Dr. Subodh Kumar Jha

Associate Professor & Head,

Department of English, SNS College, Jehanabad

Lived from 384 B.C. to 322 B.C.

Most distinguished disciple of Plato

Great tradition: Socrates – Plato – Aristotle

Written half a dozen critical treatises; only

two surviving – Poetics & Rhetoric

Poetics deals with the art of poetry and

Rhetoric with the art of speaking

Not a mere enunciation of the principles of poetic art - deeply rooted in the Greek literature; illustrations from them

Scientific approach – observation and analysis

Many of Aristotle's conclusions on the nature of poetry and drama are of general application and are as true today as they were in his own days.

Aristotle’s purpose of writing Poetics and Rhetoric was to sort out the principles from established practice that made for a good poet and a good orator.

Term mimesis – a Greek word – first used by Plato in The Republic Book X.

Aristotle's Guru – liven from 427 B.C. To 348 B.C.

Plato expels the poets from the well-run republic

regards the artist as an imitator of imitations: the painter’s work is three times removed fro ‘the essential nature” of a thing: the artist imitates the physical object which is in turn a faint copy of the idea (or Form) of the thing.

In Plato’s Republic the term “imitation” (mimesis) always carried a negative connotation: to imitate is to produce a secondary copy, a version which is less pure than the original.

In sharp contrast to Plato who used ‘mimesis’ in relation with poetry in derogatory sense, Aristotle propounded that art imitates nature but the poetic imitation in no way is a mimicry.

‘Mimesis’ is rather an act of imaginative creation by which the poet, drawing his material from the phenomenal world, makes something new out of it.

While Plato equated poetry with painting, Aristotle equates it with music and establishes that imitation is not merely a servile depiction of the appearance of things

It is rather a representation of the passions and emotions of men which are also imitated by music.

Thus Aristotle by his theory enlarges the scope of imitation.

Aristotle argues that the poet imitates not the surface of things but the reality embedded within.

In the very first chapter of the Poetics, Aristotle says: Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic

poetry, as also the music of the flute and the lyre in most of their forms, are in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ however, from one another in three respects – their medium, the objects and the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.

Obviously, to imitate is not to produce a copy or mirror reflection of something, but involves a complex mediation of reality.

This is evident from Aristotle’s division of mimesis into three aspect: “means”, “Objects”, and “manner”.

Aristotle makes it very clear that the medium of

the poet and the painter are different - One

imitates through form and colour, and the other

through language, rhythm and harmony.

The musician imitates through rhythm and

harmony. Thus, poetry is more akin to music.

In terms of manner, a poet may be purely

narrative, as in the Epic, or depiction through

action, as in drama.

Even dramatic poetry is differentiated into

tragedy and comedy accordingly as it imitates

man as better or worse.

Aristotle says that the objects of poetic imitation are “men in action”.

The poet represents men as worse than they are. He can represent men better than in real life based on material supplied by history and legend rather than by any living figure.

Aristotle claims that The poet selects and orders his material and recreates reality.

He brings order out of Chaos. The irrational or accidental is removed and attention is focused on the lasting and the significant.

Thus he gives a truth of an ideal kind. His mind is not tied to reality: It is not the function of the poet to relate what has

happened but what may happen – according to the laws of probability or necessity.

History tells us what actually happened; poetry what may happen.

Poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.

Poetry, therefore, is superior to history.

The poet freed from the tyranny of facts, takes a larger or general view of things, represents the universal in the particular and so shares the philosopher’s quest for ultimate truth.

Aristotle thus equates poetry with philosophy and shows that both are means to a higher truth.

By the word ‘universal’ Aristotle signifies: How a person of a certain nature or type will, on a

particular occasion, speak or act, according to the law of probability or necessity.

The poet constantly rises from the particular to the general.

He studies the particular and devises principles of general application.

He exceeds the limits of life without violating the essential laws of human nature.

Elsewhere Aristotle says, “Art imitates Nature”. By ‘Nature’ he does not mean the outer world of created things but “the creative force, the productive principle of the universe.”

Art reproduces mainly an inward process, a physical energy working outwards, deeds, incidents, situation, being included under it so far as these spring from an inward, act of will, or draw some activity of thought or feeling. He renders men, “as they ought to be”.

The poet imitates the creative process of nature, but the objects are “men in action”.

Now the ‘action’ may be ‘external’ or ‘internal’ - may be the action within the soul caused by all that befalls a man.

Thus, Aristotle brings human experiences, emotions and passions within the scope of poetic imitation.

According to Aristotle's theory, moral qualities, characteristics, the permanent temper of the mind, the temporary emotions and feelings, are all action and so objects of poetic imitation.

Aristotle by his theory of imitation answers the charge of Plato that poetry is an imitation of “shadow of shadows”, thrice removed from truth, and that the poet beguiles us with lies.

Art imitates not the mere shows of things, but the ‘ideal reality’ embodied in very object of the world.

The real and the ideal from Aristotle's point of view are not opposites; the ideal is the real, shorn of chance and accident, a purified form of reality.

And it is this higher ‘reality’ which is the object of poetic imitation.

Idealization is achieved by divesting the real of all that is accidental, transient and particular. Poetry thus imitates the ideal and the universal; it is an “idealized representation of character, emotion, action – under forms manifest in sense.”

Poetic truth, therefore, is higher than

historical truth.

Poetry is more philosophical, more conducive

to understanding than Philosophy itself.

Thus Aristotle successfully refuted the charge

of Plato and provided a defence of poetry

which has ever since been used by lovers of

poetry in justification of their Muse.

He breathed new life and soul into the

concept of poetic imitation and showed that

it is, in reality, a creative process.