is more serious and more noble and thus higher than comedy. In addition to saying that in comedy no one is slain at the end, Aristotle says that the characters of comedy are worse than average. We are supposed to look down on the characters of classical comedy. Classical comedy ridicules vice. This distances the audience from their bad behavior. We shouldn t want to be like the Three Stooges or the Simpsons. We laugh at them, and our laughter is a kind of moral judgment. The characters of a tragedy, though, are better than average. We look up to them. We also care about them. That means they affect us more deeply. Aristotle s typical mode of analysis is to zero in on the purpose of whatever he is examining. The purpose of tragedy, he says, is to create a catharsis of pity and fear. In other words, a story with a sad ending evokes in the members of its audience certain powerful emotions. And somehow, these emotions are cathartic, that is to say, cleansing. Not being a fan of either roller coasters or horror movies, I have often asked people who are why they pay good money to get scared. It isn t pleasant to be afraid. Isn t fear a negative emotion, something we try to avoid? Perhaps a person is so courageous that it doesn t bother him to go hurtling along a winding track high in the air at great speed, sometimes even looping upside down. But I know that is not the case. When I go to amusement parks and watch the people who ride the roller coaster, I can hear them scream. And then, after they survive and the ride is over, I can hear the screamers say, I want to do it again! Evidently, fear, in this context, is enjoyable. When roller coaster fans such as my wife try to explain the appeal, they talk about the rush of emotion and adrenaline that they find to be exhilarating. When the ride is over, they feel drained but elevated. It is cathartic. A jump-out-of-your-seat horror movie can have that same effect. So can a tragedy. But Aristotle speaks of another kind of emotion that tragedy evokes: pity. When we see someone suffering, it is natural to feel pity for that person, to feel compassion. The more we know the person a friend who has a death in the family; a family member who is hurt in an accident the more compassion we feel. Compassion is a good feeling; it is morally good. Strangely enough, compassion also feels good, even though it takes something bad someone suffering to bring it on. Compassion can also be cathartic, making us feel cleansed. Pity or compassion is a species of love. Jesus extends the claims of compassion. He says that we should have compassion not only for our friends but also for our enemies. More than that since we at least know our enemies and have a strong emotional tie to them Jesus wants us to have compassion on people we do not know but whom God brings into our lives, like the Samaritan did for the neighbor bleeding on the side of the road (Luke 10:25 37). A successful tragedy makes us feel compassion for the characters who suffer. It is proof of our fallen nature that we sometimes find it easier to feel sorry for fictional characters to get all teary-eyed over the fate of Bambi s mother or Old Yeller or the misunderstood musician who finally finds true love just as he dies of cancer while being utterly callous about the actual suffering of the real human beings we encounter: the handicapped child that other kids make fun of; the World War II veteran in the nursing home; a member of your family who is hurting. Still, a work of fiction can help us cultivate positive emotions, training us to be more sensitive and compassionate, and thus play an important part in our moral formation. So Aristotle determines that the purpose of tragedy is to give us a cleansing rush of pity and fear: pity for the hero, and fear for ourselves. We feel close to the hero and so sympathize with him in his suffering. We feel pity. But then we consider that his fate might be our own. That makes us afraid. Those emotions one pulling us outside ourselves and the other forcing us to look inward come together at once in a powerful and healthy emotional impact. Having established that end, that purpose, Aristotle then reasons backwards. What kind of hero does a tragedy need in order to make the audience feel such pity and fear at the point of the catastrophe? The hero cannot be purely evil, Aristotle reasons. When the bad guy in a movie gets killed, we don t feel pity or fear. We are glad. But the hero cannot be purely good, either. Here, Aristotle and the classical tradition start to differ from our modern sensibility. When the good guy in a movie gets killed, we may feel pity and fear, but we also feel frustrated and angry. When Teen Angel rushes back to the car to recover her boyfriend s high school ring only to get run over by a train, we feel cheated. It s not fair! Things like that shouldn t happen! Aristotle believed that a good tragedy

