Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the _Tractatus Coislinianus_, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the Poetics, and fragments of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle's Poetics and the PaintersGraham ZankerAristotle's Poetics uses the example of painting as an analogy to illustrate certain facts about poetry, specifically epic, tragedy, and comedy. But the use of painting as an analogy, though ancillary to Aristotle's subject, should yield evidence, if properly evaluated, on how the philosopher thought about painting, because the use of a thing as an analogy actually depends on how its user (...) regards the thing. We can legitimately infer Aristotle's opinions about certain aspects of painting from his comments about poetic mimesis, because analogy is by nature reflexive, or symmetrical: if poetry resembles painting in certain respects, then painting must in turn resemble poetry in those respects. And since, as I hope to show, the characteristics in question can be clearly defined from the Poetics, and since the terms denoting them are given consistent meanings throughout the treatise in regard to poetry, it would be all the more inconceivable that Aristotle did not mean the same with these terms when he applied them to painting. In fact, Aristotle's views on painting are important for establishing how painting was perceived in the fourth century B.C., at least in certain respects which I suggest are well worth noting. Here I refer in particular to the question of subject matter, the aspect of morality, and the issue of idealization in classical Greek painting. This short essay, then, is offered as an example of how an ancient treatise on literary aesthetics can benefit the art historian, especially by providing a framework within which the Greeks themselves viewed the art of their time.It is vital, first of all, to establish precisely what Aristotle is referring to when he says that poets represent people in action and that it is necessary that these be (48a1-6). For this I offer the following provisional and unprejudicial translation, the precise points of reference of which will be defined in the course of my argument: "either serious men () or insignificant men ()..., either better () than our level or worse () or of like level () as well, just like the painters, [End Page 225] for Polygnotus depicted superior people (), Pauson inferior, and Dionysius people of like level ()."This passage is often taken to refer to the moral status of the characters in poetry and in the paintings of Polygnotus, Pauson, and Dionysius. This is particularly so in the case of modern art historians. Rouveret, for example, affirms without substantiation that "pour Aristote, toute action est colorée par un ethos, d'autre part, les ethé se regroupent en deux catégories principales, les et les. Ces deux groupes déterminent deux types de mimesis tragique et comique. La tragédie représente donc toujours des " (1989, 132).1 And, having defined and in this way, she tries to show (121-61) how the text illuminates Aristotle's comment that Polygnotus was an while Zeuxis was not (50a25).But there are compelling reasons for believing that the reference here is basically to social class, with a flow-on effect on moral status.2 [End Page 226] In that case, according to Aristotle, tragedians and Polygnotus depict people of superior social status, comedy and Pauson represent people of inferior social status, and an unspecified literary genre (a type of tragedy if the Cleophon of 48a12 is the Athenian tragedian mentioned in the Suda)3 as well as the painter Dionysius (in all likelihood the fifth-century painter mentioned by Pliny at NH 35.113) depict people of an average social status "like you and me" (). That the reference is primarily social is clear in that the, who are the proper province of tragedy according to Aristotle, are described at 53a10-12 as people of high repute and in great prosperity,, the "people of distinction" like Oedipus and Thyestes, who are members of distinguished families.4The social reference of these terms in the Poetics is secured, and the relationship of the concepts denoted by them to moral considerations can be illustrated by reference to 54a19-22. There Aristotle argues that it is a prime requisite of tragedy that its characters be morally good,, in order that the true tragic effect... (shrink)

This article sets out to establish links between the main concepts of Aristotle's poetics and literary theory, with a view to illuminating some aspects of Aristotle's ethics and also of general ethical theory. We highlight topics such as weak universals (Halliwell), frame-making and free indirect discourse, that seem to us to establish a link between poetics and moral philosophy.

This chapter contains sections titled: What Is Tragedy? Mimesis6 Understanding Katharsis17 Five Questions for Interpreters A Short History of Katharsis Interpretation The Nature of Our Question Notes Bibliography.

