23 March, 2013

Aristotle's Poetics IV

Aristotle begins the fourth part by explaining how poetry even began. He goes on to say that imitation is a purely natural thing for humans to do, adopting it as small children and ceasing not from there. Not only is it natural, but we learn things through imitation and delight in works of imitation. What poetry does is takes this imitation to levels of rhythm, making heavy emphasis on its innate aesthetic beauty.  

Tragedy draws imitation from the parts of reality that are filled with misfortune; dramas derived from poetic Dithyrambs. He mentions that Tragedy has drastically changed from what it was in that it included far more many actors than intended due to Aeschylus and Sophocles' innovations. Also the metre changed from a satyric trochaic tetrametre to simplistic iambic hexametre. The iambic stanzas are far too similar to how people normally speak to be very aesthetic. His final complaint is how long and how many acts the plays contain, granted details are important. 

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