Aristotles Poetics

A detailed Summary of Aristotles Poetics


Aristotle’s Poetics is considered the first work of literary criticism in our tradition. The couple of pages in the book mainly describe tragedy from Aristotle’s point of view. He defines tragedy as being an imitation of an action that is a whole and complete in itself and of a certain magnitude. Aristotle also points out terms such as catharsis, which can be said that is the purification of one’s soul. He argues in his Poetics that catharsis is achieved through emotions of pity or fear, which is created in the audience as they witness the tragedy of a character who suffers unjustly, but is not entirely innocent. Then he moves on to describing the main elements of tragedy.


There is a phrase used by Aristotle in Poetics, “from the machine,” which is basically any implausible way of solving complications of the plot. An example would be when Medea escapes from Corinth. She’s solving her situation by escaping

Lastly, Aristotle explains the importance of the chorus in a tragedy. According to him, it should be regarded as one of the actors. Therefore, the chorus should be integrated into performance and be considered as part of the whole.

in her magic chariot. This “from the machine” phrase should be employed only for events external to the drama, which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold.



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Approximate Word count = 500
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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