This article explores the question of the cognitivity of the arts. It begins from Kundera’s argument that the novel, originating from Cervantes, offers a response toGalileo and solution to Husserl’s diagnosis of a “crisis of European sciences.” Expanding to the full range of literary arts, we next undertake a re-reading of Aristotle’s Poetics to assess Aristotle’s views of the origins of tragedy and press for a cognitive interpretation of the meaning of catharsis and emotions. Finally, turning to (...) the abstract expressionism of Barnett Newman, we develop a cognitive interpretation of visual arts and the non-figurative aesthetic of the sublime. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to link Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics to his Poetics. Specifically, I wish to argue that his ethical and political works imply that the realization of the human good, virtuous activity, can come about only given extended political experience. I then suggest that poetry (as presented by Aristotle in the Poetics) might itself be seen as a form of political experience that can strengthen and clarify ethical and political theory and aid in the (...) realization of virtue. By representing concrete examples of human life -- particular men acting in an unpredictable and contingent world -- and simultaneously observing certain dramatic rules, poetry helps to fill the gap between raw political experience and formal abstract theory. It captures the unique and indeterminate nature of varied human lives in a distilled and organized way, encouraging the audience's active participation and exercising those vital but elusive critical capacities which demand reason but go beyond deduction and rule following. Aristotle's Poetics illuminates, in a way that the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics cannot, the essential role of both reason and creativity in virtuous action. (shrink)

And in general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know that the former can teach, and therefore we think art more truly knowledge than experience is; for the artist can teach, and men of experience cannot. When pragmatism first gained favor in the early twentieth century, some British philosophers like Russell regarded it as evidencing their perception of America’s crude and enterprising spirit.1 The Imperial jab lay in this: that just (...) as business indicates the exchange of products and services to meet basic needs as well as others, for the pragmatist, knowledge is tied to social practices and instrumentality (that is, being able to effect changes in the world). The slight lies .. (shrink)

The word for Professor Else’s book is “monumental”. It is monumental in size, monumental in its scope, in its scholarship and erudition, and in its general mastery of the most difficult of all Aristotle’s texts, the Poetics. And, in case this should give the impression that the book is over–solemn and pedantic, it may be remarked that Professor Else carries this monumental air lightly and easily; he writes with verve and shows a nice commonsense as he moves among (...) the complexities of Aristotle’s text and the complexities worse complicated of the commentators on the Poetics. In short, we now have a definitive commentary in English on Aristotle’s Poetics to take the place of the very unsatisfactory interpretations of Butcher and Bywater. (shrink)

Averroes, Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics, trans. with intro. Charles E. Butterworth, xxi+161 pp.

In his introduction, Mr. Potts sketches the history of the work; by quoting extensively from the great critics he illustrates its influence and indicates the significance of Aristotle's formulations. The notes take up the hints, judgements and insights that Aristotle lets fall, show their deeper meaning and give them an application. They also explain to the reader the allusions that gave the original is topicality. There is a brief bibliography and a full index. -- Back cover.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, –that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know”.Hippias of Elis travels throughout the Greek world practicing and teaching the art of making beautiful speeches. On a rare visit to Athens, he meets Socrates who questions him about the nature of his art. Socrates is especially curious about how Hippias would define beauty. They agree that "beauty makes all beautiful things beautiful," but when Socrates presses him to say precisely what he means, (...) Hippias is unable to deliver such a definition. The more Socrates probes, the more absurd the responses from Hippias become. This is one of Plato's best comedies and one of his finest efforts at posing the difference between particular things and universals.Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definition and analysis of tragedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed "poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history." In this postmodern era when the arts have been separated from ethics, it is worthwhile to consider Aristotle's way of connecting goodness and beauty. (shrink)

Aimed at deepening our understanding of the Poetics, this collection places Aristotle's analysis of tragedy in its larger philosophical context.

Davis aims to rescue the Poetics from its initial appearance as a book merely about the art of poetry understood as imitation, without imposing upon it a "borrowed significance" beyond Aristotle's intention. This involves three major claims: the Poetics is about the fundamental structure of human action, it is also about human reason or thought, and Aristotle's silence about these alleged topics can be explained.

