Aristotle in his brief second part of the Poetics describes the three different levels of agency in poetry. There are, in other words, three different ways to present a character to an audience. In relation to the 'average man' a character can be presented in a standard better or worse than us, or else the same as. He gives three examples: Homer shows his character's better, Cleophon (Athenian politician) presents them on 'our own level', and finally Hegemon of Thasos presents his character lower than a standard.
In the third part of the Poetics, Aristotle furthers his segregation of the elements to good literature/poetry. He points out that there are three ways to deliver the story and go as follows:
1. A narrative with elements of monologue and dialogue mixed in. Homer often does this. The narrator and the character[s] don't necessarily need to interact, however.
2. The poem remains in one voice for its entirety, certainly no dialogue is allowed here.
3. In this form, dialogue is superfluos, and the events of the story are 'acted' out. What we call now 'playwrights' would fall under this category.
II: It is important to note also that Tragedy aims to present men as "better than they are", and Comedy the inverse.
ReplyDeleteIII. Artistic imitation can differ in three ways, but there are also some points of similaritity in their imitations: Sophocles and Homer both imitate higher types of character, for example.