PLATO AND ARISTOTLE'S CONCEPT ON LITERATURE:-
NAME:- NIYATIBEN A.PATHAK
COURSE:-M.A.(ENGLISH)
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PAPER NO:-1
TOPIC:- PLATO AND ARISTOTLE'S COMMENT ON LITERATURATURE
=>SYNOPSIS :-
●Plato was born about 429 BC, close to the time when Pericles(.In 510 BC a man named Cleisthenes (KLICE-then-eez), who was an aristocrat (a rich, powerful man) in Athens, invented another new type of government, the democracy. died, and he died in 347 BC, just after the birth of Alexander the Great. Plato was born in Athens, to a very rich and powerful family. Many of his relatives were involved with Athenian politics, though Plato himself was not. Athens was in the middle of fighting the Peloponnesian War, and Plato fought for several years as a soldier.
When Plato was a young man, during and after the war, he went to listen to Socrates, and learned a lot from Socrates about how to think, and what sort of questions to think about. When Socrates was killed in 399 BC, Plato was very upset (He was 30 years old when Socrates died) . Plato began to write down some of the conversations he had heard Socrates have. Practically everything we know about Socrates comes from what Plato wrote down.
Plato belongs to to an age of inquiry and as such plato 'S chief interest was philosophical investigations which form the subject of his great works in form of Dialogues. He was not a professed critic of literature and his dialogues, more
Particularly in The Ion, The Symposium, The Republic and The Laws. According to him all arts are imitative or mimetic in nature. He wrote in The Republic that 'ideas are the ultimate reality .'Things are conceived as ideas before they tack practical shapes. So, idea is original and the thing is copy of that idea. Carpenter's bed in his mind. Thus Bed is once removed from reality. But painters bed is imitation of Carpenter's bed . So it is twice removed from reality. Thus artist /poet takes man from reality rather than towards it. Thus artist deals in illusion.
=>Synopsis:-
●When Plato died, he left his nephew Speusippus as his successor to run the Academy and secure the proper education of young minds in his philosophy. He was apparently quite right in doing so; his brightest and most famous student, Aristotle, who later became the private tutor of Alexander the Great, had no intention of continuing Plato’s legacy and ultimately undermined him with or without the Academy.
●Aristotle was a scientist in the truest sense of his day and when good, scientific information was unavailable, he insisted on strict logic. Relativism, or the belief that the Truth is whatever most people believe it to be, had created a huge market for professional bullshit artists in Athens who instructed their students on how to effectively convince crowds with sneaky and faulty arguments, a practice called Sophistry (now an insult of the first degree).
Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle was born circa 384 B.C. in Stagira, Greece. When he turned 17, he enrolled in Plato’s Academy. In 338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and writing. Aristotle died in 322 B.C., after he left Athens and fled to Chalcis.
◆The Works of Aristotle and Plato:-
●Whereas most of Plato's works have survived through the centuries, roughly 80% of what Aristotle wrote has been lost. He is said to have written almost 200 treatises on an array of subjects, but only 31 have survived. Some of his other works are referenced or alluded to by contemporary scholars, but the original material is gone.
●What remains of Aristotle's works are primarily lecture notes and teaching aids, draft-level material that lacks the polish of "finished" publications. Even so, these works influenced philosophy, ethics, biology, physics, astronomy, medicine, politics, and religion for many centuries. His most important works, copied hundreds of times by hand throughout ancient and medieval times, were titled: Physics; De Anima (On the Soul); Metaphysics; Politics; and Poetics. These and several other treatises were collected in what was called the Corpus Aristotelicum and often served as the basis for hundreds of private and teaching libraries up to the 19th century.
●Plato's works can be roughly divided into three periods. His early period featured much of what is known about Socrates, with Plato taking the role of the dutiful student who keeps his tutor's ideas alive. Most of these works are written in the form of dialogues, using the Socratic Method (asking questions to explore concepts and knowledge) as the basis for teaching. Plato's The Apology, where he discusses the trial of execution and his teacher, is included in this period.
●Plato's second or middle period is comprised of works where he explores morality and virtue in individuals and society. He presents lengthy discussions on justice, wisdom, courage, as well as the duality of power and responsibility. Plato's most famous work, The Republic, which was his vision of a utopian society, was written during this period.
●The third period of Plato's writings mainly discusses the role of arts, along with morality and ethics. Plato challenges himself and his ideas in this period , exploring his own conclusions with self-debate. The end result is his philosophy of idealism, wherein the truest essence of things occurs in thought, not reality. In The Theory of Forms and other works, Plato states that only ideas are constant, that the world perceived by senses is deceptive and changeable.
◆PLATO'S THE REPUBLIC :-
●Plot beloves to the classical age in Greek literature.Plato was a thinker, philosopher and the reason was dominant in his personality. Plato in his famous book the REPUBLIC talks about the nature of poetry and the functions of poetry as well. Plato thinks that the poets are inspired and inspiration is illogical . He says that the poets are possessed by the divine madness and thier imaginative minds depict thier experience of life in poems.plato was also the lover of truth and he tried to find out the final truth by thinking over the question 'what is real?' plato says that says that poets are liars and they speak lie through thier poems. They present false gods and goddesses in thier poems and thereby encourage falsehood among people . Plato says that poet misguided people and they provoke evil ideas in peoples minds. Hence, they should be banished Frome the ideal state.He classifies the two ruling powers as the visible and the intellegible. The former includes images,shadows, reflections etc. Whereas the letter includes intellect . Plato says that ideas are real and physical things are unreal. He says that poetry is an imitation of an imitation twice removed from reality . He objects imitative nature of poetry . Plato was a well read scholar and when he commented upon poetry he had in mind the two great epics of Homer entitled THE ILLIAD AND THE ODYSSEY .Plato also read the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. He loved the classical works of these poets but for hom truth was of prime concern. Plato says that al fine arts are imitative by nature. He gives the word mimesis for imitation . He says that idea of bed is created by the almighty god . So, god is real maker or created . The second type of bad is prepared by the carpenter from wood. According to plato, the carpenter's bed is the imitation of the god 'S idea of bed. The third type of bed is the painters bed. The painter paints the bed looking at the carpenter's bed so, it is the imitation of an imitation.similarity, when the poet writes the poem ,he takes the help of his imagination and writers the poem based on the experience s of the physical world which is not real. He says that truth is notional or ideational.platodefines poetry and poets and says that both are devoied of truth.
◆PLATO'S THEORY OF IMITATION :-
●Plato gives an example of imitative narration in BOOK iii of THE REPUBLIC . He takes the example from homers The ILLIAD in which the priest chryses the random to Agamemnon. Chryses himself. Thus, the narration becomes Imitative. On the other hand, Homer used the direct method and told about chryses to the reader directly, the narration would have become a simple one. Plato observes that in all epics and classical poetry narration tends to be Imitative.
◆PLATO AS MORALIST :-
●When we read PLATO'S comment on poetry and poets,we come across three aspects of social reformer . As a philosopher, plato says, that the real is notional . As a moralist ,plato worries about the conflict between the gods and goddesses. Plato says that lover of truth nd for him knowing truth was the only objective of his life. As a social reformer , plato thought about the welfare of the society in which he wanted to prepare ideal citizens. Plato says that the stories which affect the minder people and such literature is not worthy nd the works that depict vices of iman life should be discarded.
◆ARISTOTLE 'S POETICS :-
●Aristotle was the disciple of plato but he differs from plato in many points. Aristotle, in fact ,gives answers to platos objections to poetry. He seems as if he were a strict puritan whereas Aristotle welcomes all the innovatieve ideas regarding poetry. Aristotle has written the book entitled THE POETICS in which he has commented upon the nature and functions of poetry . He talks about all fine arts ingen era?. He not only talks about poetry but also about paintingand music . When Aristotle disscusses poetry, he means all literary forms like epic, tragedy , comedy, etc. In the poetics, he at length discusses the tragedy. Aristotle begins his discourse by admitting that all arts are imitations. In other words, Aristotle says that all arts are inevitable representational . He says that the plot is the soul of the tragedy . He also says that in any literary from plot is the most important element . He says that the plot may be a simple one or it may be a complex one. If the action proceeds in a straightforward manner and if it is one . On the other hand , when the plot involves periphery or discovery or both , such a plot could be a complex one . Periphery means the change from one state of things within the play to its opposite of the kind described. Similarly , discovery means a Change Frome ignorance to knowledge.