An important fragment of the lost portion of Aristotle's Poetics is the definition of synonyms preserved by Simplicius, which corresponds to Aristotle's own citation of the Poetics for synonyms in the Rhetoric, 3. 2.1404b 37 ff. I shall argue elsewhere that this derives from a discussion of the sources of verbal humour in the lost account of comedy and humour. Here it is my aim to show that Simplicius definitely derived the quotation from Porphyry, which pushes back the (...) attestation of this part of the Poetics by more than two centuries . Furthermore, I shall show that some of the words in the definition are a gloss added by Porphyry for the purposes of his own polemic. (shrink)

This paper aims at interpreting (primarily) the first six chapters of Aristotle’s Poetics in a way that dissolves many of the scholarly arguments conceming them. It shows that Aristotle frequently identifies the object of his inquiry by opposing it to what is other than it (in several different ways). As a result aporiai arise where there is only supposed to be illuminating exclusion of one sort or another. Two exemplary cases of this in chapters 1-6 are Aristotle’s (...) account of mimesis as other than enunciative speech (speech that makes truth claims, or representation) and his account of the final cause of tragedy in itself as plot, vis a vis its final cause as regards the audience, which is katharsis. Confusions arising from failure to see the otherness of representation and katharsis leads to an overly intellectualist understanding of the purpose of tragedy. (shrink)

