Poetics

Aristotle has a lot of interesting things to say about what a tragedy should and shouldn't have in Poetics. He has six elements that he feels are important to a tragedy. The first and most important element is the plot itself. This was a new thought to me. I have always thought that it is ultimately the characters that are the most important, because portray the actions and emotions of a play. However, Aristotle points out that the plot is the foundation of a play and the characters build off of it. I might have overlooked the plot as the most important element because all of the other elements of a play are built on top of it. Aristotle makes a good point that even if a play had the best actors, props, and scenery, but if the plot was not constructed correctly the play could not elicit the reactions of pity and fear from the audience.

Also, I liked Aristotle's comparison of history and poetry. This comparison is interesting, because I have thought the two to be the story of events that may or may not have happened. I like Aristotle's explanation of the poet's job as writing about what might happen if these events actually did occur. On the other hand history is just accounts of what happened. I suppose a poet or play writer is the person who gets to ask and answer the question "What if this happened?"