●Aristotle says that poetry is an imitation of an imitation twice removed from reality but it is not carbon copy of the physical things .He says that if the poet gives something less than life, he also gives something more than life. Plato missed to see that art conveys something more than life too. According to Aristotleto Aristotle , a thing is seen in a work of art from the poets point of view and the poet convey s his vision of life in his work.
●Aristotle says that all fine arts differ from one another in modes of imitation . He says that these fine arts differ from one another in three ways. They are difference of means, difference of objects and difference in manner of imitation.
His main concern appeares to be tragedy, which in his day was considered to be the most developed form of poetry. Another part of politics deals with comedy, but it is unfortunately lost.
●In his observations on the nature and function of poetry, he has replied the charges of plato against poetry, wherein he partly disagrees with his teacher.
◆DIFFERENCE OF MEANS :-
●In literature, the use of language becomes the means . In music, the use of musical instruments like flue or lyre becomes the means.Similarity, in painting,paints, brush,etc become the means. Sometimes, means are identified as mediums. Any artist expresses his ideas and feelings regarding things and people through a particular mandir medium. The artist also choose sa particular fine for his expression and selection of a particular fine art also goes with the mode of imitation .
◆DIFFERENCE OF OBJECT :-
●The second difference is the selection of objects. The objects the imitators represents are actions with agents who are necessarily either good men or bad men. Aristotle says that in a work of art , the men presented re either above or below in degree of thier attributes . It means the character s in a work of art my be better than the real people or they may be worse thn the real people . However, the artist delineates the characters as he finds them in real life. The difference in object is also shown through the mood dominant mood is comic, the work will be the comedy.
◆Difference in manner of imitation :-
●The third is the manner of imitation. When the literary work includes simple narration, the writer directly tells about the characters and events to the readers. Thus, simple narration is one of the communicative things to the readers . But sometimes , the author speaks through an assumed character such a type of communicating things in which the author represents the whole story dramatically through characters as if they were actually doing the things described.
●Aristotle says that in tragedy , tragic events invoke the feelings of pity and fear in the minds of the audiance or the readers and thereby the writer causes the proper purgation of our minds. Aristotle gives the Greek word 'Catharsis' means purgation or purification of minds through pity and fear. Aristotle also emphasizes that there should be an organic whole in a work of art. He says that plot must have BEGNNING , middle, and end. He also talks about the three unities required 8n a work of art. They are unity of time , unity of action ,unity of place . Unity of time means there should not be a vast gap of time between the two events of the play. Similarly, unity of place means the events of the play should tack place at different places very far from one another . Majority of the events should tack place only at one place. Unity of action means the action done by the character s should be consistent and convincing. The characters should behave logically and according to thier personality tpes. There should be no odd action exhibited by the characters.
Aristotle provides a defination of tragedy that we can break up into seven parts :- 1-it involves mimesis;2-it is serious ;3-the action is complete and with magnitude ;4- it is made up of language with the' aesthetic ornaments ' of rhythm and harmony; 5-these aesthetic ornaments are not used uniformly throught, but are introduced in separate parts of the work, so that, for instance, some bits are spoken in verse and other bits are sung; 6- it is performed rather than nattered ;and 7-it arouses the emotions of pity and fear and accomplishes a catharsis of these emotions.
◆Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy
THE NATURE, DEFINITION AND FORMATIVE ELEMENTS OF TRAGEDY
Introduction : “Poetics” Chiefly Concern with Tragedy
The very word ‘tragedy’ brings to mind Aristotle and thePoetics. Some aspects of the definition and discussion of tragedy in that treatise may be considered controversial, unacceptable or outdated, but its influence continues unabated. Tragedy, indeed, is the major concern of thePoetics, as it has come down to us. Tragedy is considered by Aristotle to be the highest poetic form. His definition and theory of tragedy presents remarkable insight and comprehension. It has become the type of the theory of literature, as Abercrombie says.
★The Greek Conception of the Term “Tragedy”
It is necessary at the very outset, to remember that the Greek conception of Tragedy was different from ours. In the modern ages tragedy means a drama (sometimes story) with an unhappy ending, and disastrous enough to have ‘tragic’ effect. But the origin of the term ‘tragedy’ is not too clear. Dante said that an unhappy tale was called a “tragedy” or “goat-song” because goats are noisy. The real source is still under dispute. It is not certain whether the goat was a prize or whether it was sacrificed, or whether the original dancers dressed up in goat-masks or goat-skins. However, the Greek conception of tragedy was that it was a serious drama, not necessarily with an unahppy ending. The essence of tragedy was that it handled serious action of serious characters, whereas comedy dealt grotesquely with grotesque characters.
The Greek had their dramatic festivals, with four plays being performed on each day. There were three serious plays, and one satyr-play or burleque. Tragedy, for the Greeks, simply meant “one of the three serious plays presented before the satyr-play at a dramatic festival”. The Greek tragedy has scenes and incidents of pain and sorrow, but need not end disastrously. This is clear from Aristotle’s classification of four possible tragic plots (in ch. 13) , which include two plots which represented a change from misery to happiness—a contention which seems unacceptable in the modern times.
★The Origin of Tragedy and Its Superiority over The Epic
Aristotle traces the possible origin of tragedy in hisPoetics. According to him, tragedy developed from the heroic strain of poetry, which in its turn, developed from the hymns sung in praise of gods and great men. Tragedy is considered by Aristotle to be a higher form than the heroic or epic form of poetry, because it was a later development. Tragedy has greater degree of concentration and coherence than the epic, and has a greater effect. Aristotle traces the different stages in the evolution of tragedy, from the single singer to the addition of actors and scenery. He considers tragedy to have attained full development by the time he wrote about it.
●The Definiton of Tragedy
Aristotle’s famous definition of tragedy says : A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also as having magnitude, complete in itself in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form: with incidents arousing pity and fear; wherewith to accomplish its catharisis of such emotions. (Ch. 6)
The definition clearly falls into two parts. The first part tells us about the nature of tragedy, its object, manner, and medium of imitation; the second part points out the function of tragedy.
●Tragedy : Difference from Other Forms of Poetic Imitation
Tragedy, like all other forms of art, is a form of imitation. It differs from other arts in the object, manner, and medium of imitation. Its objects of imitation are ‘serious actions’. It is always to be kept in mind that ‘imitation’ in the Aristotelian sense is not slavish copying. It involves grasping and presenting the essence of a universal truth. Poetic imitation is re-creation or a creative reproduction of objects. Tragedy, then, differs from comedy, because its object of imitation is a serious action. Comedy imitates a ‘groteseque’ action. The term ‘serious’ has aroused controversy. Generally, critics have said that it implies ‘weighty’ or ‘important’. It is something that matters, and hence of permanent significance.
In its manner of imitation, tragedy is different from the epic. The epic uses the manner of narrative, while tragedy represents life through acting. It differrs from other forms of poetry in that it employs embellishments1 of pleasurable accessories2 of different kinds. It uses, for instance, verse for dialogues, and song for the chorus.
●The Action: Complete with a Beginning, Middle, and End
Aristotle does not define the word ‘action’. But we get the . implication through the qualities which Aristotle ascribes to it. For convenience’s sake, one can say that an action shows the progress of an individual from one position to another, at which he either dies, or becomes involved in a completely changed set of circumstances. Action is the plot, consisting of the logical and inevitable sequence of incidents. The action must be complete, which means that it must have a beginning, middle and end “The beginning is that which does not itself come after anything else in a necessary sequence, but after which some other thing does naturally exists or come to pass.” In one sense, there is nothing that has a beginning or an end. There is a continuous causal1 relationship between events. What Aristotle means, however, is that a play should have good reason for beginning where it does, and for. ending where it does. As F.L. Lucas comments, events do tend to occur in clusters. A volcano, even when continuously active has eruptions, which form episodes complete in themselves; and the events of a tragedy are like such an eruption. T.R. Henn remarks that the beginning of an action might be perceived to be “a sort of a momentary slack water before the turn of the tide. At the opening of Hamletthere is every indication that, if-it were not for appearance of the Ghost, events in Denmark would have settled down into a period of rest”. The end is that which naturally comes after something else, but has nothing else following it. And a middle is that which follows something else, and leads to something else. In every case, there is the clause of ‘inevitability’, probability and ‘logicality’.