In this text, which employs the analytic-comparative method, we read the Poetics of Aristotle in a new way to take an example of translation as an artistic creation. We can present the result of the essay as a metaphor called “the art of translation”, and then we refer to four evidences which can support our metaphor: reading the text as seeing the world, understanding the meaning as perceiving the main action, representing the text as recreating an image, and word (...) making as the art of poetic. If we want to explain the useful dimension of our research, it can be said: every translation has a moral dimension which depends on its imitation of the author’s line and reader’s culture, and also has an artistic dimension that attends to the beauty of text and new vision of culture. According to Moderation theory of Aristotle, an ideal intercultural translation sees the right of author and reader by the equal criterion. Then it shows a production that is combined with “representation”, a term which can embrace the beauty and ethic in the art of translation. Keywords: poetics, representation, artistic creation, art of translation, cultural relationship 1. Mimesis in art and translation As Aristotle has said about art and poetry, they are based on Mimesis or imitation. It means that he believes art is Mimesis. But his theory about this issue is totally different to Plato’s thought. He thinks that Mimesis is not imitation of Ideas as Plato thought. Mimesis in his thought is imitation from the existence, aspect or form of things in this world. So he emphasizes that Mimesis is imitation of something or maybe happenings outside of man. After collecting all of Aristotle’s thoughts, especially about poetry, it seems clear that the imitation or Mimesis is a representation of the subject of imitation in which sometimes the subject of imitation has been represented better than its fact, like tragedy, and sometimes worse, like Comedy. It seems that we can see translation as imitation, understanding the latter as in Aristotle’s conception of art mentioned above. Indeed, a translator at the beginning of is translation process looks at the text deeply and tries to understand it as well as possible. After that, he thinks about the value of translations. In this step, if the text has repeatability in other languages and cultures, the translator starts the imitation from an original text to create another text. It seems that this process is like what an artist does to create artworks. 2. resemblances between art and translation On the basis of Aristotle’s Poetics, we want to explain some resemblances between art and translation to describe our conception of translation as an art. We think those resemblances can convince us to see translation as an art. The first resemblance between creation of artworks and translation is at the first step of them. The first resemblance between the artistic creation and translation is in their first step. Viewing the environment and finding something for imitation is the first step of artistic creation, which is like confronting and reading a text for translation. It is clear that viewing the environment deeply and reading a text carefully are necessary for artistic creation and translation because a surface of them cannot be suitable and helpful for Mimesis or imitation. The second step of artistic creation and translation is the accurate understanding of the subject of imitation. In Fact, deep and accurate understanding is necessary for exact imitation. Without comprehensive understanding, imitation of things is not possible. Both artist and translator in the process of imitation should take this step. In the other words, it seems that by deep and exact understanding they can find the direction of similarity between subject of imitation and artwork or translated text. Rewriting text in a new language like representing an image is the third step of imitation that is visible in the process of artistic creation and translation. In this step, combining their understanding and viewing the environment, translator and artist try to create the subject of imitation in a new style and a new form. The last step of imitation in artistic creation and translation is that of choosing colors in art and words and other literary elegances in translation, and using them. In this step, paying attention to details of their work, artist and translator try to create a new thing that is similar to the subject of imitation, although it is a new thing and there may be some differences between them. As was stated, the understanding of the subject of imitation by artist and translator is a very important step, in which, however, their thought of the subject of imitation is not totally the same as it, and so, during creating the new thing their understanding and thought can affect the form and the style of the new thing. 3. conclusion In conclusion, it seems that, because of the similarity between art and translation based on Aristotle’s conception of art, we can move from ethical and aesthetic functions of art, and artist’s moral duty in creating art, to the same aspects in translation and translator. In other words, based on Aristotle conception, while translator makes a faithful imitation and a creative presentation of the source, after the ethical decision to translate and promote the original text, he should pay attention to linguistic and cultural details of his translation. In this regard, while observing his audience in the target language, he also refreshes his insights and attitudes because this two-sided view, the center of gravity of moderation, will take into account the aspects of beauty and ethics in the cultural interactions of societies. References - Aristotle,, Ethics of Nicomachus, translation of Mohammad Hasan Lotfi, Tehran, New Design. - Aristotle,, About the Art of Poetry, Translated by Soheil Mohsen Afnan, Tehran, Hekmat. - Aristotle,, Fan al-Sha’r, Abdul Rahman Badawi’s research, Beirut, Dar al-Safat. - Aristotle, Sermon, Translation by Ismail Sa’adat, Tehran, Hermes. - Aristotle,, Metaphysics, Sharaf al-Din Khorasani Translation, Fourth Edition, Tehran, Wisdom. - Plato,, Period of works, translation by Hasan Lotfi, Tehran, Kharazmi. - Bermann, Sandra and Wood,, Michael, Nation, language, and the ethics of translation, Princeton University Press. - Koskinen, Kaisa,, Beyond Ambivalence; Postmodernity and the Ethics of Translation, University of Tampere. - Meschonnic, Henri,, Ethics and Politics of Translating, Translated and edited by Pier-Pascale Boulanger, Benjamins Translation Library. - Venuti, Lawrence,,The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is an apparent contradiction, often pointed out by commentators of the Poetics. In his treatise on poetry, whose object is human action, why does Aristotle assign a major role to necessity, while in the Rhetoric and the Nicomachean Ethics he clearly states that in the field of human action there is no place for necessity but only for probability? One answer has been, that in the Poetics Aristotle refers to a weaker type (...) of necessity, which in the end is more or less the same as probability. The fact that Aristotle (the argument continues) speaks almost always not only of necessity but also of probability, is proof of this weakening of necessity. I argue, on the contrary, that in the Poetics necessity and probability are two distinct principles, which concern different aspects of the tragedy (i. e. the most accomplished poetical work according to Aristotle), and which therefore should not be blurred. The first step is to make clear that the alleged contradiction is only apparent. It is in fact true that in the world of action, according to Aristotle, there can be no necessity, but action is only the object of poetry and not poetry itself. Poetry as such is a technique, which differs from other techniques (like medicine) on account of its ends, and, consequently, also on account of its object. In the world of technique, as is clearly stated both in the Methaphysics and in the Posterior Analytics, there is necessity, in the sense that to reach this or that end you have – necessarily – to do this or that. But then – this is the second step – what is the relation between technical necessity and the principle of probability? Evidently probability concerns the world of action, the object of poetry. This brings me to the following conclusion: When Aristotle tells us that the aim of the poet is to say what is possible according to probability and necessity, he means that the poet should take probable actions as objects and use them as necessary means to reach a particular end. This end, in the case of tragedy, is the tragic plot. The two principles are then strictly connected (every moment of the tragedy has to be looked at from one side and the other), but nonetheless distinct. (shrink)

Although Aristotle's Poetics is the most frequently read of his works, philosophers and political theorists have, for the most part, left analysis of the text to literary critics and classicists. In this book Michael Davis argues convincingly that in addition to teaching us something about poetry, Poetics contains an understanding of the common structure of human action and human thought that connects it to Aristotle's other writings on politics and morality. Davis demonstrates that the duality of Poetics (...) reaches out to the philosopher, writer, and political theorist and shows the importance of the ideal in our imaginings of and goals for the future. (shrink)

But he does not actually address any of those ideas. The surviving Poetics is incomplete. Until today. Here, Walter Watson offers a new interpretation of the lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics.