Aristotle's Poetics (Dramabook,) | 
 enlarge | Author: Aristotle
Creators: Francis Fergusson, S. H. Butcher
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Category: Book
List Price: $11.00
Buy New: $5.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 40783
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 118
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 4.4 x 0.5
ISBN: 0809005271
Dewey Decimal Number: 801
EAN: 9780809005277
ASIN: 0809005271
Publication Date: January 1, 1961
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Condition: Brand New - Direct From Distributor - Gift Giving Condition - No Remainder Mark
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Amazon.com
The original, Aristotle's short study of storytelling, written in the fourth century B.C., is the world's first critical book about the laws of literature. Sure, it's 2400 years old, but Aristotle's discussions--Unity of Plot, Reversal of the Situation, Character--though written in the context of ancient Greek Tragedy, Comedy and Epic Poetry, still apply to our modern literary forms. The book is quite short, and Aristotle illuminates his points with clear examples, making the Poetics perfectly readable, the better to impress people at parties when you say, "Of course, as Aristotle says..."
Product Description
Introduced by Francis Fergusson, the Poetics, written in the fourth century B.C., is still an essential study of the art of drama, indeed the most fundamental one we have. It has been used by both playwrights and theorists of many periods, and interpreted, in the course of its two thousand years of life, in various ways. The literature which has accumulated around it is, as Mr. Fergusson points out, "full of disputes so erudite that the nonspecialist can only look on in respectful silence." But the Poetics itself is still with us, in all its suggestiveness, for the modern reader to make use of in his turn and for his own purposes.
Francis Fergusson's lucid, informative, and entertaining Introduction will prove invaluable to anyone who wishes to understand and appreciate the Poetics. Using Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, as Aristotle did, to illustrate his analysis, Mr. Fergusson pints out that Aristotle did not lay down strict rules, as is often thought: "The Poetics," he says, "is much more like a cookbook than it is like a textbook of elementary engineering." Read in this way, it is an essential guide not only to Sophoclean tragedy, but to the work of so modern a playwright as Bertolt Brecht, who considered his own "epic drama" the first non-Aristotelian form.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Tragedy Teaches Us Something About Life May 9, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read these works for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.
Poetry appeals to human passions and emotions. Powerful beautiful language and metaphor really appeal to emotion. This idea really disturbed Plato, who takes on Homer in the Republic. Plato thought that early Greek poetry portrays a dark world; humans are checked by negative limits like death. Tragedy has in it a character of high status brought down through no fault of his own. Plato says this is unjust. Republic is about ethical life and justice. It starts with the premises that might makes right and then moves onto the idea much like modern religions that justice comes in the afterlife. Plato hates the idea that in tragedy bad things can happen to good people. He wanted to ban tragedy because he found it demoralizing.
Aristotle's Poetics is a defense against Plato's appeal to ban tragedy. Tragedy was very popular in Greek world so Aristotle asks can it be wrong to ban it? Yes, it is wrong thus he decides to study it. Plato says Poetry is not a technc because the poets are divinely inspired. Aristotle disagrees Poetics is a handbook for playwrights. Mimcsis= "representation or imitation." Plato uses it in speaking of painting, thus art is imitation. Another meaning is to mimic, like actors mimicking another person. Plato and Aristotle use it to mean psychological identification like how we get absorbed in a movie as if the action were real, eliciting emotions from us. We suspend reality for a while. Aristotle says this is natural in humans; we do this as children, we mimic. If imitation is important for humans then tragic poetry is worthwhile for Aristotle to study.
Definition of tragedy- "Through pity and fear it achieves purification from such feelings. This is a famous controversial line. Katharsis= "pity and fear" thus the purpose of tragedy is to purge katharsis. Katharsis can also mean purification or clean. There is a debate if it means clarification, through which we can come to understand katharsis. Aristotle thinks tragedy teaches us something about life. Tragedy is an elaboration on Aristotle's idea that good or virtuous people sometimes get unlucky and in the end, they get screwed. Tragedy shows this so we can learn to get by when life screws us. The whole point of tragedy is action over character. Action is the full story of the poem like the Iliad. Character is only part of the action.
Aristotle distinguishes between poetry and history. Poetry is concerned with universals, history is concerned with particulars.
I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.
Best version October 21, 2007
I teach this edition of the Poetics. The introduction is excellent. It makes the rest of the text understandable and useful to a writer.
 I philosophers and their ideas facinating, but this book makes my head hurt December 19, 2005
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
Just a layman here. I want so bad to absorb the important ideas of Aristotle, but this book is complex and my attention wonders after a while.
 Well It is A good Easy Read But 9 Bucks? June 4, 2004
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Basically Aristotle's poetics is his outline for how literature should look and what purpose each section, metaphor, sentence, word, and even letter should have. He sums up his ideas about this rather quickly unlike his modern day counterparts. The book is very easy to read, but some sections may need a little bit or re-reading. I read the entire book in about two hours; probably even less and that also accounts for highlighting and annotating it for my own uses and also rereading some parts that I did not understand the first time around.
This book is an invaluable source for anyone who studies literature of any kind. I would suggest this book to any English Literature students, just so that they would know all about the roots. This book is also a great source for writing term papers and whatever else like that.
However, its one failing is that the book cost nine dollars. If you can pick up a copy from the school library or from a teacher that would be recommended, but you probably should not buy it in its new form. (There are cheaper used books, you might want to pick up one of those)
Poignant Insights May 4, 2004
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The ancient observer's insights have stood the test of time. Some elements of human nature remain consistent regardless of the century or technology. Aristotle thought classification was important. In this work he sets forth a taxonomy for poetics. One of the more controversial statements he makes in this book is "poetry is both more philosophical and more serious than history." He doesn't leave it at that, being the philosopher he is he goes on to explain himsself. He adds, "poetry speaks more of what is universally the case, whereas history speaks of particular events." This book will give you a comparison that spans cultures and centuries.
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