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Mohamed Hamoud Kassim Al-Mahfedi
Research Scholar
Dept. of English, University of Mysore

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Aristotle's `
 is his theory of literature. Only part of it has survived, and that in the
form of notes for a course, and not as a developed theoretical treatise. Aristotle's theory of
literature may be considered to be the answer to Plato's. Of course, he does much more than
merely an answer. He develops a whole theory of his own which is opposed to Plato's much as
their whole philosophical systems are opposed to each other. For Aristotle as for Plato, the
theory of literature is only a part of a general theory of reality. This means that an adequate
reading of the `
 must take into account the context of Aristotelian theory which is defined
above all by the Metaphysics, the Ethics, the Politics and the Rhetoric. Plato's theory of literature
may be said to rest on the metaphysical basis of his theory of ideas.

The `
is primarily a philosophical work of aesthetic theory. Aristotle believed that
art is


representational. In the `
 his fundamental belief is that imitation is the
basis of the pleasure derived from all forms of art, not only poetry, but also music, dancing,
painting, and sculpture. The artist, by pointing out similarities, gives us the pleasure of
understanding things better.

The `
 became the most influential theoritical book on poetry ever written . It is an
epoch-making work, a storehouse of literary theories and a work whose influence has been
continuous and universal. It is a cross-ages literary theoretical masterpiece. It is as Murray points
out "a first attempt by man of astounding genius to build up in a region of creative art a rational
order". The `
 is a study of poetry in relation to man. It explores the fundamental instincts
of human nature as a participatory human reflection on a work of art. Thus the method is that of
a psychological inquiry. In other words, `
 is a thought-provoking attempt which poses the
right type of questions which the literary theory across-ages has grown and advanced by seeking
answers to those questions.
 Aristotle's main contribution to criticism may well be the idea that poetry is after all an
art with an object of its own, that it can be rationally understood and reduced to an intelligible set
of rules (that is, it is an "art," according to the definition in the Ethics). The main concern of the
rules of the `
, however, is not with the composition of literary works; it is rather with their
critical evaluation. Consequently, criticism can be a science, and not a mass of random principles
and intuitions.

Aristotle is very much concerned with the ethics and morals. His `
 is, as mentioned
earlier, an answer to Plato's accusation of poetry on the moral, intellectual and emotional
grounds. Here, Aristotle extends his answer to a scope of a theory of literature. Poetry, like any
other work of arts, is an imitation. Yet, it is not the mere shadows of things, but the ideal reality
embodied in every object of the world. Imitation for him is a creative process. The poet
reproduces the original not as it is, but as it appears to the senses, that is, it is reproduced
imaginatively. The poet captures the objects in a world of images and reproduces them in the
mind. In this respect, Coleridge is a kin to Aristotle in defining imagination as a process of
perceiving the images by the senses and recreating them in the mind. Hence, the poet does not
merely copy the external world, creates according to the idea of it. In this way, even the ugly
objects, being well- imitated, become a source of pleasure. In his comment on the `
 J. W.
H. Atkins remarks that "«into the term imitation, he [Aristotle] read a new and definite meaning
which make the poetic process out to be not of mere copying, but an act of creative vision « by
means of which the poet could make things ' as the were or are, things as they are said or thought
to be, or things as they ought to be'. Imitation to Aristotle was none other than recreation. It is
perhaps his most contribution to literary theory that poetry as a revelation of the permanent and
universal characteristics of human life and thought´ (Tilak 2006).

It could be strongly argued here that Aristotle was the first to distinguish between fancy--
the mere copying and that which is usually referred to as the fixed images, and imagination-- the
vivid and active process of the mind. Poetry is an imaginative art and is emotionally moving yet
for the good, the true and the useful. Aristotle supports his argument with lots of references to
works of art. Homer's epic tells of the heroic actions which could not happen yet might happen;
Sophocles presents us with a situation which moves us to fear and pity and arouses our instinct
emotions to fore; Aristophanes makes us laugh at our faults. The poet picks up a situation, an
object or an image and remodels and refashions it so vividly that it becomes pleasing, conducive
and universal. This can not be found in history or philosophy. Poetry is far beyond the limit of
history which talks only of particular facts and philosophy which deals solely with abstract
precepts. Hence, imagination constitutes an essential part of Aristotle's concept of imitation and
it is in fact its soul and blood. This can be explained by the tremendous influence of this theory
on the critics and scholars of the succeeding generations.

The Arab scholars and philosophers have expressed their influence by the theoretical and
philosophical visions of Aristotle through their books and commentaries. Alfarabi, Abu Nasr al-
Farabi (259-339 AH / 870-950 AD) is one of the foremost Islamic Philosopher and Logician,
States that: "Imagination, therefore, motivates action. Reason may indicate one thing, but if
imagination indicates its opposite, the individual might still choose to follow what imagination
dictates; so although the imagination might project a falsity, there is a kind of suspension of
belief as the individual acts in accordance with that falsity and in contradiction to reason. Such a
function of imagination, however, need not set it at the polar extreme of reason/truth; rather, and
because of its causative faculty, imagination should be seen to operate within the realm of sense
perception and reason but with its own creative-mukhayyil".

