Aristotle of Stagira (384–322 BC), Greek philosopher and scientist, whose
Poetics analyses the function and structural principles of tragedy—a second book on comedy is lost—in reply to the criticisms of Plato and Socrates. To the latter's complaint (in Plato's
Apology) that poets are unable to give a coherent account of what they do, he opposes a logical theory of poetic composition; and in opposition to Plato's condemnation of poetry and drama because they do not directly seek to inculcate virtue, he defends poetic tragedy because by its representation of a serious action it arouses terror and pity and so leaves the spectator purged and strengthened by catharsis. Within the limits imposed by his concentration on the tragedies of
Sophocles, which he considered representative of the ‘mature’ form of the art, those of
Aeschylus being the immature and those of
Euripides the enfeebled stage, Aristotle's criticism is penetrating and in many ways final. Although extensively studied and quoted in modern times he has been much misunderstood. The neo-classical critics of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France, were anxious to use his authority to support their own doctrines, but of the famous three
unities he mentions only one and a half: he insists on the unity of action, and he remarks, parenthetically, that tragedy ‘tries as far as possible to confine itself to 24 hours or thereabouts’. About the unity of place he says nothing, and several extant Greek plays disregarded it. The
Poetics remains uniquely valuable for its summary of artistic practice appropriate to one time and place, rather than for any attempt to lay down universal laws.
