Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C.  His father was a physician in the court of the king of Macedonia. Later Aristotle became the tutor of the king’s grand son who became Alexander the Great.

Aristotle enrolled himself as a student of philosophy in the Academy run the great philosopher Plato.  After Plato’s death, Aristotle opened his own school of philosophy, Lyceum. It had a fine library of books, maps and even specimens of animals.

Aristotle classified life into inanimate and animate.  His scheme of classification has laid the foundation for modern science. He called human beings rational animals. They could think and question i.e. they are able to engage in philosophical thought. He understood that only human beings engaged themselves in philosophical games. He termed man as a thinker.

He wrote a treatise about man as a maker of art, imitating reality that delights the viewer or reader or listener.  Man created poetry, music and paintings, and hence he was a maker. He called it ‘Poetics’. The Greek original word for poetry is ‘poein’ or to ‘make’. Hence, the poet is a maker.

In 1498 the Poetics was first translated into Latin by Giorgio Valla. Philip Sydney shows the influence of Aristotlean thinking that he talks about mimesis and how it gives delight.  In 1867 the modern engagement with Aristotle began and many translations came up. Aristotle must have known hundreds of plays written by Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus.  He wrote in the most prestigious dialect of the Greek language – Attic. It was the language that was used by Plato himself.

Mimesis

Aristotle’s teacher first and foremost introduced the concept of mimesis.  He used this term in 7 different ways. He used the term as ‘representation’. What is the nature of artistic representation?  According to Plato it is different from reality. Art portrays the way reality appears to the artist. Literature depicts society as the writer conceives it or understands it. The actual society may be different from these perceptions of the artists or the writers.  We all judge the world around us by the way it appears to us. Actually truth is much higher that it is difficult for us to understand the real truth of any situation. Plato believed literature should be judged from its ethical and political standards. He said writers tried to please the audience by writing about ideologies that are popular in society. He shows no interest in the artistic value of literature. He was a censorious judge of literature and culture. To him mimesis is mere imitation of literary values by people, making them live a world of artificial responses. He wrote about plays that were performed in public and which were in turn imitated by the fans.

Aristotle developed a different ideology. He separates poetry or literature from history and politics. According to him literature inhabits an aesthetic sphere. He says we should analyse literature and evaluate it from aesthetic terms. In Poetics, he offers a technical and formalistic interpretation of the genre  tragic drama.  He looks at tragedy not only as a performance but also as a literary piece. Literature deals with imagination to entertain people. He articulate the notion of fictionality in western thinking.  For Aristotle, mimesis is a fictional representation, which if composed correctly will improve its readers  both intellectually and emotionally.  

Catharsis

Aristotle offered an original theory of the audience’s response to tragic literature. Why does a viewer experience pleasure at the artistic representation of tragic events? These tragic instances would horrify him in real life. To this Plato says that a tragedy led the viewer to be more emotional and less rational. According to Aristotle, tragic literature arouses a very specific set of emotions – pity and fear. It also brings about a healthy and pleasurable experience called catharsis.

The word catharsis means purgation or purification. He uses the word as a technical term.  Tragic plots are designed to arouse pity and fear in the audience. We feel pity for good people. No one feels sorry for the pain of an evil man. Pity comes when a good man has a flaw in his character which gives him suffering. Tragedy  deals with human life and its limitations. In the course of a tragedy, the hero must experience a reversal of fortune. His suffering gives us a certain fear about life. As Aristotle puts it, we pity the character, and fear for ourselves. Why do fear for ourselves? Because we identify ourselves with the hero to a certain extent. Also, we know we are away from them and we worry if the same pain will touch us too later in life.  Viewing becomes a pleasurable and healthy experience.

Some scholars view catharsis as a cognitive experience as it brings wisdom to the viewers. Others feel it is a strong emotional experience leaving us relieved. Releasing and purging emotions produce pleasure.

Aristotle did not define catharsis. He did not explain the term. Hence lots of interpretations have come up for the term. In  a treatise called ‘Parts of Animals’, he says that technical and artistic arrangement of ugly materials in art makes them appear beautiful.  

Aristotle offers a detailed typology of literary plots, character and styles in Poetics. He was the first to give a systematic analysis of the art of literature.

We can call Plato’s approach to art as historical. Aristotle’s approach can be termed as aesthetic.

Reference

Adler, J. Mortimer. Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Whalley, George. Aristotle’s Poetics. Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.

Nightingale, Andrea.  “Mimesis: Ancient Greek Literary Theory”.  Ed. Patricia Waugh.  Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide. International Student Edition. Oxford University Press,