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Aristotle's Poetics (Greek ????t????, c. 335 BCE)[1] aims to give an account of what he calls 'poetry' (for him, the term includes the lyric, the epos, and the drama). Aristotle attempts to explain 'poetry' through 'first principles' and by discerning its different genres and component elements. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of his discussion.[2] "Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in Western critical tradition," Marvin Carlson explains, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions."[3] Aristotle taught that poetry could be divided into three genres Tragedy, Comedy, and Epic verse. Poetics focuses mainly on tragedy; a second work by Aristotle focusing on comedy may have been written and subsequently lost. It has been speculated that the Tractatus coislinianus was an outline of his lectures on the subject, or notes from a philosopher in the Aristotelian tradition. The work contains the famous hypothesis that comedy originated from "those who lead off the phallic processions" that were still common in many towns in Aristotle's time.[4] The centerpiece of Aristotle's surviving work is his examination of tragedy Aristotle distinguishes between the three genres of poetry in three ways differences in the means, the objects and the modes of their imitations. The means cover language, rhythm, and harmony, used separately or in combination. The objects refer to actions, virtuous or vicious, and the agents, good or bad. As a complete whole in itself having beginning, middle, and end, every tragedy includes six parts plot (mythos), character (ethos), thought (dianoia), diction (lexis), melody (melos), and spectacle (opsis). The key elements of the plot are reversals (peripeteia), recognitions (anagnorisis) and suffering (pathos). The best form of tragedy, Aristotle argues, has a plot that is what he calls "complex," it imitates actions arousing horror, fear and pity, and the hero's fortune changes from happiness to misery because of some tragic mistake (hamartia) that he or she makes. The horrific deed may be done consciously and knowingly (Medea), unknowingly (Oedipus), or unknowingly but with timely discovery. The characters must be good, appropriate, consistent, or consistently inconsistent, he argues.
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