●The Magnitude
Besides being serious, the action must have a certain magnitude. The term been wrongly interpreted as “important” or dignified. It actually refers to the size. A tragedy must of a correct length. It must not be so long that it cannot be grasped in its entirety without confusion. Neither must it be so short that its parts cannot be comprehended properly. Aristotle comares the tragic plot to a living organism in order to bring out the importance of the correct size. The plot or action should be of such a size that it allows human memory to encompass the whole of it. It should, at the same time, be long enough to permit the orderly and natural development in the change of fortune, leading to the catastrophe2. The parts and the whole should form a coherent, complete and intelligible pattern.
Furthermore, the action should be long enought for the characters to develop the sympathy and interest of the spectator. This is specially so if the drama is about characters who are not familiar, traditional figures. A certain amount of length is necessary to create the impression of the plot-pattern being a complete and ‘inevitable’ story in which the events are logically and causally connected. However, the length should be proportionate; the play should be an organic whole.
Aristotle means verse and song by the term, ‘embellishment’. Tragedy uses different kinds of ‘embelishment’. Verse is used for the dialogues. Chorus speaks in song. These add beauty and decor to tragedy, and their end is to please the spectator or reader. Melody and Verse, however, are not indispensable or absolutely esssential parts of tragedy, according to Aristotle.
The Function is to Arouse Pity and Accomplish Its Catharsis of such Emotions
The most debated term in the Poetics perhaps, is ‘Catharisis’. Used only once in the whole of the Poetics, the term has unfortunately been left unexplained. Critics have been given scores of explanations— contradictory, controversial, and confusing. In the main, interpretation of the term goes along three lines.
One set of critics have explained the term in the sense of ‘purgation’. Tragedy arouses pity and fear through its painful and horrific incidents. The sight and experience of these purge the human mind of such emotions, or rather, reduce such emotions to a proper balance in the human psyche. There is the “homeopathic” explanation of the ‘like curing the like’. It says that the excitement of tragedy provides a safe outlet for our pent up1 feelings, which we cannot express in actual life. Plato for instance says: “When babies are restless, you do not prescribe quiet for them; you sing to them and rock them to and fro”. The external agitation overcomes the internal agitation, and leads to calm and peace.
Another set of critics interpret the term as ‘purification’. The emotions are purified of their morbidity2 and distressing quality, which accompany them in real life. The emotions are purified and reduced to their just measure.
The ‘clarification’ theory, of Catharsis relates the term to the structure of incidents rather than to the emotional response of the audience. The tragedy by presenting an integrated whole of incidents arousing pity and fear, brings about a clarification of such events. It presents these incidents in such a way that the relation between the particular and the universal is brought out. The poet takes his material and selects and orders it according to probability and necessity. The incidents will be clarified in the sense that their relation, in universal terms, will be manifest in the tragedy. This leads to the pleasure peculiar to tragedy, and this pleasure comes out of the representation of incidents of pity and fear.
★ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF TRAGEDY
Catharisis, in any case, has to do with the function of tragedy, which is to provide the tragic variety of pleasure.
The Quantitative Elements of Tragedy
Aristotle divides tragedy into five quantitative parts. These are not relevant to modern drama, and apply only to the typical Greek traedy. It thus has little interest for the modern reader. The quantitative elements are : Prologue, Episode, Exode, Choric Song; Choric song is further divided into Parade and Stasimon.
The Formative Elements of Tragedy
After having given a definition of tragedy, Aristotle comes to the consideration of the formative elements of tragedy. He gives six formative elements of tragedy—Plot, Character, Thought, Diction Spectacle and Song. Three of these i.e. Plot, Character, and Thought are internal aspects; three, namely, Diction, Spectacle, and Song, are external aspects. Diction and Song are concerned with the medium of imitation, while Spectacle, with the manner of imitation. Plot, Character, and Thought are concerned with the objects of imitation.
The Spectacle according to Aristotle, has more to do with the stage effects. A successful poet depends on his own ‘writing1 than on Spectacle to produce the effect he wants. Fear and pity, for instance, can be produced by Spectacle, but that would be rather vulgar. Spectacle obviously means the appearance of the actors on stage, costume, scenic effect, and so on.
Diction is, of course, the language through which the characters express themselves. The Diction is a means of interpreting the thought, feelings and sentiments of the character. It includes technical devices such as, metaphor, rare words, etc., made use of by the poet. The language of tragedy must be highly expressive. The ‘gift of metaphor’ is valuable, says Aristotle, and cannot be taught. At the same time, the language of tragedy must be clear, though not mean or low.
Thought is the intellectual element in the tragedy, and is expressed through the character. It is the “power of saying whatever can be said, or what is appropriate to the occasion”. Thought is there whenever something is proved or disproved. Thought and diction are related in the sense that it is through diction that thought is expressed. The speech of the character expreses the views and feelings of a character.
Unified Plot : Element of Primary Importance in Tragedy
Tragedy imitates ‘men in action’. The men, or thedramatis personae, must have the two qualities, namely moral and intellectual: what Aristotle calls the ethos anddianoia. But even speeches, which are expressive of character, would not be producing the tragic effect as powerfully as a well constructed plot.
Aristotle considers plot to be the most important part of tragedy; indeed, it is the very soul of tragedy. Plot is the arrangement of the incidents in a logical sequence.
Significantly enough, plot is compared to a living organism. Just as the parts of a living organism must be probably related to each other and to the whole, the part of a tragedy should relate to one another and produce a unified effect. Each event should further the action, and no part should be superfluous or irrelevant. If any part can be removed withut damaging the effect of the work, then that part is superfluous. Aristotle does not advocate a formal or mechanical unity, as his comparison of a plot with a living organism shows.
Furthermore, unity does not arise from a play having a single hero. A single person may experience- several incidents, all of which cannot, and should not, be presented in one play. Plurality of action is appropriate for an epic, but not for a tragedy. Thus, the tragic poet should select and arrange his material to give it artistic unity.
->We will now discuss the main fo Plot : Simple or ComplexPlot, says Aristotle, is the most important aspect of a tragedy. The Plot can be of two types, simple and complex :Plots are either simple or complex, since the actions they represent arenaturally of this two-fold description. The action proceeding in the waydefined, as one continuous whole, I call simple, when the change in thehero’s fortunates takes place with out Peripety or Discovery; and complex,when it involves one or the other, or both. These should each of them arise
out of the structure of the Plot itself, so as to be necessary and probable, ofthe antecedents. There is a great difference between a thing happeningpropter hoc and post hoc.
(Ch. 10, Poetics)
●Simple plots have continuous movements, and involve no violentchange. Complex plots involve changes arising out ofPeripety andAnagnorisis. The turns in a complex plot, it is emphasised, mustarise out of the structure of the Plot.Peripety and Anagnorisis in a Complex PlotPeripety, or reversal, is the change in the fortune of the hero. The change of reversal in the situation is brought about by human actions producing the results very opposite to what was intended. It is, as F.R. Lucas remarks, working in blindness to one’s own defeat. Anagnorisis or recognition is the change from ignorance to knowledge, i.e. knowledge of the true identity of persons, or the truth of facts, or circumstances. The effect of tragedy is greatest if the Peripety and discovery come together as in Sophocles’s Oedipus the King. Aristotle prefers the complex plot, for it is more effective in capturing attention.
◆ The third kind of tragedy depends for its effect on scenes of suffering, or of painful incidents, such as murders, violent deaths, torture, wounding, etc., on the stage.
●Probability and Necessity : Plot is a Complete Whole
●Probability and necessity are aspects on which Aristotle lays ‘great emphasis. It is necessary that the plot of a tragedy be a choherent whole, in which the events are connected to each other and to the whole, logically and causally. There should be nothing superfluous or irrelevant in the Plot. The removed or the transposal of any part should disjoin the whole, otherwise that part is superfluous. What is presented should be presented in a convincing manner, so that the sequence of’events seem credible and probable. In this context, Aristotle makes a statement which is acute for its artistic truth— that a likely impossibility is better than an unlikely possibility. The scheme of events, in other words, should be reduced to a comprehensible and intelligible pattern. This is what constitutes a sense of inevitability. Aristotle condemns the ‘episodic plot’ which is not a unified whole and where episodes seem unconnected. Play of chance should be limited, and preferably confined to narration and not presented on stage.
Fatal Plots : Aristotle’s .Implied Preference
There can be four types of plots. It is necessary to remember here that in the Greek sense of the term, tragedy could have what is called a “happy end’. The plots to be avoided are enumerated by Aristotle as follows:(i) that which shows a perfectly good man passing fromhappiness to misery ; (it) that which shows a bad man passing from happiness to
misery; . (Hi) that which shows a bad man passing from misery tohappiness.
