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The Poetics: Principles of the Tragic Plot

Again, repeating, tragedy is an imitation of an action which is complete and whole and has some magnitude. "Whole" is that which has beginning, middle, and end. 30

So, then, well-constructed plots should neither begin nor end at any chance point but follow the guidelines just laid down.

A poetic imitation, then, ought to be unified in the same way as a single imitation in any other mimetic field, by having a single object: since the plot is an imitation of an action, the latter ought to be both unified and complete. 32

On adding or removing scenes and their importance to the whole work: "for an element whose addition or subtraction makes no perceptible extra difference is not really a part of the whole." 32

"the poet’s job is not to report what has happened but what is likely to happen: the difference lies in the fact that the historian speaks of what has happened, the poet of the kind of thing that can happen:poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars."

Our comic poets construct their plots on the basis of general probabilities and then assign names to the persons quite arbitrarily, instead of dealing with individuals as the old iambic poets did." 33

So from these considerations it is evident that the poet should be a maker of his plots more than of his verses, insofar as he is a poet by virtue of his imitations and what he imitates is actions." 34

The Poetics: Summary of Imitation:

Elements = 2 = Verbal Expression and Song Composition
Manner = 1 = Visual Adornment
Objects = 3 = Plot, Characters, and Thought
Total = 6 = Elements of Tragedy

The greatest of these elements is the structuring of incidents (plot). Thus the structure of events, the plot, is the goal of tragedy, and the goal is the greatest thing of all. Tragedy cannot exist without plot, but it can without characters.

If one strings end to end speeches that are expressive of character and carefully worked in thought and expression, he still will not achieve the result which we said was the aim of tragedy; the job will be done much better by a tragedy that is more deficient in these other respects but has a plot, a structure of events. 28

Besides, the most powerful means tragedy has for swaying our feelings, namely peripeties (reversals) and recognitions, are elements of plot.

This is where my play, The Empiric, likely fails. And until reading Poetics I was not entirely sure what was wrong, could not put my finger on it. Aristotle notes that “an indicative sign is that those who are beginning a poetic career manage to hit the mark in verbal expression and character portrayal sooner than they do in plot construction.” 28 Which is promising, because the verbal expression piece is down hard, the characterization is strong as well. The plot, however, is common; I think. It comes closer to history than drama: that is, a linear accounting of facts than drama; although it has a plot and consistent movement, yet no real peripeties or recognitions, signs for Aristotle of complex drama.

So plot is the basic principle, the heart and soul, as it were, of tragedy, and the characters come second–it is the imitation of an action and imitates the persons primarily for the sake of their action.

Third in rank is thought. This is the ability to state the issues and appropriate points pertaining to a given topic– 28 Character is that kind of utterance which clearly reveals the bent of a man’s moral choice (hence there is no character in that class of utterances in which there is nothing at all that the speaker is choosing or rejecting). 28

Fourth is the verbal expression of speeches. “Verbal expression” is the conveyance of thought through language.

(5) The song-composition–and “the visual adornment of the dramatic persons–is the least artistic element (6th).