5 Poetics 5 needs to be satisfying. We need to think, Yes, it s sad, but that s how it has to be. Aristotle concludes that, to fulfill the purpose of tragedy to create in the audience a catharsis of pity and fear, the hero needs to be noble having certain qualities that we admire and look up to whose fall comes about because of some hamartia. This was traditionally rendered in English as a tragic flaw. More modern translations have mistake or error. But those of you who have studied New Testament Greek should recognize the word. In translations of the Bible, hamartia is the word for sin. Here the theologians and the literary critics should get together and learn from each other. Sin is not just a bad thing we do. Sin is our tragic flaw. It inheres in our fallen nature so that we keep hurting people we care about, spoiling things we touch, bringing disaster upon ourselves through our own fault. Conversely, the tragic flaw is more than just the hero s error or mistake. It is the hero s sin. The hero is not evil, as such; indeed, he usually has many virtues. The audience is on his side. But the hero has a sin. His character is flawed. His hamartia is what brings on the catastrophe, the tragic ending. Thus, he brings his downfall upon himself. He is responsible for what happens, as horrible as it is. This is what makes it so tragic. Again, this classical perspective is different from the modern view of tragedy. We speak of tragic accidents, as when an innocent person dies in a car wreck. Aristotle would say that such an event is unbearably sad, but it is not tragic. If someone dies in a car wreck because he was drinking and driving, so that he was responsible for what happened, that would be tragic. Many of today s sad stories and tear-jerking songs including some that I have used as examples are not really tragedies by Aristotle s standards. Bambi s mother dies because she is a deer, not because she has done anything wrong; the Teen Angel who runs back into the car when the train is coming is just being stupid. This is because our contemporary culture does not believe much in personal responsibility. All suffering is presented as accidental A successful tragedy makes us feel compassion for the characters who suffer. It is proof of our fallen nature that we sometimes find it easier to feel sorry for fictional characters while being utterly callous about the actual suffering of the real human beings we encounter: the handicapped child that other kids make fun of; the World War II veteran in the nursing home; a member of your family who is hurting. A work of fiction can help us cultivate positive emotions and thus can play an important part in our moral formation.

6 6 O m n i b u s IV Because Oedipus solves the Sphinx s riddle, the Thebans make him their king. This is one more link in the seemingly irresistible fate that leads to his ruin. Aristotle lived several centuries before Christ, and he apparently knew nothing of the Jews. He did, however, believe in an orderly, meaningful universe. As such, he has often been treated as an ally of Christianity. For example, in the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic scholar Thomas Aquinas made Aristotle s philosophical system the foundabecause life is absurd and we are all passive victims of our environment. Thus, even stories that could be tragic because the hero brings the downfall on himself because of a sin say, a drama about someone dying of AIDS contracted because of immoral behavior are presented as meaningless accidents happening to an innocent victim. The principle that the tragic hero is responsible for his downfall holds true even for classical dramas in which the events seem determined by an irresistible fate. Oedipus is trying to escape the oracle s prophecies, but it is his own hot temper and his pride that make the prophecies come true. Such plays are dizzying in their irony, but watch for the hero s harmartia. Notice too that classical tragedy uses hero somewhat differently than what we moderns do. We tend to think of hero as the good guy, who is opposed by the villain, the bad guy. Heroes are handsome and wear white hats; villains are ugly and wear black hats. We do not necessarily know what the heroes do that is so good, nor why the villains are so evil. The conflicts are all external and symbolic. The characters tend to be simple and one-dimensional. But when we go beyond Saturday morning cartoons or Hollywood blockbusters to truly great literature, the characters tend to be complex. There may well be an external conflict of good vs. evil, but the good guy may have some bad qualities that he has to overcome; the villain may have some good qualities. Or, perhaps more often, the conflict between good and evil takes place within the hearts of the characters. In the classical literature of ancient Greece, to speak of a hero usually means the character who is flawed. This applies not only to tragedy but to epic as well. Achilles is the hero of the Iliad, but his wrath and injured pride are his flaws. He is the protagonist and Hector is his antagonist, but Hector is not evil. Rather, Hector is a complex character himself, nobly trying to protect his family while being too tolerant of his adulterous brother. Aristotle says much more: about how plots must not just be one episode after another, but have a purposeful beginning, middle, and end; about how plots often turn upon some discovery; about how spectacle is the least artistic part of a drama. We can thus imagine what Aristotle would think about today s movies that have hardly any plot and superficial characters but lots of special effects. Worldview