●The first kind will merely shock us, and arouse pity and fear. The second would satisfy our moral sense, but again fail to arouse pity and fear, the proper tragic emotions. The third one is obviously unsuitable for tragic action. The best plot, therefore, will be of a good, but not perfect man suffering as a result of some error or fault of judgement, namelyHammartia.
The Dramatic Unities
Aristotle wrote Poetics as an analysis of the extant practice in dramatist art. As such, he lays down no hard and fast rule. But there is one Unity he stresses upon—the Unity of Action. That the action of the tragedy be a logical sequence and a coherent whole, directed towards a single end, Aristotle does stipulate1.
As regards the Unity of Time, Aristotle merely states a general observation that tragedies tended to limit the time to a single revo-
specific as essential.
lution of the sun, or a little more. But the observation is of a tentative kind and not a rigid rule.
The Unity of Place he does not mention, let alone stress upon. The three unities came into force with later critics, who wrongly ascribed two of them to Aristotle.
Character : The Four Essentials
Four essentials are enumerated by Aristotle for successful , characterisation in tragedy : (i) Goodness (it) Appropriateness (in) True to life (iv) Self-consistency
The most important aspect of characterisation in tragedy, says Aristotle, is goodness. The character should be good. This is so, if the » purpose he shows is good. The tragic characters should be ‘better than ordinary life’. Secondly, the character must be appropriate to the status or type he represents. Thus it would be improper to ascribe valour1 to a woman, and nobility to a slave. Thirdly, the character has to show truth to life. The character must be true respresentatives of actual human nature. Or, they must be like the historical persons names they bear.
Fourthly, the character should be self-consistent. A person of given character should speak or behave in a given way. The inconsistent character should be represented as inconsistent all through the play. Character should also be governed by the laws of probability and necessity. The speech and behaviour of the character should be the outcome of his nature.
The Ideal Tragic Hero
The ideal tragic hero should not be perfectly good, nor utterly depraved2. He should be a man not “pre-eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or fraility. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous”.
Thus a tragic hero should be a mixture of virtue and human frailty3; his misfortune should come about from an error of judgement; and he must fall from a height of glorious position. Such a man would arouse the tragic emotions of pity and fear.
Comparative Importance of Plot and Character
According to Aristotle, plot is of supreme importance in a tragedy. Plot in tragedy is like an outline in painting; it gives meaning to the work. Col; ifs thrown haphazardly on a canvas have little significance—only the outline gives meaning. Similarly, the soul of tragedy is to be found in the plot. Aristotle goes so far as to say that there can be a tragedy without character, but none without plot. Such a statement seems asburd on the face of it, for how, one may ask, can there be a play without characters ? it is, however, to be noted that Aristotle’s concept of ‘character’ here does not mean the dramatis personae, but the “moral bent” of a person. He means the tendency of a person to act in a certain way. Now, the moral bent of a character is only revealed when he is faced with a dilemma, where choices becomes necessary. In his choice he will reveal his nature, and it is this ‘nature’ which Aristotle refers to as ‘character’. In a tragedy, there may or may not be such situations of choice were ‘character’ is revealed, and in this sense, there can be a tragedy without ‘character’. But there can be no play without some form of ‘action’. Even a modern audience will agree that a plot is essential if a play is to succeed on stage.
The Tragic Pleasure
Tragedy, Aristotle correctly remarks, has its special kind of pleasure. He recognised the emotional effects of tragedy, and said that it aroused the feelings of pity and fear. And he accepted that these feelings excited in the human psyche need not be harmful.
The pleasure is also derived from the instinctive response of human beings to imitation and harmony. It is also derived from the satisfaction one gets from learning. Tragedy clarified certain incidents for us, relates the particular to the universal; it increases our understanding of life. The unity of plot, the diction and the spectacle add to the pleasure, i.e. the pleasure of art.
Limitations in Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy
It is true that the concept of tragedy put forward by Aristotle is no mean achievement. It lends itself to a remarkable amount of adaptation, beyond what was immediately present to the mind of the writer. Yet, the fact that Aristotle was writing of only the Greek tragedy he knew, does put a limitation to his concept of tragedy. Later experience in the field of tragedy has shown the immense scope for modification in Aristotle’s theory, especially regarding the tragic hero.
There is another limitation in Aristotle’s theory. He does not take into account the religius origions of tragedy. Neither does he give enough importance to the outside forces which interact with the human forces in a play. In other words, he does not discuss a very basic issue in tragedy—conflict, both inner and outer conflict. In Greek tragedy itself, one feels the existence of the mysterious and divine forces; there is the effect of the unseen on the seen. It is the tragic choice faced by the heroies and heroines which makes the Greek tragedy so awesome. Greek tragedy dramatises the struggle between contending moral forces. Aristotle does not discuss the collision offerees: the collision between man, who is imprisoned within the limits of the actual, and the forces outside, belonging to a superior power which restricts man’s freedom. The conflict between man and outside forces, between problems of good and evil, are very much a part of tragedy of all ages. It is unfortunate that Aristotle does not discuss these factors.
◆NATURE AND FUNCTION OF TRAGEDY :-
★Defination :-
"Tragedy , then is an imitation of an action that is serious , complete, and of a certain magnitude ;in the language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament,the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play;in the form of action , not of narrative ; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation catharsis of these and similar emotions".
●The defination is compact. Every word it is pregnant with meaning. Each word from it can be elaboreted into a separate essay .
●All art is representation of life,but none can represent in its totality. Therefore, an artist has to be selective in reorientation .
●He must aim at representing or imitating an aspect of life or a fragment of life.
●Action comprises of all human activities including deeds,thoughts and feelings.
●The writer of tragedy seeks to imitate the serious side of life just as a writer of comedy seeks to imitate only the shallow and superficial side.
●The tragic section presented on the stage in a drama should be complete or self contained with a begning , middle,and end. A begning is that before which the audience or the audiance or the reader does not need to be told anything to understand the story . If something more is required to understand the story that the begning gives, it is unsatisfactory. From it follow the middle. In thier turn the events from the middle lead to the end . Thus the story becomes a compact &self sufficient one. It must not leave the impression that even after the end the action continues, or that before the action starts certain things remain to be known.
●It must have close-knit unit with nothing that is superfluous or unnecessary. Every episode, every character and a dialogue in the play must carry step by step the action that is set into motion to its logical denouement. It must give the impression of wholeness at the end.
●The play must have, then, adefinite magnitude, aproper size or a reasonable length such as the mind may compared fully. That is to say that it must have only necessary duration , not longer than about three hours, or shorter than that. Longer duration may tire our patience and shorter one make effective representation impossible. Besides, a drama continuing for wholeness in the specttore s mind . The reasonable duration enables the spectator to view the drama aa a whole , to remember it's various episodes and to maintain interest.
●The language employed here should be dulu embellished and beautified with various artistic ornaments and figure of speech. Thelangues of our daily affairs is not useful here because tragedy has to present a heightened picture of life's serious side, nd that is possible only if elevated language of poetry is used. According to need , the writer malesuada of songs, poetry, poitic dialogue, simple conversation etc in various parts of the play. It's manner of imitation should be action , not narration as in epic, for it is meant to be a dramatic representation , not a mere story -telling.
●Then,for the function of tragedy is to shake up in the impulse of pity and fear, to achieve what he calls Catharsis. The emotions of pity and fear find a full and free out -let in tragedy. Thier excessive purged and we are lifted out of our selves and emerged nobler than before.
Conclusion
The main features of Aristotle’s conception cannot be ignored easily There are weaknesses as there are bound to be. His conception is based on Greek tragedy alone. Yet his views lend themselves to a remarkable amount of universalisation. Today, we may not agree with his ‘essentials’ of tragic characterisation—Shakespeare has shown us the possibilities of a tragic characterisation—Shakespeare has shown us the possibilities of a tragic ‘villain’. But what he says regarding Peripety and Discovery andHammartia, are conceptions which are still valid. At any rate, “Aristotle’s theory of Tragedy is the foundation on which all subsequent discussion of literary aesthetics has most securely based itself. His views on tragedy are the “history” of tragedy.
