Criticism On Aristotle’s Poetics

By Faiza Anis
I would like to open this assignment with Aristotle's famous definition of
tragedy:

“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”.

Following his definition, I will briefly discuss his six components of a tragedy. The first
in the discussion is Spectacle, which includes the costuming of the actors, the
scenery, and all other aspects that contribute to the visual experience of the play.
Next come Song and Diction. Song obviously refers to the vocal compositions
incorporated into the performance, and diction refers to the metrical composition of
the spoken lines.

Aristotle moves on to elements relating to the humans represented in tragedy,

Thought and Character. Character includes all qualities we associate with individuals
represented in the play; the meaning of thought is more elusive, but it seems to
indicate the processes of reasoning that lead characters to behave as they do. The
final component is Plot, which Aristotle defines as "the arrangement of the
incidents".

From Aristotle’s list of six formative elements of tragedy I will discuss Plot and
Character.

PLOT
Aristotle considers plot to be the most important part of tragedy; indeed, it is the
very soul of tragedy. Plot is the arrangement of the incidents in a logical sequence.

Significantly enough, plot is compared to a living organism. Just as the parts of a

living organism must be probably related to each other and to the whole, the part of
a tragedy should relate to one another and produce a unified effect. Each event
should further the action, and no part should be superfluous or irrelevant. If any part
can be removed without damaging the effect of the work, then that part is
superfluous. Aristotle does not advocate a formal or mechanical unity, as his
comparison of a plot with a living organism shows. We will now discuss the main
formative elements of tragedy. Plot : Simple or Complex

Plot, says Aristotle, is the most important aspect of a tragedy. The Plot can be of two
types, simple and complex :

Simple and Complex Plots

Aristotle, always concerned to establish categories to assist him in his analysis, offers
in this brief chapter a distinction between the simple plot and the complex plot.

The simple plot represents a change of fortune which does not come about through
a reversal of the situation and does not involve recognition on the part of the hero.

In the complex plot, the change of fortune emerges of necessity from the events
preceding it. It is brought about through a reversal of the situation or recognition, or
both.

In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster makes a distinction between "story" and "plot"
that corresponds quite closely to Aristotle's distinction between simple and complex
plots. "'The king died and then the queen died' is a story," Forster writes. "The king
died, and then the queen died of grief' is a plot".

Peripeteia
One of the components of the complex plot, the reversal of the situation, is an event
that occurs contrary to our expectations and that is therefore surprising, but that
nonetheless appears as a necessary outcome. The Greek term for this reversal
is peripeteia.

Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis is the Greek term for "recognition," another component of the complex
plot, and describes the often sudden revelation (such as Oedipus's discovery that he
has, despite his efforts to avoid it, fulfilled the prophecy that he will kill his father and
marry his mother) that propels a tragedy to its conclusion.

The presence of either peripeteia or anagnorisis makes a plot complex, but Aristotle
indicates that in the most successful plots both are not only present but also
simultaneous.
Character
Character is second in importance after plot; tragedies depict characters as they
relate to the action which is the main object of representation. Characters represent
their moral qualities throught the speeches assigned to them by the dramatist. The
character provides the moral axis of the drama; his actions and choices determine
the incidents of the plot. The character is under four requirements: it must be good;
it must display traits appropriate to the person depicted (youth and immaturity
should not be shown in an elderly character); it must be true to life; and it must be
consistent--or consistently inconsistent. One of the six components of
tragedy, character refers to the human beings represented in the drama. Aristotle
stresses that the central aim of tragedy is not to depict human personalities, but
rather to represent human action. Character is second in importance to plot in
Aristotle's hierarchical organization of these elements; representation of character
should always enhance the plot.

Aristotle devotes great attention to the nature, structure and basic

elements of the ideal tragic plot. Aristotle was of the view that in a tragedy, plot or
action is more important than characterisation. Plot according to him is the soul, the
basis or the very foundation to the majestic edifice of tragedy. He says, “A tragedy is
impossible without plot, but there may be one without character.” His concepts
holds true to a great extent if we understand what he means by action.

Action or plot to him is not merely the organism of external incidents and events
which make up the action of the play but also an inwards process, the expression of a
man’s self, of his thoughts and emotions. If we accept this version, plot itself gets a
prominent position, because character is also built out of a person’s emotions and
feelings. Secondly, a character is what he does. Thirdly drama is story enacted on the
stage, hence action is more important than anything. Without plot the writer will find
it rather impossible to arouse the feelings of pity and fear. It is the plot which shows
a character passing from happiness to misery. So in our actual life also, these are
actions which govern the character.

