Talk:Poetics (Aristotle)

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Notes Needed

Needs specific refereances to the source.

Terrible piece

This is completely catastrophic! As unscholarly as can be, written by some child. _Improve it!_

Year of the work?

In what year was it written? --Leonardo T. de Oliveira 16:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'work' vs 'preserved work'

From the article:

"The centerpiece of Aristotle's work is his examination of tragedy"

In Ari Hiltunen's book, I read that Aristotle wrote about both tragedy and comedy, but only the parts about tragedy have been preserved. Is this the general scientific consensus? If it is, we should rewrite that sentence in the article to

"The centerpiece of Aristotle's preserved work is his examination of tragedy"

Peter S. 23:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As long as you can cite Hiltunen's book, you should write it...just cite your sources. --In Defense of the Artist 03:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This page needs renamed

I understand "Poetics" as referring to "theory of poetry," or more generally "theory of literature," or even more generally "theory."^[1] For example, look up the word in the Oxford English, Oxford American, American Heritage, or Random House dictionaries.

I think WP needs a "poetics" entry, and I think the name of that entry should be "poetics." I think the name of this entry should be "Aristotle's Poetics", or, if people feel like naming the author results in a certain loss of dignity, then "The Poetics." Does anyone object to my renaming the present page "Aristotle's Poetics" and beginning a "Poetics" stub for the common noun of the same name?

Thanks, Cyrusc 01:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about: Poetics (Aristotle). That seems to be the common naming convention used on other articles. See Physics (Aristotle), Rhetoric (Aristotle), etc. - Ravenous 06:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah Poetics (Aristotle) sounds good. Good catch, Cyrusc. - Barce 00:25, 13 October

2006 (UTC)

note

^ Brogan, T.V.F. and Alex Preminger, eds. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Princeton:Princeton University Press 1993.

Drama, not Poetry

Just an observation: I think that the opening statement, particularly with the wiki-link, is misleading; although the Poetics does mention lyric and epic poetry in passing, its central concern is a definition of drama, specifically tragedy, not what we would today call 'poetry'. The trouble is that the Greeks through to the Elizabethans and beyond used the word 'poetry' and 'poet' to refer both to the practice and person that we do AND to what we now call 'play' and 'playwright'. The wiki-link to poetry is incorrect, in light of this. The epos and the lyric are mentioned by way of providing a contrast to the drama. He also mentions flute music and dancing, but we wouldn't want to describe the work as an analysis of these media. DionysosProteus 03:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

mistranslation?

The "Influence" section could do with an overhaul; the paragraphs are unconnected. Most importantly, I read that "The Syriac source used for the Arabic translations departed widely in vocabulary from the original Poetics, and it initiated a misinterpretation of Aristotelian thought that continued through the Middle Ages." OK--what departures? what misinterpretation? If the following paragraphs are to answer that, they need to be rewritten to bring out the logical connections.Drmies (talk) 17:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Target audience?

Is it known, who Aristotle wrote this book for : writers of plays, curious people, his students (...) ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.16.123.194 (talk) 08:06, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Content section is badly written, overuses brackets.

From the article:

agents ("good" or "bad" ...) - human characters who have emotions (and bring moral to actions they do - "good" person kills child = remorse? X "bad" person kills child = just shows his power?) or things of daily life (skull in Hamlet, cake in slapstick comedies...) who have no emotions (humans put emotions on things - girl's father is killed by sword, girl hates swords) ...

consistent - if a person is a soldier, he is unlikely to be scared of blood (if this soldier is scared of blood it must be explained and play some role in the story to avoid confusing the audience); it is also "good" if a character doesn't change opinion "that much" if the play is not "driven" by who characters are, but by what they do (audience is confused in case of unexpected shifts in behaviour [and its reasons, morals ...] of characters)

"consistently inconsistent" - if a character always behaves foolishly it is strange if he suddenly becomes smart; in this case it would be good to explain such change, otherwise the audience may be confused ; also if character changes opinion a lot it should be clear he is a character who has this trait, not real life person, who does - this is also to avoid confusion

[1] Brogan, T.V.F. and Alex Preminger, eds. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Princeton:Princeton University Press 1993.

[1]