■ Work sited :-
1 Study material
2 http://quatr.us/greeks/philosophy/plato.htm
3 http://quatr.us/greeks/history/classical.htm
4 https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dilipbarad/platos-objections-to-poetry-and-aristotles-answers
5 http://allrfree.blogspot.in/search/label/Aristotle
NAME:- NIYATIBEN A.PATHAK
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PAPER NO:-1
TOPIC:- PLATO AND ARISTOTLE'S COMMENT ON LITERATURATURE
=>SYNOPSIS :-
●Plato was born about 429 BC, close to the time when Pericles(.In 510 BC a man named Cleisthenes (KLICE-then-eez), who was an aristocrat (a rich, powerful man) in Athens, invented another new type of government, the democracy. died, and he died in 347 BC, just after the birth of Alexander the Great. Plato was born in Athens, to a very rich and powerful family. Many of his relatives were involved with Athenian politics, though Plato himself was not. Athens was in the middle of fighting the Peloponnesian War, and Plato fought for several years as a soldier.
When Plato was a young man, during and after the war, he went to listen to Socrates, and learned a lot from Socrates about how to think, and what sort of questions to think about. When Socrates was killed in 399 BC, Plato was very upset (He was 30 years old when Socrates died) . Plato began to write down some of the conversations he had heard Socrates have. Practically everything we know about Socrates comes from what Plato wrote down.
Plato belongs to to an age of inquiry and as such plato 'S chief interest was philosophical investigations which form the subject of his great works in form of Dialogues. He was not a professed critic of literature and his dialogues, more
Particularly in The Ion, The Symposium, The Republic and The Laws. According to him all arts are imitative or mimetic in nature. He wrote in The Republic that 'ideas are the ultimate reality .'Things are conceived as ideas before they tack practical shapes. So, idea is original and the thing is copy of that idea. Carpenter's bed in his mind. Thus Bed is once removed from reality. But painters bed is imitation of Carpenter's bed . So it is twice removed from reality. Thus artist /poet takes man from reality rather than towards it. Thus artist deals in illusion.
=>Synopsis:-
●When Plato died, he left his nephew Speusippus as his successor to run the Academy and secure the proper education of young minds in his philosophy. He was apparently quite right in doing so; his brightest and most famous student, Aristotle, who later became the private tutor of Alexander the Great, had no intention of continuing Plato’s legacy and ultimately undermined him with or without the Academy.
●Aristotle was a scientist in the truest sense of his day and when good, scientific information was unavailable, he insisted on strict logic. Relativism, or the belief that the Truth is whatever most people believe it to be, had created a huge market for professional bullshit artists in Athens who instructed their students on how to effectively convince crowds with sneaky and faulty arguments, a practice called Sophistry (now an insult of the first degree).
Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle was born circa 384 B.C. in Stagira, Greece. When he turned 17, he enrolled in Plato’s Academy. In 338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and writing. Aristotle died in 322 B.C., after he left Athens and fled to Chalcis.
◆The Works of Aristotle and Plato:-
●Whereas most of Plato's works have survived through the centuries, roughly 80% of what Aristotle wrote has been lost. He is said to have written almost 200 treatises on an array of subjects, but only 31 have survived. Some of his other works are referenced or alluded to by contemporary scholars, but the original material is gone.
●What remains of Aristotle's works are primarily lecture notes and teaching aids, draft-level material that lacks the polish of "finished" publications. Even so, these works influenced philosophy, ethics, biology, physics, astronomy, medicine, politics, and religion for many centuries. His most important works, copied hundreds of times by hand throughout ancient and medieval times, were titled: Physics; De Anima (On the Soul); Metaphysics; Politics; and Poetics. These and several other treatises were collected in what was called the Corpus Aristotelicum and often served as the basis for hundreds of private and teaching libraries up to the 19th century.
●Plato's works can be roughly divided into three periods. His early period featured much of what is known about Socrates, with Plato taking the role of the dutiful student who keeps his tutor's ideas alive. Most of these works are written in the form of dialogues, using the Socratic Method (asking questions to explore concepts and knowledge) as the basis for teaching. Plato's The Apology, where he discusses the trial of execution and his teacher, is included in this period.
●Plato's second or middle period is comprised of works where he explores morality and virtue in individuals and society. He presents lengthy discussions on justice, wisdom, courage, as well as the duality of power and responsibility. Plato's most famous work, The Republic, which was his vision of a utopian society, was written during this period.
●The third period of Plato's writings mainly discusses the role of arts, along with morality and ethics. Plato challenges himself and his ideas in this period , exploring his own conclusions with self-debate. The end result is his philosophy of idealism, wherein the truest essence of things occurs in thought, not reality. In The Theory of Forms and other works, Plato states that only ideas are constant, that the world perceived by senses is deceptive and changeable.
◆PLATO'S THE REPUBLIC :-
●Plot beloves to the classical age in Greek literature.Plato was a thinker, philosopher and the reason was dominant in his personality. Plato in his famous book the REPUBLIC talks about the nature of poetry and the functions of poetry as well. Plato thinks that the poets are inspired and inspiration is illogical . He says that the poets are possessed by the divine madness and thier imaginative minds depict thier experience of life in poems.plato was also the lover of truth and he tried to find out the final truth by thinking over the question 'what is real?' plato says that says that poets are liars and they speak lie through thier poems. They present false gods and goddesses in thier poems and thereby encourage falsehood among people . Plato says that poet misguided people and they provoke evil ideas in peoples minds. Hence, they should be banished Frome the ideal state.He classifies the two ruling powers as the visible and the intellegible. The former includes images,shadows, reflections etc. Whereas the letter includes intellect . Plato says that ideas are real and physical things are unreal. He says that poetry is an imitation of an imitation twice removed from reality . He objects imitative nature of poetry . Plato was a well read scholar and when he commented upon poetry he had in mind the two great epics of Homer entitled THE ILLIAD AND THE ODYSSEY .Plato also read the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. He loved the classical works of these poets but for hom truth was of prime concern. Plato says that al fine arts are imitative by nature. He gives the word mimesis for imitation . He says that idea of bed is created by the almighty god . So, god is real maker or created . The second type of bad is prepared by the carpenter from wood. According to plato, the carpenter's bed is the imitation of the god 'S idea of bed. The third type of bed is the painters bed. The painter paints the bed looking at the carpenter's bed so, it is the imitation of an imitation.similarity, when the poet writes the poem ,he takes the help of his imagination and writers the poem based on the experience s of the physical world which is not real. He says that truth is notional or ideational.platodefines poetry and poets and says that both are devoied of truth.
◆PLATO'S THEORY OF IMITATION :-
●Plato gives an example of imitative narration in BOOK iii of THE REPUBLIC . He takes the example from homers The ILLIAD in which the priest chryses the random to Agamemnon. Chryses himself. Thus, the narration becomes Imitative. On the other hand, Homer used the direct method and told about chryses to the reader directly, the narration would have become a simple one. Plato observes that in all epics and classical poetry narration tends to be Imitative.
◆PLATO AS MORALIST :-
●When we read PLATO'S comment on poetry and poets,we come across three aspects of social reformer . As a philosopher, plato says, that the real is notional . As a moralist ,plato worries about the conflict between the gods and goddesses. Plato says that lover of truth nd for him knowing truth was the only objective of his life. As a social reformer , plato thought about the welfare of the society in which he wanted to prepare ideal citizens. Plato says that the stories which affect the minder people and such literature is not worthy nd the works that depict vices of iman life should be discarded.
◆ARISTOTLE 'S POETICS :-
●Aristotle was the disciple of plato but he differs from plato in many points. Aristotle, in fact ,gives answers to platos objections to poetry. He seems as if he were a strict puritan whereas Aristotle welcomes all the innovatieve ideas regarding poetry. Aristotle has written the book entitled THE POETICS in which he has commented upon the nature and functions of poetry . He talks about all fine arts ingen era?. He not only talks about poetry but also about paintingand music . When Aristotle disscusses poetry, he means all literary forms like epic, tragedy , comedy, etc. In the poetics, he at length discusses the tragedy. Aristotle begins his discourse by admitting that all arts are imitations. In other words, Aristotle says that all arts are inevitable representational . He says that the plot is the soul of the tragedy . He also says that in any literary from plot is the most important element . He says that the plot may be a simple one or it may be a complex one. If the action proceeds in a straightforward manner and if it is one . On the other hand , when the plot involves periphery or discovery or both , such a plot could be a complex one . Periphery means the change from one state of things within the play to its opposite of the kind described. Similarly , discovery means a Change Frome ignorance to knowledge.