What Alfarabi shows is that the imagination can act causatively with the images which it
receives from sense perceptions; it can project them onto objects, link them with other images,
define and compare, analyze and create. In so doing, the link between imagination and imitation
'muhakat' is clarified. It is a link between al-quwwa al-mukhayyila, what is projected from the
imagination onto external objects, and the analogies and/or differences that then become
apparent between the objects. Al-quwwa al-mukhayyila projects an image onto an object raising
thereby the possibility of comparing or contrasting that object with another. Al-quwwa al-
mukhayyila makes possible muhakat.

It is important to note that Alfarabi used the term Al-quwwa al-mukhayyila, on which
Aristotle had focused in the Poetics, in connection with muhakat /imitation. For in his short
Treatise, Alfarabi proved to be the first Muslim philosopher to link Aristotle's discussion of
imagination to poetics. Indeed, what is important in the Treatise is that Alfarabi introduced an
Aristotelian psychological term into aesthetics--the concept of mukhayyil into artistic (sculpture
and poetry) construction. In no other work did Alfarabi so carefully focus on the interaction
between psychological imagination and poetic imitation.

Other Arab scholars who seemed to be influenced by Aristotle are Ibn Sina " Avicenna"
and Ibn Rushd " Averroes". For at the start of his analysis of Aristotle's poetics, Ibn Sina
employed the concept of takhyeel: "Poetry employs takhyeel." Significantly, he indicated in this
treatise that he was "summarizing" Aristotle's ³On Poetry´. The same approach appears in Ibn
Rushd's "Outline of Argument for the Short Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics;" and so too in
his Ô 



Critics since Aristotle have understood the theory that imaginative poetry reflects its time
ignores what is specific to a work of art, along with its powers of invention and transformation.
Aristotle¶s points out, in the ninth chapter of the `
:
"The difference between a historian and poet is not that one writes in prose and the
other in verse.... The real difference is this that one tells what happened and the other
what might happen. For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and
serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives
particular facts. By a "general truth" I mean the sort of thing that a certain type of
man will do or say either probably or necessarily.... A "particular fact" is what
Alcibiades did or what was done to him. It is clear, then ... that the poet must be a
"maker" not of verses but of stories, since he is a poet in virtue of his
"representation," and what he represents is action."

In the modern times, critics have diligently returned to the `
 to examine and re-
examine its value and influence. "Through the use of the creative imagination," Babbitt believes
"man has access to the universal, which is now viewed as accessible ³through a veil of fiction´
or "illusion". In bridging the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Babbitt thus claims to excavate a
truth often obscured by classical intellectualism that our imitation of that which is highest and
universal in human nature can ± and indeed must ± be creative. "Most fundamentally, Aristotle¶s
theory is informed by the notion familiar to Greek antiquity that man is subject to two laws: he
has an ordinary or natural self of impulse and desire and a human self that is known practically
as a power of control over impulse and desire. If man is to become human he must not let
impulse and desire run wild, but must oppose to everything excessive in his ordinary self,
whether in thought or deed or emotion, the law of measure.´ Hence, it is a humanistic concern
with restraint on excess and proportion with reference to a model of imitation that one finds at
the center of Aristotle¶s theory.

Imagination, as expressed through poetry or art, at its best, aims to imitate what ³ought to
be,´ i.e. the normative or the universal, not in any direct or literal fashion, but as a profound
representation or symbol. Indeed, this is the sense of Aristotle¶s famous remark in the `

that poetry is capable of being ³serious´ and ³philosophical,´ in contradistinction to the sort of
dull imitation.

Therefore, classical imagination distinguishes itself by aiming at that which is abiding in

human experience, the permanent as opposed to the mere transient flux. Again, it is Aristotle
who best captures this highest potential of the imagination in art and literature: ³One may be
rightly imitative, [Aristotle] says, and so have access to a superior truth and gives others access
to it only by being a master of illusion. The great poet µbreathes immortal air«".

Aristotle's imagination is that which is capable of such perception, which is to say, the
ethical or moral imagination. It informs that art which best approximates the universal in human
life through its veil of illusion. For, ³the best art", says Goethe in the true spirit of Aristotle
"gives us the µillusion of a higher reality.¶
 Works Cited

Babbitt, Irving. › 
›  


 
. New

Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

---. ›    
 

` 
      

› : University of Missouri Press, 2003.

Gibbs, Raymond W. Ô
`
  
Ô   



, London: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ix+ 527.

Matar, Nabil.     : With a translation of his "Treatise on Poetry",

[London]: College Literature, 1996.

Tilak, Raghukul.  
!`
, New Delhi: Rama Brothers Pvt, Ltd, 2006.

Turner, Mark.   " 
  
  Ô  #, Review,

published in `›  , 3:1 (1995) 179-185.