An overview of Aristotle chapter in Literary criticism. prescribed text for BA English students in India.

1. ARISTOTLE
Literary Criticism

2. Observations on Comedy
The Plan of Poetics
Observations on Poetry
Observations on Style
Observations on Epic
Observation on Tragedy
Value of his criticism
CONTENT

3. INTRODUCTION
◦ ARISTOLE – 384 B.C to 322 B.C
◦ Disciple of Plato
◦ Tutor of Alexander the great who invaded North-west India in 326 B.C
◦ Written 2 critical treaties
◦ POETICS – poetry
◦ RHETORIC – art of speaking

4. THE PLAN OF POETICS
◦ 50 – Pages, 26- chapters
◦ They are the summary of his lectures to his pupils
◦ Chapterisation (26)
◦ 1 to 4, 25 – poetry (5)
◦ 5 – comedy, epic, tragedy (1)
◦ 6 to 19 – tragedy (14)
◦ 20 to 22 – poetic diction (3)
◦ 23, 24 – epic poetry (2)
◦ 26 – comparison of epic poetry and tragedy (1)
◦ According to Aristotle, Tragedy is the most developed form of poetry

5. OBSERVATIONS ON POETRY
◦ NATURE – Pleasure, imitation, Universal
◦ FUNCTION – It is to please
◦ EMOTIONAL APPEAL –
tragedy – arouses fear and pity
these emotions are healthy and artistically satisfying

6. OBSERVATIONS ON TRAGEDY
1) ORIGIN
2) CHARACTERISTICS
3) CONSTITUENT PARTS
4) STRUCTURE OF THE PLOT
5) SIMPLE AND COMPLEX PLOT
6) TRAGIC HERO

7.  ORIGIN
Imitative act
Noble actions
Good men
epic
Hymns to god Graver spirits
Mean actions
Bad men
satire
Trivial ones
Comedy arises
Tragedy arises
• According to Aristotle, Tragedy is superior.
• It has music, spectacular effects and is compact in design

8.  CHARACTERISTICS
◦ It is an artistic ornament, in the form of action
◦ It is an imitation of an action which is serious, complete and of certain magnitude
◦ Serious action – a tale of suffering
◦ Action – regular human activities
◦ Complete action – with a beginning, middle and an end
◦ Plot – should be of certain magnitude/ reasonable length
◦ Artistic ornaments – rhythm, harmony song -> enrich the language of the play
◦ Form of action – distinct from epic
◦ Epic – poet is the narrator
◦ Drama- living/ moving characters are the narrators

9.  CONSTITUENT PARTS
PLOT
CHARACTER
THOUGHT
DICTION
SONG
SPECTACLE
Object it imitates or represents
Medium to imitate
- Manner of imitation

10. PLOT
Arrangement of incidents
(tragedy is an imitation of men in action)
CHARACTER
Determines men’s qualities
The actions of a character – happy or unhappy
The deeds done by the character (person) is more important than the character(personality); but the deed is issued by from
a character (person)
THOUGHT
Reaction to circumstances

11. DICTION/ WORDS, SONG
Diction is a medium.
The plot, character, thoughts are needed for poet’s object of imitation; diction is the medium in which he
expresses the ‘thought’ of his character.
SPECTACLE
Connected least with the art of poetry
Spectacle is a manner in which tragedy is presented to public
 The power of tragedy can be felt even apart from representation and actors.

12.  STRUCTURE OF THE PLOT
◦ UNITY
◦ Unity of action – from a character’s life, the actions that are relevant to tragedy should be taken
◦ Events – should focus only on one man; no multiple protagonists/ men
◦ Unity of time – single revolution of sun/ events happened in 24 hrs cycle.
◦ Unity of place – (not spoken)
◦ Plot - change of fortune of the character – from good to bad; not bad to good
- unhappy ending
- 2 parts in a plot
- COMPLICATION (Rising action) -> tangled knot (from beginning to arousal of a problem)
- UNRAVELLING/ DENOUEMENT (falling action) -> untying the knot (from falling point
to end)