●Aristotle says that poetry is an imitation of an imitation twice removed from reality but it is not carbon copy of the physical things .He says that if the poet gives something less than life, he also gives something more than life. Plato missed to see that art conveys something more than life too. According to Aristotleto Aristotle , a thing is seen in a work of art from the poets point of view and the poet convey s his vision of life in his work.
●Aristotle says that all fine arts differ from one another in modes of imitation . He says that these fine arts differ from one another in three ways. They are difference of means, difference of objects and difference in manner of imitation.
His main concern appeares to be tragedy, which in his day was considered to be the most developed form of poetry. Another part of politics deals with comedy, but it is unfortunately lost.
●In his observations on the nature and function of poetry, he has replied the charges of plato against poetry, wherein he partly disagrees with his teacher.
◆DIFFERENCE OF MEANS :-
●In literature, the use of language becomes the means . In music, the use of musical instruments like flue or lyre becomes the means.Similarity, in painting,paints, brush,etc become the means. Sometimes, means are identified as mediums. Any artist expresses his ideas and feelings regarding things and people through a particular mandir medium. The artist also choose sa particular fine for his expression and selection of a particular fine art also goes with the mode of imitation .
◆DIFFERENCE OF OBJECT :-
●The second difference is the selection of objects. The objects the imitators represents are actions with agents who are necessarily either good men or bad men. Aristotle says that in a work of art , the men presented re either above or below in degree of thier attributes . It means the character s in a work of art my be better than the real people or they may be worse thn the real people . However, the artist delineates the characters as he finds them in real life. The difference in object is also shown through the mood dominant mood is comic, the work will be the comedy.
◆Difference in manner of imitation :-
●The third is the manner of imitation. When the literary work includes simple narration, the writer directly tells about the characters and events to the readers. Thus, simple narration is one of the communicative things to the readers . But sometimes , the author speaks through an assumed character such a type of communicating things in which the author represents the whole story dramatically through characters as if they were actually doing the things described.
●Aristotle says that in tragedy , tragic events invoke the feelings of pity and fear in the minds of the audiance or the readers and thereby the writer causes the proper purgation of our minds. Aristotle gives the Greek word 'Catharsis' means purgation or purification of minds through pity and fear. Aristotle also emphasizes that there should be an organic whole in a work of art. He says that plot must have BEGNNING , middle, and end. He also talks about the three unities required 8n a work of art. They are unity of time , unity of action ,unity of place . Unity of time means there should not be a vast gap of time between the two events of the play. Similarly, unity of place means the events of the play should tack place at different places very far from one another . Majority of the events should tack place only at one place. Unity of action means the action done by the character s should be consistent and convincing. The characters should behave logically and according to thier personality tpes. There should be no odd action exhibited by the characters.
Aristotle provides a defination of tragedy that we can break up into seven parts :- 1-it involves mimesis;2-it is serious ;3-the action is complete and with magnitude ;4- it is made up of language with the' aesthetic ornaments ' of rhythm and harmony; 5-these aesthetic ornaments are not used uniformly throught, but are introduced in separate parts of the work, so that, for instance, some bits are spoken in verse and other bits are sung; 6- it is performed rather than nattered ;and 7-it arouses the emotions of pity and fear and accomplishes a catharsis of these emotions.
◆Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy
THE NATURE, DEFINITION AND FORMATIVE ELEMENTS OF TRAGEDY
Introduction : “Poetics” Chiefly Concern with Tragedy
The very word ‘tragedy’ brings to mind Aristotle and thePoetics. Some aspects of the definition and discussion of tragedy in that treatise may be considered controversial, unacceptable or outdated, but its influence continues unabated. Tragedy, indeed, is the major concern of thePoetics, as it has come down to us. Tragedy is considered by Aristotle to be the highest poetic form. His definition and theory of tragedy presents remarkable insight and comprehension. It has become the type of the theory of literature, as Abercrombie says.
★The Greek Conception of the Term “Tragedy”
It is necessary at the very outset, to remember that the Greek conception of Tragedy was different from ours. In the modern ages tragedy means a drama (sometimes story) with an unhappy ending, and disastrous enough to have ‘tragic’ effect. But the origin of the term ‘tragedy’ is not too clear. Dante said that an unhappy tale was called a “tragedy” or “goat-song” because goats are noisy. The real source is still under dispute. It is not certain whether the goat was a prize or whether it was sacrificed, or whether the original dancers dressed up in goat-masks or goat-skins. However, the Greek conception of tragedy was that it was a serious drama, not necessarily with an unahppy ending. The essence of tragedy was that it handled serious action of serious characters, whereas comedy dealt grotesquely with grotesque characters.
The Greek had their dramatic festivals, with four plays being performed on each day. There were three serious plays, and one satyr-play or burleque. Tragedy, for the Greeks, simply meant “one of the three serious plays presented before the satyr-play at a dramatic festival”. The Greek tragedy has scenes and incidents of pain and sorrow, but need not end disastrously. This is clear from Aristotle’s classification of four possible tragic plots (in ch. 13) , which include two plots which represented a change from misery to happiness—a contention which seems unacceptable in the modern times.
★The Origin of Tragedy and Its Superiority over The Epic
Aristotle traces the possible origin of tragedy in hisPoetics. According to him, tragedy developed from the heroic strain of poetry, which in its turn, developed from the hymns sung in praise of gods and great men. Tragedy is considered by Aristotle to be a higher form than the heroic or epic form of poetry, because it was a later development. Tragedy has greater degree of concentration and coherence than the epic, and has a greater effect. Aristotle traces the different stages in the evolution of tragedy, from the single singer to the addition of actors and scenery. He considers tragedy to have attained full development by the time he wrote about it.
●The Definiton of Tragedy
Aristotle’s famous definition of tragedy says : A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also as having magnitude, complete in itself in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form: with incidents arousing pity and fear; wherewith to accomplish its catharisis of such emotions. (Ch. 6)
The definition clearly falls into two parts. The first part tells us about the nature of tragedy, its object, manner, and medium of imitation; the second part points out the function of tragedy.
●Tragedy : Difference from Other Forms of Poetic Imitation
Tragedy, like all other forms of art, is a form of imitation. It differs from other arts in the object, manner, and medium of imitation. Its objects of imitation are ‘serious actions’. It is always to be kept in mind that ‘imitation’ in the Aristotelian sense is not slavish copying. It involves grasping and presenting the essence of a universal truth. Poetic imitation is re-creation or a creative reproduction of objects. Tragedy, then, differs from comedy, because its object of imitation is a serious action. Comedy imitates a ‘groteseque’ action. The term ‘serious’ has aroused controversy. Generally, critics have said that it implies ‘weighty’ or ‘important’. It is something that matters, and hence of permanent significance.
In its manner of imitation, tragedy is different from the epic. The epic uses the manner of narrative, while tragedy represents life through acting. It differrs from other forms of poetry in that it employs embellishments1 of pleasurable accessories2 of different kinds. It uses, for instance, verse for dialogues, and song for the chorus.
●The Action: Complete with a Beginning, Middle, and End
Aristotle does not define the word ‘action’. But we get the . implication through the qualities which Aristotle ascribes to it. For convenience’s sake, one can say that an action shows the progress of an individual from one position to another, at which he either dies, or becomes involved in a completely changed set of circumstances. Action is the plot, consisting of the logical and inevitable sequence of incidents. The action must be complete, which means that it must have a beginning, middle and end “The beginning is that which does not itself come after anything else in a necessary sequence, but after which some other thing does naturally exists or come to pass.” In one sense, there is nothing that has a beginning or an end. There is a continuous causal1 relationship between events. What Aristotle means, however, is that a play should have good reason for beginning where it does, and for. ending where it does. As F.L. Lucas comments, events do tend to occur in clusters. A volcano, even when continuously active has eruptions, which form episodes complete in themselves; and the events of a tragedy are like such an eruption. T.R. Henn remarks that the beginning of an action might be perceived to be “a sort of a momentary slack water before the turn of the tide. At the opening of Hamletthere is every indication that, if-it were not for appearance of the Ghost, events in Denmark would have settled down into a period of rest”. The end is that which naturally comes after something else, but has nothing else following it. And a middle is that which follows something else, and leads to something else. In every case, there is the clause of ‘inevitability’, probability and ‘logicality’.
