REVIEW: Aristotle’s Poetics

● In this treatise he describes the ideal tragedy, exemplified most perfectly by Oedipus
Rex
● Tragedy is defined a representation of Action
● Action → Motivation from which smaller acts spring the Stanislavskian Superobjective
● Two things bring about action
○ Character (disposition)
○ Thought (how a person make choices to deal with life)
● Beginning/Middle/End → doesn’t mean no exposition, rather an event launching the
action (the sparking of desire happens right at the beginning, must be linked by
causality, necessity that the middle follows the beginning etc. and that it is probably
○ Beginning is an initial launching of desire, of action
○ The Middle is dependent on the Beginning and gives rise to the End
○ The End is dependent on both prior sections and entirely conclusive
● Anagnorisis/Discovery → change from ignorance to knowledge, a recognition
○ 1) Discovery by Signs or Marks → Cop out of marking someone physically to
invoke the
○ 2)
○ 3) Discovery by Memory → being just a step above that
○ 4) Discovery by Reasoning
○ 5) Composite Discovery →
○ 6) Plot Driven Discovery → arising from the incidents themselves, probable
● All this to say that he’s much more interested in
● Peripeteia/Reversal → change from one state to its opposite, the reversal, a change in
fortune (ideally from good to bad)
● The best tragedies have both near each other at the climax, followed by a period of
suffering and falling action
● Catharsis/Purgation → release and expulsion, of the emotions of pity (for the characters)
and fear (that you so easily could’ve experienced it yourself)
● According to Aristotle, after Catharsis comes a return to reasons
● Aristotle intellectualizes the visceral experience of actually being at one of these plays
● If one were to hypothetically follow his
● Agit-Prop → agitation and propaganda, message driven and weaponized pity and fear
● The whole purpose of the aristitalian structure is to lead to catharsis, and a better
appreciation of reason in juxtaposition
● Aristtle wasn’t interested in expressing realism → things don’t cohesively work together
in this way in life
● Aristotilian is directed toward becoming some
ANTIGONE
● The inciting incident is when Antigone asks Ismene to help her bury their brother in
violation of the law
● Ismene is the sight of
● IN looking at a play in two ways: Structural and
● In Antigone the Peripateia is best manifested in a single character in the form of Creon
● The community desire for balance between the family and state