7 Poetics 7 tion of his whole theology. For Aquinas, Aristotle accounts for what can be known by reason. This is complementary to what can be known only by revelation. Aquinas used Aristotelian arguments for his proofs of the existence of God. Aristotle argued that the universe had to have a first cause. He also argued that the universe had to have a final cause, that is, a purpose, a design, and thus a designer. Aristotle had no conception of a personal God, but for Aquinas, that knowledge is supplied by the revelation of Scripture. Aristotle s analysis of morality became the foundation for what would be described as natural law, the rational proofs for the moral law. The purpose of sex in its biological design is the engendering of new life. Therefore, sex outside of marriage and potential parenthood is wrong. Aquinas s theology with his Aristotelian methods became, more or less, the official position of the Roman Catholic Church and is called Thomism. The Reformers took issue with the way the medieval church exalted Aristotle as an authority, in effect, on a par with Scripture. For example, Aristotle s distinction between substance and accidents became the basis for the Roman Catholic teaching about transubstantiation in the Lord s Supper, the belief that the bread and wine on the altar is changed into the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ. More importantly, Aristotle s confidence in the human will and human virtues downplayed sin and supported a worksrighteousness that undermined the gospel of Christ. In general, the Reformers considered that the medieval church s reliance on Aristotle was a manifestation of rationalism, that impulse that is not unknown among Protestants too, to think that we must understand everything perfectly with our limited minds, as opposed to trusting God s Word in faith. The Reformers believed not only in Scripture but in sola Scriptura, that the Bible alone is the only ultimate and infallible authority for doctrine and life. Luther called Aristotle a many-headed serpent whose influence must be purged from theology. Nevertheless, after excoriating Aristotle s writings on metaphysics, the soul, and ethics in his Open Letter to the Christian Nobility, Luther writes, I should be glad to see Aristotle s books on Logic, Rhetoric and Poetics retained. And yet, it is evident that the Poetics, for all of its value, is not the work of a Christian. When Aristotle talks about the catharsis of pity and fear, he says that the value is in purging those emotions that is, to get rid of them. We can see how it is helpful to purge ourselves of fear. Feeling vicarious fear can be a way to help us conquer that fear so as to become more courageous. But for many of the ancients, pity was also a feeling to overcome. You will not find much compassion in Homer think of Odysseus mowing down the suitors or in other Greek authors. The pagan Greeks and Romans spoke of the four cardinal virtues: justice, self-control, courage, and prudence. You will find those everywhere in the literature, philosophy, and history of this great civilization. But, as Dante noted, they lacked the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. They had no faith, being ignorant of Christ. They had no hope, assuming that all the dead descended into Hades, so that life itself ended in misery. With their tragic sense of life, no wonder they were so good at writing tragedies. And they had no love in the Christian sense. Yes, they would love their spouses and children and country. But they had little sense of agape, the love of the undeserving, the love of forgiveness and grace with which God loves us and which He expects us to extend to our neighbors. Instead, their writings whether epics or tragedies or philosophical discourses often praise revenge and retaliation, and, while often lifting up hospitality, loyalty, and friendship, tend to be weak when it comes to compassion. Pity was one of the few things Alexander the Great leveler of cities, destroyer of kingdoms never learned from Aristotle. But he could probably tell a very good story. And in his greatness and in his flaws, he made a very good tragic hero. Gene Edward Veith Martin Luther called Aristotle a many-headed serpent whose influence must be purged from theology. Nevertheless, he appreciated his books on Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics.