●The Magnitude
Besides being serious, the action must have a certain magnitude. The term been wrongly interpreted as “important” or dignified. It actually refers to the size. A tragedy must of a correct length. It must not be so long that it cannot be grasped in its entirety without confusion. Neither must it be so short that its parts cannot be comprehended properly. Aristotle comares the tragic plot to a living organism in order to bring out the importance of the correct size. The plot or action should be of such a size that it allows human memory to encompass the whole of it. It should, at the same time, be long enough to permit the orderly and natural development in the change of fortune, leading to the catastrophe2. The parts and the whole should form a coherent, complete and intelligible pattern.
Furthermore, the action should be long enought for the characters to develop the sympathy and interest of the spectator. This is specially so if the drama is about characters who are not familiar, traditional figures. A certain amount of length is necessary to create the impression of the plot-pattern being a complete and ‘inevitable’ story in which the events are logically and causally connected. However, the length should be proportionate; the play should be an organic whole.
Aristotle means verse and song by the term, ‘embellishment’. Tragedy uses different kinds of ‘embelishment’. Verse is used for the dialogues. Chorus speaks in song. These add beauty and decor to tragedy, and their end is to please the spectator or reader. Melody and Verse, however, are not indispensable or absolutely esssential parts of tragedy, according to Aristotle.
The Function is to Arouse Pity and Accomplish Its Catharsis of such Emotions
The most debated term in the Poetics perhaps, is ‘Catharisis’. Used only once in the whole of the Poetics, the term has unfortunately been left unexplained. Critics have been given scores of explanations— contradictory, controversial, and confusing. In the main, interpretation of the term goes along three lines.
One set of critics have explained the term in the sense of ‘purgation’. Tragedy arouses pity and fear through its painful and horrific incidents. The sight and experience of these purge the human mind of such emotions, or rather, reduce such emotions to a proper balance in the human psyche. There is the “homeopathic” explanation of the ‘like curing the like’. It says that the excitement of tragedy provides a safe outlet for our pent up1 feelings, which we cannot express in actual life. Plato for instance says: “When babies are restless, you do not prescribe quiet for them; you sing to them and rock them to and fro”. The external agitation overcomes the internal agitation, and leads to calm and peace.
Another set of critics interpret the term as ‘purification’. The emotions are purified of their morbidity2 and distressing quality, which accompany them in real life. The emotions are purified and reduced to their just measure.
The ‘clarification’ theory, of Catharsis relates the term to the structure of incidents rather than to the emotional response of the audience. The tragedy by presenting an integrated whole of incidents arousing pity and fear, brings about a clarification of such events. It presents these incidents in such a way that the relation between the particular and the universal is brought out. The poet takes his material and selects and orders it according to probability and necessity. The incidents will be clarified in the sense that their relation, in universal terms, will be manifest in the tragedy. This leads to the pleasure peculiar to tragedy, and this pleasure comes out of the representation of incidents of pity and fear.
★ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF TRAGEDY
Catharisis, in any case, has to do with the function of tragedy, which is to provide the tragic variety of pleasure.
The Quantitative Elements of Tragedy
Aristotle divides tragedy into five quantitative parts. These are not relevant to modern drama, and apply only to the typical Greek traedy. It thus has little interest for the modern reader. The quantitative elements are : Prologue, Episode, Exode, Choric Song; Choric song is further divided into Parade and Stasimon.
The Formative Elements of Tragedy
After having given a definition of tragedy, Aristotle comes to the consideration of the formative elements of tragedy. He gives six formative elements of tragedy—Plot, Character, Thought, Diction Spectacle and Song. Three of these i.e. Plot, Character, and Thought are internal aspects; three, namely, Diction, Spectacle, and Song, are external aspects. Diction and Song are concerned with the medium of imitation, while Spectacle, with the manner of imitation. Plot, Character, and Thought are concerned with the objects of imitation.
The Spectacle according to Aristotle, has more to do with the stage effects. A successful poet depends on his own ‘writing1 than on Spectacle to produce the effect he wants. Fear and pity, for instance, can be produced by Spectacle, but that would be rather vulgar. Spectacle obviously means the appearance of the actors on stage, costume, scenic effect, and so on.
Diction is, of course, the language through which the characters express themselves. The Diction is a means of interpreting the thought, feelings and sentiments of the character. It includes technical devices such as, metaphor, rare words, etc., made use of by the poet. The language of tragedy must be highly expressive. The ‘gift of metaphor’ is valuable, says Aristotle, and cannot be taught. At the same time, the language of tragedy must be clear, though not mean or low.
Thought is the intellectual element in the tragedy, and is expressed through the character. It is the “power of saying whatever can be said, or what is appropriate to the occasion”. Thought is there whenever something is proved or disproved. Thought and diction are related in the sense that it is through diction that thought is expressed. The speech of the character expreses the views and feelings of a character.
Unified Plot : Element of Primary Importance in Tragedy
Tragedy imitates ‘men in action’. The men, or thedramatis personae, must have the two qualities, namely moral and intellectual: what Aristotle calls the ethos anddianoia. But even speeches, which are expressive of character, would not be producing the tragic effect as powerfully as a well constructed plot.
Aristotle considers plot to be the most important part of tragedy; indeed, it is the very soul of tragedy. Plot is the arrangement of the incidents in a logical sequence.
Significantly enough, plot is compared to a living organism. Just as the parts of a living organism must be probably related to each other and to the whole, the part of a tragedy should relate to one another and produce a unified effect. Each event should further the action, and no part should be superfluous or irrelevant. If any part can be removed withut damaging the effect of the work, then that part is superfluous. Aristotle does not advocate a formal or mechanical unity, as his comparison of a plot with a living organism shows.
Furthermore, unity does not arise from a play having a single hero. A single person may experience- several incidents, all of which cannot, and should not, be presented in one play. Plurality of action is appropriate for an epic, but not for a tragedy. Thus, the tragic poet should select and arrange his material to give it artistic unity.
->We will now discuss the main fo Plot : Simple or ComplexPlot, says Aristotle, is the most important aspect of a tragedy. The Plot can be of two types, simple and complex :Plots are either simple or complex, since the actions they represent arenaturally of this two-fold description. The action proceeding in the waydefined, as one continuous whole, I call simple, when the change in thehero’s fortunates takes place with out Peripety or Discovery; and complex,when it involves one or the other, or both. These should each of them arise
out of the structure of the Plot itself, so as to be necessary and probable, ofthe antecedents. There is a great difference between a thing happeningpropter hoc and post hoc.
(Ch. 10, Poetics)
●Simple plots have continuous movements, and involve no violentchange. Complex plots involve changes arising out ofPeripety andAnagnorisis. The turns in a complex plot, it is emphasised, mustarise out of the structure of the Plot.Peripety and Anagnorisis in a Complex PlotPeripety, or reversal, is the change in the fortune of the hero. The change of reversal in the situation is brought about by human actions producing the results very opposite to what was intended. It is, as F.R. Lucas remarks, working in blindness to one’s own defeat. Anagnorisis or recognition is the change from ignorance to knowledge, i.e. knowledge of the true identity of persons, or the truth of facts, or circumstances. The effect of tragedy is greatest if the Peripety and discovery come together as in Sophocles’s Oedipus the King. Aristotle prefers the complex plot, for it is more effective in capturing attention.
◆ The third kind of tragedy depends for its effect on scenes of suffering, or of painful incidents, such as murders, violent deaths, torture, wounding, etc., on the stage.
●Probability and Necessity : Plot is a Complete Whole
●Probability and necessity are aspects on which Aristotle lays ‘great emphasis. It is necessary that the plot of a tragedy be a choherent whole, in which the events are connected to each other and to the whole, logically and causally. There should be nothing superfluous or irrelevant in the Plot. The removed or the transposal of any part should disjoin the whole, otherwise that part is superfluous. What is presented should be presented in a convincing manner, so that the sequence of’events seem credible and probable. In this context, Aristotle makes a statement which is acute for its artistic truth— that a likely impossibility is better than an unlikely possibility. The scheme of events, in other words, should be reduced to a comprehensible and intelligible pattern. This is what constitutes a sense of inevitability. Aristotle condemns the ‘episodic plot’ which is not a unified whole and where episodes seem unconnected. Play of chance should be limited, and preferably confined to narration and not presented on stage.
Fatal Plots : Aristotle’s .Implied Preference
There can be four types of plots. It is necessary to remember here that in the Greek sense of the term, tragedy could have what is called a “happy end’. The plots to be avoided are enumerated by Aristotle as follows:(i) that which shows a perfectly good man passing fromhappiness to misery ; (it) that which shows a bad man passing from happiness to
misery; . (Hi) that which shows a bad man passing from misery tohappiness.
