Aristotle's Literary Criticism

HIS WORKS AND AGE:

Aristotle lived from 384 B. C. to 322 B. C. He was the most distinguished disciple of Plato. He is also known as the tutor for Alexander the Great. He has done a lot of literary criticism (believed to be half a dozen), among them Poetics and Rhetoric are the most popular. Poetics deals with the art of poetry and Rhetoric deals with the art of speaking. His works are deeply rooted in Greek literature.

POETICS STRUCTURE:

· It is a treatise of about 50 pages containing 26 small chapters.

· 1-4 chapters and 25th are devoted to poetry.

· 5th chapter in general to comedy, epic, and tragedy

· 6- 19 chapters exclusively for tragedy.

· 20-22 chapters deal with poetic diction.

· 23 and 24 to epic poetry

· 26th chapter to a comparison of epic poetry and tragedy.

It is believed that this work is the lecture for his disciples which is then written by the students or himself. And it also appears to have another part but it is lost. Aristotle’s main concern is on tragedy, the developed form of poetry.

His observations on poetry

Source:

English Literary Criticism: An Introduction by Charles Edwyn Vaughan

An Introduction to English Criticism by B. Prasad