Reading Report of Poetics

1.    Synthesis of Poetics by Aristotle

In particular, Aristotle focuses his discussion on tragedy, which uses dramatic, rather than narrative, form, and deals with agents who are better than us ourselves. Tragedy serves to arouse the emotions of pity and fear and to effect a katharsis (catharsis) of these emotions. Aristotle divides tragedy into six different parts, ranking them in order from most important to least important as follows: (1) mythos, or plot, (2) character, (3) thought, (4) diction, (5) melody, and (6) spectacle.

Three points stand out as probably the most important in the Poetics: (1) the interpretation of poetry as mimesis, (2) the insistence on the primacy and unity of mythos, or plot, and (3) the view that tragedy serves to arouse the emotions of pity and fear and then to effect a katharsis of these emotions.

2.    Contribution of Poetics

Poetic give a contribution for some literary art. The ideal form of tragic plays became a guideline for later playwrights in Western civilization like William Shakespeare who tried to write plays that would match the ideals of poetic’s model. Sophocles in poetics emerge the born of drama. The Greeks believed that tragedy was the highest form of drama which comes from Aristotle’s ideas about tragedy

3.    The Elements of Tragedy in Poetics

After reading the poetics, I conclude that there are six elements of tragedy in poetics, namely Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody.

Plot is the “first principle,” the most important feature of tragedy. Aristotle defines plot as “the arrangement of the incidents”: i.e., not the story itself but the way the incidents are presented to the audience, the structure of the play. In his Poetics Aristotle classifies plot into two types: simple [haplos], and complex [peplegmenos]. The simple plot is defined as a unified construct of necessary and probable actions accompanied by a change of fortune. The complex plot, says Aristotle, is accompanied by two other features, namely; peripeteia or reversal, and anagnorisis, or recognition. It is this which Aristotle feels is the best kind of tragic plot, in that it provides the best possibility of delivering tragic pleasure.

Character has the second place in importance. Each character has an essential quality or nature that is revealed in the plot. The moral purpose of each character must be clear to the audience. The characters should have four main qualities.

1         - No matter who they are (hero or slave), the characters must be good in some way.

           - The characters should act appropriately for their gender and station in life.

           - The characters have to have believable personalities.

         Each character must act consistently throughout the play. In other words, nothing should be done or said that could be seen as “acting out of character”.

Thought is third in importance, Thought is the power of saying whatever can be said and should be said at each moment of the plot. Do the lines spoken by the actors make sense? Are they saying what should be said at each particular moment in the play?.

Diction is fourth, and is the actual composition of the lines that are recited. Thought deals with what is said, and diction deals with how it is said. There are many ways to say something. A good playwright composes lines that say something extremely well. In a good play, some lines are so well constructed that the audience can leave the play quoting the lines exactly

Song, or melody, is fifth, and is the musical element of the chorus. Aristotle argues that the Chorus should be fully integrated into the play like an actor; choral odes should not be “mere interludes,” but should contribute to the unity of the plot.

Spectacle is last, for it is least connected with literature; “the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet.” Although Aristotle recognizes the emotional attraction of spectacle, he argues that superior poets rely on the inner structure of the play rather than spectacle to arouse pity and fear; those who rely heavily on spectacle “create a sense, not of the terrible, but only of the monstrous”.