Tragedy is the depiction of action consisting of incidents and events. Plot is the
arrangement of these incident and events. It contains the kernel of the action.
Aristotle says that plot is the first principle, the soul of tragedy. He lists six formative
elements of a tragedy – Plot, character, thought, melody, diction, spectacle and gives
the first place to plot.
 Several of Aristotle's main points are of great value for an understanding of Greek
tragic drama. Particularly significant is his statement that the plot is the most
important element of tragedy:

“Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of action and life, of happiness and misery.
And life consists of action, and its end is a mode of activity, not a quality. Now
character determines men's qualities, but it is their action that makes them happy or
wretched. The purpose of action in the tragedy, therefore, is not the representation of
character: character comes in as contributing to the action”. Hence the incidents and
the plot are the end of the tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all. Without
action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be one without character. . . . The plot,
then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: character holds the
second place.

Aristotle lists six formative elements of tragedy. Of these he gives the primary place
of importance to the plot. Indeed, he devotes a major portion of his discussion of
tragedy to Plot. Plot he says, is the very soul of tragedy; it is the principle of tragedy.
He then makes the famous statement which led to such a great deal of controversy.
He declares: “A tragedy is impossible without plot, but there may be one without
character.” This statement has led to plenty of hostile criticism, specially from the
modern critics, who consider that Aristotle is depressing the value of character to
that of plot. Some critics have misread Aristotle’s statement, and have accused him
of being absurd. How, they ask, can there be tragedy without ‘character’ as used
by Aristotle, before we go into the relative importance of plot and character in a
tragedy.

We see that the two elements of plot and character seem to be set against one
another in sharp and impossible opposition. It is also obvious that one cannot take
the last sentence of the above quotation in a literal sense. The confusion in the
discussion of this question arises from the ambiguity in the use of the words ‘plot’
and ‘character’. In the popular sense, the antithesis, between the two terms is based
on the fact that the term ‘character’ is not seen in its full dramatic value. It is made
to stand for the abstract impression of character, rather than signifying “characters
producing action,” as it should in the dramatic sense.

The ‘plot’ in the full sense of term is the ‘action’, and includes not only the
circumstances and incidents which form the main part of ‘plot’ as popularly thought,
but also ‘character’ in the full dramatic sense of ‘characters producing action’. Thus
we find that an antithesis between ‘plot’ and ‘character’ is not possible. .
It has to be realised that dramatic characters exist through what they say or do. The
character is ‘actualised’ through the action. It is the action of the person that leads to
either happiness or misery. The plot is the ground work. A play is like a living
organism. Its animating principle is the plot, according to Aristotle. Without it the
play could not exist. It is the plot which gives to the play its inner meaning and
reality, as the soul does to the body. The true significance of the tragedy lies in the
plot. It is through the plot that the end, or the intention, of tragedy is realised. It is
the sequence of events which produce, the emotional effect special to tragedy. In
the plot there are the reversal of situations and Discoveries, which most powerfully
evoke the tragic feeling. Thus plot is supreme and character is subordinate to it, says
Aristotle.

But on the other hand, many modern critics have, however, challenged Aristotle’s
doctrine of the primary importance of Plot. They argue that Aristotle’s thesis is based
on the tragedies of the Greek writers of his time, who believed in fatalism and made
man a puppet in the hands of Destiny. De Quincey said, “Man being the puppet of
fate could not with any effect display what we call character for the will which is
the central pivot of character was obliterated, thwarted, cancelled, by the dark
fatalism which brooded over the Grecian stage. Powerful and elaborate character
would have been wasted, nay, would have been defeated and interrupted by the
blind agencies of fate.”

With the rise of romantic individualism, the interest shifted from plot to character.
The sense of personality was deepened. According to Bucher; “Plot does not
overpower characters, it is the very medium through which character is discerned”.
The dramatists began to portray the inner conflict of their characters and opened up
a richer and more varied life of emotions and passions. In Shakespeare’s tragedies
particularly character assumed an infinite variety. But the greatness of Shakespeare
lies in the fact that he tried to find a happy co-ordination between plot and
character. The centre of interest shifted to his heroes no doubt but he did “not
permit the dramatized action to be subservient to the portrayal of individual
character.”

On the other hand, Catherine Lord has quoted the Poetics as stating that "without
action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without character." After noting
that many critics resist this notion that character is entirely subordinate to plot, Lord
has argued that in fact all issues related to character are a function of plot. Lord
discusses the concept of hamartia as a function of plot as well, maintaining that
while this word is often interpreted as the hero's tragic flaw, it is in fact a "simple
mistake," not a moral frailty. Colin Hardie, however, has contended that plot and
character are inseparable within the context of Aristotle's entire theory of poetics,
even though parts of the Poetics seem to identify an antithesis between plot and
character. Hardie explains that within the drama, the "facts and circumstances"
through which character becomes defined are the plot. It is in an effort to
"guarantee the individuality of character," Hardie maintains, that Aristotle
emphasizes the significance of plot.

