A Metaphysical Interpretation Of Aristotle’s Poetics

Aristotle’s Poetics is the earliest systematic poetic literature in stock,which mainly discusses two things—Tragedy and Epic. Aristotleclassified all disciplines into theoretical science, practical science andcreative science, and Poetics belongs to the third category. Therefore,Aristotle’s Poetics focuses on the creation of poetry. It is a technicaldiscussion on how to create Tragedy and Epic. Techne had the meaning ofcognition in Ancient Greek Times. While being the general term of allcrafts, skills and art activities, techne is also a way of uncovering(uncovering" means seeking truths). In this sense, Aristotle’s Poetics isalso a work about truth. Therefore, we can interpret Aristotle’s Poeticsbased on the understanding of some philosophical concepts such as eidos,hyle, individual and general, reality and dunamis from Aristotle’smetaphysical perspective. Poetics was divided into26chapters by later generations. It can alsobe divided into three major parts: part I includes the first five chapters,which can be considered as an introduction; part II is from chapter6tochapter22, mainly discussing Tragedy and symbolized by the presentationof definition of Tragedy. In this part, the discussion on tragic plotsoccupies a large portion; part III is from chapter23to the end, whichdiscusses Epic and then compares Epic with Tragedy.In his Poetics, Aristotle pointed out that arts including Tragedy andEpic were all mimesis, and different forms of art had different means,objects and ways of mimesis. Although Aristotle, like Plato, consideredpoetry as mimesis, he didn’t belittle the status of poetry or considered thatthere were two stories between poetry and truth as what his teacher haddone. Instead, he defended for poetry and pointed out that poetry canreflect universals and reveal the law of reality. The production of poetrywas based on human’s nature of mimesis and cognition.Aristotle pointed out that Tragedy was a mimesis with language as its means and serious human action as its object and its way. The actionimitated by Tragedy should be complete and have a certain length, for thepurpose of eliciting human’s compassion, fear and katharsis. It can be seenfrom the interpretation on Aristotle’s text that: first, the fear andcompassion here are not simply an emotion of fear and compassionproduced while seeing a tragic event, but an emotion in the sense ofsurvival theory. Second, Aristotle regarded Tragedy as an organized wholewith purposiveness. In this sense, he indicated that poetry includingTragedy was an art more serious and philosophical than history. Therefore,it can reflect universality and reality better than history.Aristotle indicated that Tragedy had six components-plot, character,thinking, language, chorus and play scene, and plot is the most importantone. Among six components of Tragedy, the relationship between plot andcharacter is that between eidos and hyle, because Tragedy is a mimesis ofaction, while plot is the action imitated. Therefore, plot undertakes thetask of eliciting the authentic fear, compassion and katharsis. Plot has three components-peripeteia, anagnorisis and suffering, andthe former two components are more important. If the plot of a Tragedyhas peripeteia and anagnorisis, it belongs to a complex Tragedy. InAristotle’s opinion, such Tragedy is better than simple Tragedy, because itcan better reflect the integrity of reality’s dialectical movement andachieve the objective of truth seeking. The best peripeteia and anagnorisisshould be simultaneous and identical, because it is a mimesis oftruth-seeking movement which has the style of thesis, antithesis andsynthesis. Such activity which, depending on inner cause, realizes itself initself with a purpose, is so-called ousia by Aristotle. Aristotle tookperipeteia and anagnorisis in Sophocles’s Tragedy King Oidipus forexample. In this play, both peripeteia and anagnorisis are Oidipus’uncovering his lot, during which Oidipus’s fate realized itself. In this sense,Aristotle’s Poetics is a work of uncovering—truth seeking.Aristotle then implied that such truth seeking was related to humansurvival. In the discussion on materials that Tragedy should use, he indicated that Tragedy should not describe a thoroughly good or badperson, but should describe the experience of hamartia person.Etymologically, hamartia means faults and indicates the inevitabledeviation of a person from his nature. That is to say, human isbeing-for-itself without nature. Hamartia is actually the opening to theworld by human as subject, and is the rack constituting the relationshipbetween human and the world. Aristotle also pointed out that the bestTragedy all originated from the stories of a few families, in which bloodrelatives kill each other, such as Oidipus, Thuestes, Orestes and Alkmaion,so as to manifest the necessity of fate permeated in hamartia and arousefear and compassion in the sense of survival theory through thepresentation of such “subject-fate” structure with hamartia.On the whole, Aristotle considered that the best arrangement of tragicplot was as follows: with the existence of hamartia as description subject,and with the killing among members of the same clan as material that canbest manifest the strong force of fate; a complex Tragedy in which peripeteia and anagnorisis are simultaneous; single-line plot is used tomanifest the character’s transition from a favorable circumstance to anadverse situation with a miserable ending. Such plot arrangement canproduce the best tragic effect and realize the purpose of Tragedy: katharsis.Therefore, katharsis can be understood as the realization of uncoveringhuman survival through the elicitation of human’s authentic emotion.In the last four chapters of Poetics, Aristotle repeated some previousconclusions through the discussion on Epic. Like Tragedy, Epic is also anorganic whole requiring integrity and purposiveness, which is superior tohistory due to its manifestation of universals. Finally, Aristotle comparedTragedy and Epic. He thought that Tragedy had more components and astronger integrity than Epic; and it can better realize the effect of art—katharsis. Therefore, Tragedy is superior to Epic.