13.  SIMPLE AND COMPLEX PLOT
◦ Simple – without twists and turns
◦ Complex – PERPETEIA – Reversal of situation/ intention (you wanted to do a
good deed but it ended up harming/ bad for others) – a deed done in blindness
defeating its own purpose
◦ And the discovery of these false moves is called ANAGNORISIS

14.  TRAGIC HERO
◦ A man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought
about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty (a man who is
neither too good nor too bad)
◦ His misfortune excites pity
◦ His overall goodness excites fear for his doom

15. OBSERVATIONS ON COMEDY
◦ Comedy – follows its parental form ‘satire’ – satirical verse & phallic songs (represented men who
were worse)
◦ Satire – ridicules personalities – “sinner”
◦ Comedy – ridicules general vices – “sin”
◦ Worst character – defective or ugly character not a painful or destructive character
◦ It provokes laughter with no harm or pain; only good humour
◦ Shares generalizing power of poetry.
It represents what may happen; not what happened in the past
Represents general section of humanity; not a specific person

16. OBSERVATIONS ON THE EPIC
1) ITS NATURE AND ITS FORM
o Earlier in origin
o Nature - resembles tragedy
- imitation of a serious action
o Structure - complication, turning point, denouement
- simple or complex
- unity of action
- arises from catharsis
o “Whole and complete with the beginning, the middle and the ending”

17. 1) ITS NATURE AND ITS FORM
o Characters - plot, character, thought, diction
o Form - imitates life by narration
- greater length
o Communicates its meaning in reading
o Length not restricted
o Can show many events happening at one time (at different places; at different time)
o Use of marvellous or improbable (unlikely to be true or to occur)
o Epic – perceived by imagination
o Poets should prefer believable false than unbelievable false – “poet should prefer probable possibilities to
improbable possibilities”

18. OBSERVATIONS ON THE EPIC
2) EPIC AND TRAGEDY
◦ Tragedy – more superior
◦ Tragedy – a literary craft unfolds its action within narrow limits
- limited length attains greater unity
◦ Tragedy attains its end more perfectly than epic

19. OBSERVATIONS ON STYLE
◦ 2 essentials of good writing 1- clearness
2- propriety
◦ Object of writing – communicates the writers meaning
- clear or intelligible
◦ Mode of writing – propriety (conformity) or suitability
◦ Intelligibility – current words (words that are in usage at the current period of time) ->
familiar to all
- aim at dignity and charm
◦ Use of unfamiliar words – have the element of surprise and novelty
◦ Poem – should use all these kinds of combinations.

20. STYLE OF PROSE
Loose Periodic
 series of sentences held together by connective
words
 each sentence is a complete whole, with the
beginning, the middle and the end; and a length
of its own
 style is formless, chain of sentences than may
be increased or reduced
 the form cannot be easily tampered with
 less intelligible and less graceful
• “RHETORIC” – distinct from poetry
• Poetry – use of unfamiliar words to attain dignity and charm
• Prose – deals with everyday subjects. So uses only familiar or current words
• But the charm “metaphor” is common for both
• Arrangement of words – loose or periodic

21. VALUE OF HIS CRITICISM
◦ Plato’s approach to literature -> social reformer: he wanted literature to do the work of morality
◦ Aristotle’s approach to literature - > Scientist: expects it be an ‘art’
- the standard of correctness are not same for poetry and politics
- Politics is social science – judged by the contribution it makes to social well-being
- poetry – literature/art – judged by ‘pleasure’
◦ Judge literature with its own standard called ‘aesthetic’

22. VALUE OF HIS CRITICISM
◦ Principles in which literature can most efficiently discharge the function – unity of action, propriety or
decorum -> character, thought, style and performance
◦ Aristotle – master of historic method (he examines all three art forms with reference to the past)
◦ The truths of comedy, tragedy and epic are of high order than truths of history
◦ The pleasure elements –
◦ Peripeteia and anagnorisis in tragic plot {Reversal of situation/ intention; And the discovery of the false moves}
◦ Hamartia in tragic hero {a fatal flaw leading to the downfall}
◦ Metaphor in style {description of an object look as if its literally true}

23. THANK YOU
N.T