Poetics: Creation, Literary Genres, and Aristotelian Concepts
Poetics
Poiesis is like creation. Poets are creators. We have the idea that God was able to create the world by means of words, and because of that, we think that words have the power to create. Some people think that words have magical power in reality, like:
- Mantra: Series of syllables which have a religious meaning. It can cause effects in reality. Mantras are only effective if they are well pronounced.
- Wen: Rhythmic pattern that we can find both in poetry and in the universe.
According to Homer, a poet is different from other people because he is the only person able to communicate with muses. Muses transmit:
- Plot: They tell the poet what has to be said.
- View: They have a supernatural view of reality. Poets have total power of knowledge; they are like Gods.
- Beauty: They give the poet tips about the creation of the poem.
According to Pythagoras, poetry could transmit emotions. He is known for his correlation between numbers, proportions, and music. According to Hesiod, poetry is a lie that seems real.
According to Gorgias, poetry provokes emotions in readers. According to Plato, the sensible world is not real. What we perceive is designed; it is only a copy of what is found in the world of ideas. For him, poetry was a copy of the copy. Poetry and art are copies of the sensitive world that, at the same time, is a copy of the intelligible world. For Plato, poetry was the result of inspiration; poetry was associated with myths. In some poems, we find gods representing immoral actions. Plato banned poems from the ideal republic. According to Aristotle, the original is in the sensitive world, and poetry is not a copy of the copy but an imitation of a sensitive world with real value. The concept of imitation was very famous in his poetry. Literature is the imitation of our external reality but also the result of work done by the poet.
Literary Genres
Each art has a different means to imitate reality:
- Painting: Colors, shapes
- Music: Rhythm, harmony
- Poetry: Words
In tragedies, we also find rhythm and harmony. The narrative mode also makes us differentiate the epic from the theater. If we imitate reality through language, we have the epic genre, but if we add rhythm, harmony, and musicality, we have tragedy or comedy. The objective of the tragedies is idealized since the protagonist is always a noble.
Aristotelian Concepts
- Verisimilitude: A good work must tell the truth through realities established as true. When the recreated is similar to the real, we have semantic verisimilitude, but if it is not similar, we have syntactic verisimilitude.
- Fable: Imitation of actions that each piece of literature has. In tragedy, the fables are inspired by mythology. We have three rules of unity suggested by Aristotle:
- Unity of Action: We can only represent one action.
- Unity of Time: Representation of the conflict in a specific time to not lose intensity.
- Unity of Place: The action is only represented in one place.
- Catharsis: It consists in the purification of emotions.
- Peripeteia: Change of fortune. It turns from good luck to bad luck.
- Anagnorisis: Process when a character begins to find out something that they didn’t know before.
- Pathos: Suffering. Pain must not be exhibited.
According to Horace, there are two orientations in art:
- A didactic and rational: Ars, Res, Docere
- An entertaining and formal: Ingenio, Verba, Delectare
Efficient cause: Ingenio when creating
Final cause: Teach or entertain
Res / Verba: Contents
For him, the best piece is the one that teaches while entertaining.