Günümüze ulaşan en eski dramatik kuram eseri. Tragedyayı tanımlar, katharsis kavramını ortaya koyar ve şiirin tarihten daha felsefi olduğunu savunur.
Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete, and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions.
Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
Translated by S.H. Butcher (1895). The Poetics is the earliest surviving work of literary theory, defining tragedy, catharsis, plot, character, and the unity of action. Public domain.
Epic poetry and tragedy, comedy also and dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from one another in three respects: the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.
Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be either of a higher or a lower type (for moral character mainly answers to these divisions, goodness and badness being the distinguishing marks of moral differences), it follows that we must represent men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are.
Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation. And it is also natural for all to delight in works of imitation. The reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, this is he.
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.
Every tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality: namely, plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, song. Of these, the most important is the combination of the incidents of the story. For tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.
Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot episodic in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence.
The plot, being an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.
A perfect tragedy should imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation. It follows plainly, in the first place, that the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity: for this moves neither pity nor fear; it merely shocks us. Nor, again, that of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity: for nothing can be more alien to the spirit of tragedy.
There remains, then, the character between these two extremes: that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous, a personage like Oedipus, Thyestes, or other illustrious men of such families.
Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet. For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place.
Aristoteles'in etik üzerine en önemli eseri. Mutluluğun (eudaimonia) en yüksek iyi olduğunu ve erdemli bir hayat ile pratik bilgeliğin işlenmesiyle ulaşılabildiğini savunur.
İlk felsefe üzerine denemeler toplamı: varlık olarak varlık, töz, nedensellik ve hareket etmeyen hareket ettirici üzerine.
Devlet, yurttaşlık ve anayasalar üzerine dizgeli bir inceleme. İnsanın doğası gereği siyasi bir hayvan olduğunu ilân etmesiyle ünlüdür.