But in my opinion, it should also be remembered that by ‘character’ Aristotle does

not mean dramatic personage but the bent or tendency; a bent of mind which can be
revealed only in what a dramatic personage says or does. A character is made up of
two elements Ethos (moral element) and Dionia (intellectual element).

Hence Plot is the soul of tragedy: Character holds the second place. “One may string
together a set of speeches expressive of character, but they will not be able to
produce the essential tragic effect, if they are not well-knit in the chain of dramatic
incidents. On the other hand a play which has a plot artistically constructed incidents
may produce a better effect. It is the plot which provides the elements of emotional
interest in a tragedy. Reversal of Situation and the Recognition of Scenes which
awaken and intensify tragic feeling are part of the plot. Again, it is in the background
of given situation that the character acts and these situations are provided by the
plot. Character is subordinate to action because it is a product of action. Without
action we cannot conceive of the very existence of drama for action is the differentia
of drama and must ever remain the primary and controlling principle.

So this should also be borne in mind that by giving supremacy to plot Aristotle does
not altogether ignore character. Nor does he really mean that there can really be a
tragedy without character, for in the absence of agent there can be no action. Hence
both plot and character, action and actor are essential. Aristotle himself recognizes
the importance of character when he says, “the tragedies of most of our modern
poets fail in the rendering of character.” When he says there may be a tragedy
without character, he probably means as Prof. Butcher has suggested, that “there
may be a tragedy if the moral character of the individual agents is so weakly
portrayed as to be of no account in the evolution of the action. The persons may be
mere types or marked only by class characteristics, or lacking in those distinctive
qualities out of which dramatic action grows.”

The modern dramas says Professor Butcher “introduces us into another world of
poetic emotion. But in general the modern introspective habit, the psychological
interest felt in character has produced many dramatic lyrics, but few dramas. “The
importance of plot, therefore cannot be ignored.” W.K. Wimsatt has rightly said that
“there can be no basic consideration of character and action separately. Or one
might say, plot without character is a puzzle as in a detective story, character without
plot is a series of conversations or soliloquies as in some romantic closet
dramas.” Henry James has made the mutual relationship of the plot and character
more clear by saying, “What is character but the determination of incident? What is
incident but the illustration of character?”

Aristotle insists on the primacy of plot because the plot is ultimately what we can
learn from in a piece of art. The plot of a story, as the term is used in the Poetics, is
not the sequence of events so much as the logical relationships that exist between
events. For Aristotle, the tighter the logical relationships between events, the better
the plot. Oedipus Rex is a powerful tragedy precisely because we can see the logical
inevitability with which the events in the story fall together. The logical relationships
between events in a story help us to perceive logical relationships between the
events in our own lives. Modern dramatists have explored the deep recesses of
human mind. They have represented the abnormal and strange impulses of man. But
too much of this can hamper dramatic art. Too much of subjectivism and
psychological interest can lead to dramatic lyrics but not to successful drama.
Goethe, for example, with all his poetic genius did not surmount this pitfall. His
reflective, emotional characters, who view life through the medium of individual
feeling, seldom have the requisite energy to carry out a tragic action, as S.H. Butcher
comments. Drama demands a balance between plot and character. Drama is a
representation of a complete and typical action, whose lines converge on a
determined end, which evolves out of human will in such a manner that action and
character are each in turn the outcome of the other. Drama requires a fusion of the
two elements, plot and character.

In conclusion I would like to say that When Aristotle says that a tragedy can be
possible without character, but not without plot, it is to be noted that he is not
saying that a tragedy without character is the ideal type. Indeed, he says that a poet
should utilise all the formative elements of tragedy to produce an ideal tragedy. He is
merely talking of possibility of drama with, or without, one or the other element. The
characters cannot act without reference to the situation in which they are placed.
Thus the situation influences their very feelings, the very motives, that spring them
to action. In this sense plot becomes fundamental to drama. A passive character will
produce no action and as such, has no place in drama.
It is unfortunate that Aristotle has not discussed an essential aspect of drama—
namely conflict. The tragic action is in essence the outcome of conflict. And to be
tragic, the conflict must be both inside and outside man. It is out of this conflict that
plot and character both develop. Ultimately, however, plot is the first necessity of
drama, artistically speaking.

REFERENCE
1. Bywater, Imgram. With a preface by Gilbert Murray. Aristotle on the Art
of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1920.
2. Cooper, Lane. Aristotle on the Art of Poetry. Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press, 1947.
3. http://www.psu.edu/dept/inart10_110/inart10/aristotle.html
4. http://www.gradesaver.com/aristotles-poetics/study-guide/section1/
5. ———. Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument. Cambridge, Mas¬sachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1957.
6. ———. Plato and Aristotle on Poetry. Chapel Hill: The Univer¬sity of
North Carolina Press, 1986.
7. Fyfe, Hamilton W. Aristotle's Art of Poetry. London: Oxford at the
Clarendon Press, 1940.