Aristotle VS Plato
Biography of Aristotle
Aristotle lived in the fourth century B.C. in Macedonia, in Greece, and his popularity originated primarily due to his work as the tutor to Alexander the Great. Aristotle was the protégé of Plato; however, he differed from him in the concept of poetry (not only pleasant but useful also) and in his opinions in religion, public welfare, government, ideal man, etc.
Plato and his Utopian world
It is Plato who invents the utopian world and the platonic love; he adheres to the imaginative world and sees the world as ephemeral thing, so his point of view is that poets imitate an imitation. The main concern of Plato is to make an ideal state; hence he tends to make everything including art, poetry subservient to morality or the civic culture, truth, and philosophy. In Plato's precept, poetry tends to lower the morals and he attacks Homer and Hesiod because of showing of the deities as revengeful, and lustful. Poetry tells lies about the after death world; poets are rather pointed to as teachers of immoral things based on falsehood. In Plato's maxim, the real world is the world of ideas, thoughts, and the truth is an abstraction.
Biography of Aristotle
Aristotle lived in the fourth century B.C. in Macedonia, in Greece, and his popularity originated primarily due to his work as the tutor to Alexander the Great. Aristotle was the protégé of Plato; however, he differed from him in the concept of poetry (not only pleasant but useful also) and in his opinions in religion, public welfare, government, ideal man, etc.
Plato and his Utopian world
It is Plato who invents the utopian world and the platonic love; he adheres to the imaginative world and sees the world as ephemeral thing, so his point of view is that poets imitate an imitation. The main concern of Plato is to make an ideal state; hence he tends to make everything including art, poetry subservient to morality or the civic culture, truth, and philosophy. In Plato's precept, poetry tends to lower the morals and he attacks Homer and Hesiod because of showing of the deities as revengeful, and lustful. Poetry tells lies about the after death world; poets are rather pointed to as teachers of immoral things based on falsehood. In Plato's maxim, the real world is the world of ideas, thoughts, and the truth is an abstraction.
1)The Concept of Tragedy
Aristotle dedicated seventeen chapters out of twenty-six ones to tragedy, and its numerous constituents. Tragedy, according to Aristotle, is "an imitation of an action that is serious, and of certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, each kind brought in separately in the separate parts of the work; in the form of action, and not in narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions".
Aristotle dedicated seventeen chapters out of twenty-six ones to tragedy, and its numerous constituents. Tragedy, according to Aristotle, is "an imitation of an action that is serious, and of certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, each kind brought in separately in the separate parts of the work; in the form of action, and not in narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions".
The Formative Parts of Tragedy are: fable, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and melody. Melody and diction are parts of imitation; character and thought are natural things.
According to Aristotle, Plot (the soul of tragedy) is the combination of events; Character is what Aristotle defines as the agents of the story; Diction comes to mean the composition of verse (the metrical arrangement of verse); Thought is the reflection of truth ( ideas of the occasion); Spectacle (the least artistic of all parts) is the stage appearance of a character; Melody is the song or the rhythm.
The Greek Tragedy was different from the modern tragedy in various ways, for example, in the Greek language, the word 'tragedy' means "a goat song" and the word came to be used for plays because of the practice of awarding goats to winners in dramatic contests. On the day of the dramatic festivals, four plays were performed on each of the days, three generally serious in tone, and one satyr-play (or burlesque), so for the Greeks, Tragedy is one of the three plays performed before the satyr-play.
Tragedy differentiated from the other Poetic-Forms:
Aristotle begins by pointing out that imitation is the common basis of all the fine Arts, which, however, differ from each other in their medium of imitation. Thus, poetry differs from painting and music in its medium of imitation. Poetry itself is divisible into epic and dramatic on the basis of its manner of imitation. The epic narrates, while the dramatic represents through action. The dramatic poetry itself is distinguished as tragic or comic on the basis of its objects of imitation. Tragedy imitates men as better, and comedy as worse, than they really are.
The Quantitative parts of tragedy:
Every tragedy consists of: Prologue-Episode-Exode. The chorus consists of Parode: the first statement of he song, Stasimon is song of the chorus, and Commo(s) is a song of lamentation.
Peripety: sudden and unforeseen change, turning point, or a reversal in the action. It is a moment which occurs when the hero's fate takes an unexpected turn, when there is a change of fortune in the action of the play to the opposite of the affairs.
