Poetics

ISBN-13: 9780140446364 / Angielski / Miękka / 1997 / 144 str.

Aristotle

Opis

Essential reading for all students of Greek theatre and literature, and equally stimulating for anyone interested in literature
In the Poetics, his near-contemporary account of classical Greek tragedy, Aristotle examine the dramatic elements of plot, character, language and spectacle that combine to produce pity and fear in the audience, and asks why we derive pleasure from this apparently painful process. Taking examples from the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the Poetics introduced into literary criticism such central concepts as mimesis ('imitation'), hamartia ('error') and katharsis, which have informed serious thinking about drama ever since. Aristotle explains how the most effective tragedies rely on complication and resolution, recognition and reversals, while centring on chaaracerts of heroic stature, idealised yet true to life. One of the most perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history, the Poetics has informed serious thinking about drama ever since.
Malcolm Heath's lucid translation makes the Poetics fully accessible to the modern reader. In this edition it is accompanied by an extended introduction, which discusses the key concepts in detail, and includes suggestions for further reading.
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Spis treści

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Malcolm Heath

Introduction
1. Human culture, poetry and the Poetics
2. Imitation
3. Aristotle's history of poetry
4. The analysis of tragedy
5. Plot: the basics
6. Reversal and recognition
7. The best kinds of tragic plot
8. The pleasures of tragedy
9. The other parts of tragedy
10. Tragedy: miscellaneous aspects
11. Epic
12. Comedy
13. Further reading
14. Reference conventions
Notes to the Introduction
Synopsis of the Poetics

POETICS

Notes to the translation

O autorze

Aristotle was born in the Macedonian city of Stagira in 384 BC, and died in 322. He studied in Plato's Academy in Athens and later became tutor to Alexander the Great, before establishing his own school in Athens, called the Lyceum. His writings, which were of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient, medieval and modern philosophy. Many of them have survived, including The Nicomachean Ethics, The Politics and Poetics, among others.