Hegel's Aesthetics
Aristotle, Poetics. Penguin Books, 1996.
5 Some artists imitate better people, others imitate worse. This is what distinguishes tragedy from comedy.
6 The source of art is the natural delight human beings take in viewing the most accurate images of objects which in themselves cause distress when we see them, e.g. ’low’ species of animals, corpses. This is a natural spontaneous impulse; it arises in early childhood.
7 Poetry is divided into two varieties aligning with corresponding types of character; more serious poets, such as Homer imitated fine actions of fine persons in hymns or encomia others of inferior tendencies imitated inferior persons.
9 Epic is similar to tragedy in that it concerns admirable people. Epic is also not constrained in time, while tragedy tries to keep within a single day.
10 Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete and possesses magnitude in language made pleasurable. It is performed by actors and, through pity and fear, purifies these emotions for the audience.
12 Plot is the source of tragedy, character is second.
16 Poetry is more philosophical and serious that history as poetry expresses universals while history particulars.
The universal: a kind of speech or action consonant with a person of a given kind in accordance with probability or necessity; this is what poetry aims at.
In the case of comedy this is clear: poets construct plot on the basis of probabilities and supply names of their own choosing, they do not write about a particular individual as lampoonists do, in tragedy they keep to actual names.
21 In order for tragedy to evoke fear and pity decent men should not be shown undergoing a change from good to bad fortune, neither should indecent men go from bad to good fortune.
Nor should a wicked person go from good fortune to bad, this would be agreeable but would not excite pity or fear; they must be intermediate, a person who is not outstanding in moral excellence or justice, the change from good to bad not due to any moral defect or depravity but rather an error of some kind.
23 Necessarily these are events which happen between people who are closely connected with one another, whether friends, enemies or neutrals.
If enemy acts on enemies there is nothing pitiable in the action itself or its imminence except in respect of the actual suffering, likewise with neutrals; one should look for situations in which suffering arise within close relationships.
25 Plots should be resolved logically and coherently, within the plot itself and not by means of a theatrical device; there should be nothing irrational within the play itself.
36 The most important quality in diction is clarity without loss of dignity.
The most clarity can be gained through use of common words, but this lacks dignity, clarity is lost when exotic expressions are used: a mixture of both is needed, metaphor and ornament for dignity and ordinary speech for clarity, as in lengthenings, abbreviations and alterations.
37 Important to not use metaphor and non-standard words in an absurd or inappropriate way.
38 Plots should be concerned with unified action, whole and complete, with a beginning a middle and an end so that like a living organism the plot can accomplish its characteristic pleasure.
This is unlike history, in which one has to describe not a single action in a single period of time but all events that occurred during that period involving one or more people each with an arbitrary relationship to the others; Homer’s treatment of war as exemplar.
40 Heroic verse is the most stately and grandiose verse-form; this is why it is particularly receptive to non-standard words and metaphors.
As he is an imitator, the poet as a person should say as little as possible with his works.
41 Criticises coincidence, probable impossibilities are prefereable to implausible possibilities.
43 If impossibilities have been included in the poem that is an error but it is correct if it attains the end of the art itself; makes this error in pursuit of its ends.