●The first kind will merely shock us, and arouse pity and fear. The second would satisfy our moral sense, but again fail to arouse pity and fear, the proper tragic emotions. The third one is obviously unsuitable for tragic action. The best plot, therefore, will be of a good, but not perfect man suffering as a result of some error or fault of judgement, namelyHammartia.
The Dramatic Unities
Aristotle wrote Poetics as an analysis of the extant practice in dramatist art. As such, he lays down no hard and fast rule. But there is one Unity he stresses upon—the Unity of Action. That the action of the tragedy be a logical sequence and a coherent whole, directed towards a single end, Aristotle does stipulate1.
As regards the Unity of Time, Aristotle merely states a general observation that tragedies tended to limit the time to a single revo-
specific as essential.
lution of the sun, or a little more. But the observation is of a tentative kind and not a rigid rule.
The Unity of Place he does not mention, let alone stress upon. The three unities came into force with later critics, who wrongly ascribed two of them to Aristotle.
Character : The Four Essentials
Four essentials are enumerated by Aristotle for successful , characterisation in tragedy : (i) Goodness (it) Appropriateness (in) True to life (iv) Self-consistency
The most important aspect of characterisation in tragedy, says Aristotle, is goodness. The character should be good. This is so, if the » purpose he shows is good. The tragic characters should be ‘better than ordinary life’. Secondly, the character must be appropriate to the status or type he represents. Thus it would be improper to ascribe valour1 to a woman, and nobility to a slave. Thirdly, the character has to show truth to life. The character must be true respresentatives of actual human nature. Or, they must be like the historical persons names they bear.
Fourthly, the character should be self-consistent. A person of given character should speak or behave in a given way. The inconsistent character should be represented as inconsistent all through the play. Character should also be governed by the laws of probability and necessity. The speech and behaviour of the character should be the outcome of his nature.
The Ideal Tragic Hero
The ideal tragic hero should not be perfectly good, nor utterly depraved2. He should be a man not “pre-eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or fraility. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous”.
Thus a tragic hero should be a mixture of virtue and human frailty3; his misfortune should come about from an error of judgement; and he must fall from a height of glorious position. Such a man would arouse the tragic emotions of pity and fear.
Comparative Importance of Plot and Character
According to Aristotle, plot is of supreme importance in a tragedy. Plot in tragedy is like an outline in painting; it gives meaning to the work. Col; ifs thrown haphazardly on a canvas have little significance—only the outline gives meaning. Similarly, the soul of tragedy is to be found in the plot. Aristotle goes so far as to say that there can be a tragedy without character, but none without plot. Such a statement seems asburd on the face of it, for how, one may ask, can there be a play without characters ? it is, however, to be noted that Aristotle’s concept of ‘character’ here does not mean the dramatis personae, but the “moral bent” of a person. He means the tendency of a person to act in a certain way. Now, the moral bent of a character is only revealed when he is faced with a dilemma, where choices becomes necessary. In his choice he will reveal his nature, and it is this ‘nature’ which Aristotle refers to as ‘character’. In a tragedy, there may or may not be such situations of choice were ‘character’ is revealed, and in this sense, there can be a tragedy without ‘character’. But there can be no play without some form of ‘action’. Even a modern audience will agree that a plot is essential if a play is to succeed on stage.
The Tragic Pleasure
Tragedy, Aristotle correctly remarks, has its special kind of pleasure. He recognised the emotional effects of tragedy, and said that it aroused the feelings of pity and fear. And he accepted that these feelings excited in the human psyche need not be harmful.
The pleasure is also derived from the instinctive response of human beings to imitation and harmony. It is also derived from the satisfaction one gets from learning. Tragedy clarified certain incidents for us, relates the particular to the universal; it increases our understanding of life. The unity of plot, the diction and the spectacle add to the pleasure, i.e. the pleasure of art.
Limitations in Aristotle’s Concept of Tragedy
It is true that the concept of tragedy put forward by Aristotle is no mean achievement. It lends itself to a remarkable amount of adaptation, beyond what was immediately present to the mind of the writer. Yet, the fact that Aristotle was writing of only the Greek tragedy he knew, does put a limitation to his concept of tragedy. Later experience in the field of tragedy has shown the immense scope for modification in Aristotle’s theory, especially regarding the tragic hero.
There is another limitation in Aristotle’s theory. He does not take into account the religius origions of tragedy. Neither does he give enough importance to the outside forces which interact with the human forces in a play. In other words, he does not discuss a very basic issue in tragedy—conflict, both inner and outer conflict. In Greek tragedy itself, one feels the existence of the mysterious and divine forces; there is the effect of the unseen on the seen. It is the tragic choice faced by the heroies and heroines which makes the Greek tragedy so awesome. Greek tragedy dramatises the struggle between contending moral forces. Aristotle does not discuss the collision offerees: the collision between man, who is imprisoned within the limits of the actual, and the forces outside, belonging to a superior power which restricts man’s freedom. The conflict between man and outside forces, between problems of good and evil, are very much a part of tragedy of all ages. It is unfortunate that Aristotle does not discuss these factors.
◆NATURE AND FUNCTION OF TRAGEDY :-
★Defination :-
"Tragedy , then is an imitation of an action that is serious , complete, and of a certain magnitude ;in the language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament,the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play;in the form of action , not of narrative ; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation catharsis of these and similar emotions".
●The defination is compact. Every word it is pregnant with meaning. Each word from it can be elaboreted into a separate essay .
●All art is representation of life,but none can represent in its totality. Therefore, an artist has to be selective in reorientation .
●He must aim at representing or imitating an aspect of life or a fragment of life.
●Action comprises of all human activities including deeds,thoughts and feelings.
●The writer of tragedy seeks to imitate the serious side of life just as a writer of comedy seeks to imitate only the shallow and superficial side.
●The tragic section presented on the stage in a drama should be complete or self contained with a begning , middle,and end. A begning is that before which the audience or the audiance or the reader does not need to be told anything to understand the story . If something more is required to understand the story that the begning gives, it is unsatisfactory. From it follow the middle. In thier turn the events from the middle lead to the end . Thus the story becomes a compact &self sufficient one. It must not leave the impression that even after the end the action continues, or that before the action starts certain things remain to be known.
●It must have close-knit unit with nothing that is superfluous or unnecessary. Every episode, every character and a dialogue in the play must carry step by step the action that is set into motion to its logical denouement. It must give the impression of wholeness at the end.
●The play must have, then, adefinite magnitude, aproper size or a reasonable length such as the mind may compared fully. That is to say that it must have only necessary duration , not longer than about three hours, or shorter than that. Longer duration may tire our patience and shorter one make effective representation impossible. Besides, a drama continuing for wholeness in the specttore s mind . The reasonable duration enables the spectator to view the drama aa a whole , to remember it's various episodes and to maintain interest.
●The language employed here should be dulu embellished and beautified with various artistic ornaments and figure of speech. Thelangues of our daily affairs is not useful here because tragedy has to present a heightened picture of life's serious side, nd that is possible only if elevated language of poetry is used. According to need , the writer malesuada of songs, poetry, poitic dialogue, simple conversation etc in various parts of the play. It's manner of imitation should be action , not narration as in epic, for it is meant to be a dramatic representation , not a mere story -telling.
●Then,for the function of tragedy is to shake up in the impulse of pity and fear, to achieve what he calls Catharsis. The emotions of pity and fear find a full and free out -let in tragedy. Thier excessive purged and we are lifted out of our selves and emerged nobler than before.
Conclusion
The main features of Aristotle’s conception cannot be ignored easily There are weaknesses as there are bound to be. His conception is based on Greek tragedy alone. Yet his views lend themselves to a remarkable amount of universalisation. Today, we may not agree with his ‘essentials’ of tragic characterisation—Shakespeare has shown us the possibilities of a tragic characterisation—Shakespeare has shown us the possibilities of a tragic ‘villain’. But what he says regarding Peripety and Discovery andHammartia, are conceptions which are still valid. At any rate, “Aristotle’s theory of Tragedy is the foundation on which all subsequent discussion of literary aesthetics has most securely based itself. His views on tragedy are the “history” of tragedy.
■ Work sited :-
1 Study material
2 http://quatr.us/greeks/philosophy/plato.htm
3 http://quatr.us/greeks/history/classical.htm
4 https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dilipbarad/platos-objections-to-poetry-and-aristotles-answers
5 http://allrfree.blogspot.in/search/label/Aristotle
Great work
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