Discovery: a change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate.
1) The differences between Epic, Tragic and Comic
Aristotle's poetics
Aristotle sees that comedy, dithyrambic (lyric poetry), music are all forms of imitation, yet they differ in the manners of their imitation. Poetry has two divisions: Epic and tragic and they both share the common ground of being imitation of serious subjects in a grand kind of verse.
According to Aristotle, Plot (the soul of tragedy) is the combination of events; Character is what Aristotle defines as the agents of the story; Diction comes to mean the composition of verse (the metrical arrangement of verse); Thought is the reflection of truth ( ideas of the occasion); Spectacle (the least artistic of all parts) is the stage appearance of a character; Melody is the song or the rhythm.
The Greek Tragedy was different from the modern tragedy in various ways, for example, in the Greek language, the word 'tragedy' means "a goat song" and the word came to be used for plays because of the practice of awarding goats to winners in dramatic contests. On the day of the dramatic festivals, four plays were performed on each of the days, three generally serious in tone, and one satyr-play (or burlesque), so for the Greeks, Tragedy is one of the three plays performed before the satyr-play.
Tragedy differentiated from the other Poetic-Forms:
Aristotle begins by pointing out that imitation is the common basis of all the fine Arts, which, however, differ from each other in their medium of imitation. Thus, poetry differs from painting and music in its medium of imitation. Poetry itself is divisible into epic and dramatic on the basis of its manner of imitation. The epic narrates, while the dramatic represents through action. The dramatic poetry itself is distinguished as tragic or comic on the basis of its objects of imitation. Tragedy imitates men as better, and comedy as worse, than they really are.
The Quantitative parts of tragedy:
Every tragedy consists of: Prologue-Episode-Exode. The chorus consists of Parode: the first statement of he song, Stasimon is song of the chorus, and Commo(s) is a song of lamentation.
Peripety: sudden and unforeseen change, turning point, or a reversal in the action. It is a moment which occurs when the hero's fate takes an unexpected turn, when there is a change of fortune in the action of the play to the opposite of the affairs.
Discovery: a change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate.
1) The differences between Epic, Tragic and Comic
Aristotle's poetics
Aristotle sees that comedy, dithyrambic (lyric poetry), music are all forms of imitation, yet they differ in the manners of their imitation. Poetry has two divisions: Epic and tragic and they both share the common ground of being imitation of serious subjects in a grand kind of verse.
Comedy
Is an imitation of people worse than they appear in average, worse than we see them in life. Low and mean people just stir our laughter.
Epic poetry
Imitation of serious subjects in a grand kind of verse (narrative not dramatic, shorter than) in comparison of tragedy. (Constituents).
Action VS character
Aristotle was wrong once he diminishes the importance of the character "A Tragedy is impossible without plot, but there may be one without character". His statement raised a storm of criticism and controversy.
Character is what determines the qualities of men, according to Aristotle, but it is by the action that men are happy or unhappy. That is why Aristotle asserts that for any Tragedy it is an imitation of action not of characters. In the Greek Tragedy, it is the supernatural powers which determine the fate of the human beings.
Is an imitation of people worse than they appear in average, worse than we see them in life. Low and mean people just stir our laughter.
Epic poetry
Imitation of serious subjects in a grand kind of verse (narrative not dramatic, shorter than) in comparison of tragedy. (Constituents).
Action VS character
Aristotle was wrong once he diminishes the importance of the character "A Tragedy is impossible without plot, but there may be one without character". His statement raised a storm of criticism and controversy.
Character is what determines the qualities of men, according to Aristotle, but it is by the action that men are happy or unhappy. That is why Aristotle asserts that for any Tragedy it is an imitation of action not of characters. In the Greek Tragedy, it is the supernatural powers which determine the fate of the human beings.
Although i'm not a freshman i reaaly like this course, we studied it two years ago but each time i read about the Greek and Roman literature i become more amazed, thank u Dr. Hani for this course, it reaaly helped us in our studies of literature and Drama.
ReplyDeletethis is a good resource for us, as we study now Hamlet's tragedy in which Shakespeare followed most of Aristotle's definition of the tragedy especially what concerns the plot except that Hamlet don't follow the three unities.
thank u again Dr. Hani, God may bless u
please dr.hani we need to know what we should do in the reaserch papers of elizabeth age
ReplyDelete