8 8 O m n i b u s IV For Further Reading Adler, Mortimer. Aristotle for Everybody. New York: Touchstone, Kaplan, Justin D., ed. The Pocket Aristotle. New York: Washington Square Books, Rorty, A.O., ed. Essays on Aristotle s Poetics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization. Seventh Edition. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Wadsworth, Veritas Press History Cards: Old Testament, Ancient Egypt. Lancaster, Pa.: Veritas Press. 31. Veritas Press History Cards: New Testament, Greece and Rome. Lancaster, Pa.: Veritas Press. 15, 17. Ses s i o n I: Pr e l u d e A Question to Consider How were dramas in Aristotle s time, both tragedies and comedies, similar to and different from dramas today? How might this affect our understanding of Aristotle s Poetics? From the General Information above, answer the following questions: 1. Who was Aristotle s famous teacher? 2. Who was Aristotle s famous pupil? 3. What was the name of the school Aristotle founded, and how did he conduct his classes there? 4. Why is this work of Aristotle s called Poetics when it deals mostly with drama? 5. Briefly compare and contrast the overall philosophical approaches of Plato and Aristotle. How do their approaches affect their respective views of art, poetry, and drama? Rea d i n g As s i g n m e n t : Poetics, chapters 1 7 Ses s i o n II: Di s c u s s i o n Poetics, chapters 1 7 A Question to Consider What is your favorite movie or play? Why? Discuss or list short answers to the following questions: Text Analysis 1. Is Aristotle giving a descriptive (by examining different poems) or prescriptive (using language like ought and should ) account of poetry? How do you know which? How does this relate to his overall philosophical approach? 2. How does Aristotle compare and contrast tragedy or comedy? Which does Aristotle think is the superior form of drama, and why? Do you agree or disagree? Why? 3. How does epic poetry differ from tragedy? Why does Aristotle think that tragedy is superior to epic poetry? 4. How does Aristotle define tragedy? 5. What constitutes a well-formed plot, according to Aristotle? Cultural Analysis 1. What do people today think makes a good movie or play? 2. Does everybody have the same standards for judging this question, or are they different? How do you know? Biblical Analysis 1. The Bible contains beautiful poetry in the book of Psalms, e.g., Psalm 1 and 136. What are the major features of this Hebrew poetry, and is it in any way similar to any of the poetry Aristotle analyzes? 2. Does Hebrew poetry appeal to the heart or to the mind? 3. Are there any examples of drama, either comedy or tragedy, in the Bible? If so, what role does each one play (Ezek. 4)? Sum m a Write an essay or discuss this question, integrating what you have learned from the material above. You might know a person who always says of the last play or movie that he or she watched, This is the greatest movie ever! What should we be looking for if we are to judge a work of art as great? Rea d i n g As s i g n m e n t : Poetics, chapters 8 14

9 Poetics 9 ses s i o n iii: Di s c u s s i o n Poetics, chapters 1 14 A Question to Consider In Poetics chapter 10, Aristotle maintains that a simple plot or story is just a series of events, one following another, with no necessity attaching from previous events to subsequent events, and which contains no reversal of situation or recognition. A complex plot, on the other hand, does have this sort of necessity attaching to subsequent events (so he says), and does contain reversal and recognition. The key issue is whether subsequent events follow previous events in a merely post hoc ( after this ) sort of way or a propter hoc ( because of this ) sort of way. Can you think of any simple plots or stories, as Aristotle describes them? What about any complex plots? Discuss or list short answers to the following questions: Text Analysis 1. According to Aristotle, how does poetry imitate life? 2. For Aristotle, must a piece of writing use verse in order for it to be considered poetry? Why or why not? 3. Tragedy is sometimes said to incorporate three unities: unity of action, unity of time, and unity of place. Does Aristotle require a tragedy to have all three? Which one or ones does he require? 4. Aristotle claims that human beings are by nature imitative creatures that delight in imitation. Why does he say this? 5. How does Aristotle distinguish between poetry and history? 6. What are the various parts of the performance of a Greek tragedy? 7. What are the four elements in a really good tragic plot, according to Aristotle? 8. Aristotle claims that pity and fear are the pleasures of tragedy. He says that this fear and pity arise in Aristotle taught that comedy needs to be lighthearted enough to make us laugh. The Greeks believed that comedies should ridicule vice; but many comedies today instead ridicule virtue. This is because many people today no longer have a basis for morality and ignore the difference between right and wrong.

10 10 O m n i b u s IV the audience during a good tragedy and should ideally result from the plot itself rather than from spectacle i.e., the costume, the music, the scenery, etc. Why does he say this? Cultural Analysis 1. How do contemporary tragedies compare to ancient Greek tragedies? 2. Does modern American culture seem bent toward tragedy or comedy? Biblical Analysis 1. How does the worldview instantiated within ancient Greek tragedy differ from the Christian worldview? Sum m a Write an essay or discuss this question, integrating what you have learned from the material above. Why were the Greek drama festivals so popular in ancient Greece? Rea d i n g As s i g n m e n t : Poetics, chapters Cultural Analysis 1. Where do we see examples of catharsis in the movies and in plays today? 2. Do audiences today still look for the same qualities that Aristotle claimed should characterize the tragic hero? Biblical Analysis 1. Identify two or three tragic figures in Scripture. Do they meet the requirements that Aristotle sets forth for a tragic hero? Why or why not? 2. According to the Scriptures is life tragic or comedic? How is this different for ancient pagans? Sum m a Write an essay or discuss this question, integrating what you have learned from the material above. Can Aristotle help believers build excellent tragedies? Rea d i n g As s i g n m e n t : Poetics, chapters Ses s i o n V: Ac t i v i t y Ses s i o n IV: Di s c u s s i o n Poetics, chapters A Question to Consider A good tragic plot is often compared to the tying and untying of a knot. Why or how is this a good metaphor for the plot in a good tragedy? Discuss or list short answers to the following questions: Text Analysis 1. What does Aristotle say about the role of choral songs in tragedy? Why? 2. What role do pity and fear play in the plot, according to Aristotle? Why? 3. How does Aristotle describe the tragic hero? 4. What are the six different kinds of Discovery that Aristotle points out? 5. Chapter 20 comprises a fairly rigorous analysis of language and its various parts. Why do you think Aristotle includes this here? Create Your Own Tragedy Today we will sketch out and outline our own tragedy. Remember the requirements that Aristotle has for tragedy. The goal is for our audience to reach a catharsis and be purged of their own feelings of fear and pity. Answer the questions below and create an outline of your own tragedy. C r e a t e y o u r h e r o w i t h h i s t r a g i c f l a w He needs to be a character with a good character with correspondingly good moral purpose. His good qualities should be appropriate for him, not for someone else. He must be realistic. He must act consistently, if only in his inconsistency. Hero goes from fortune to misfortune. The misfortune must be caused by hamartia, an error or character flaw. The hero s character must never be worse than that of the average person. So, what will your tragic hero be like? C r e a t e a pl o t t h a t f o c u s e s o n o n e i s s u e

11 Poetics 11 H o w w i l l t h e d i s c o v e r y o r r e c o g n i t i o n o c c u r? Remember, there are basically six ways that this happens. 1. By means of signs or marks 2. That is contrived by the author 3. That is prompted by memory 4. Through deductive reasoning 5. Through faulty reasoning or speech on the part of a disguised character 6. That follows naturally and logically from the sequence of events in the play Optional Activity F r o m Tr a g e d y t o Co m e d y What would be needed to change your tragedy into a Christian comedy? Optional Activity D e v e l o p Yo u r Tr a g e d y Fu r t h e r Write out a short version of your tragedy using the outline you created in Session V. Then perform the play for your classmates, church group, or family. H o w w i l l t h i s r e v e r s a l h a p p e n w i t h y o u r t r a g i c h e r o? C r e a t e a cl i m a x All plays have a point where the main issue of the play is resolved. How will this occur in your tragedy? A jump-out-of-yourseat horror movie is cathartic. Roller coaster fans describe the same kind of appeal, the rush of emotion and adrenaline that they find to be exhilarating. When the ride is over, they feel drained but elevated.

12 12 O m n i b u s IV Opt i o n a l Se s s i o n: Writing Film Review This session is a writing assignment. Remember, quality counts more than quantity. You should write no more than 1,000 words, either typing or writing legibly on one side of a sheet of paper. You will lose points for writing more than this. You will be allowed to turn in your writing three times. The first and second times you turn it in, your teacher will grade it by editing your work. This is done by marking problem areas and making suggestions for improvement. You should take these suggestions into consideration as you revise your assignment. Only the grade on your final submission will be recorded. Your grade will be based on the following criteria: 25 points for grammar, 25 points for content accuracy historical, theological, etc.; 25 points for logic does this make sense and is it structured well?; 25 points for rhetoric is it a joy to read? Your assignment is to write a review of a movie or play that is connected in some way to the book that you have been reading in this case you will be using Aristotle s standards to judge the worth of a play or movie. Your review should be persuasive fitting, of course, for the rhetoric years. You should tell your reader if this movie is worth watching and why. Your teacher may ask you to write a positive review or a negative review, or leave it up to you. You should be encouraged to praise or condemn the content, the worldview and the style of the movie. Also, remember that you are responsible for representing a Christian worldview, so you need to critique the movie for language, any glorification of violence, and any sensuality. Remember that you need to learn to both condemn and praise, and that both skills must be more than a simple affirmation or denial of liking it.