Aristotle's Poetics
Aristotle could be considered the first popular literary critic. Unlike Plato, who all but condemned written verse, Aristotle breaks it down and analyses it so as to separate the good from the bad. He studies in great detail what components make a decent epic or tragedy. The main sections he comes up with are form, means and manner. For most drama and verse, Aristotle's rules are a fairly good measure of the quality of a piece of written work. In modern day however (modern meaning within the last century), certain changes in the nature of dramatic writing have started opening a gap between Aristotelian criticism and what is actually being produced on the stage. Changes in values and techniques brought about by Stanislavsky and some leaders of the popular feminist movement have shifted the direction of theatre. In light of these changes some of Aristotle's rules are not applicable anymore. That is not to say that they are not sound. They simply do not apply. Sharon Pollock, one of Canada's great female playwrights and a strong leader of the popular feminist movement, is one example of a writer that breaks Aristotle's mold. Her play "Blood Relations" sits on the edge of what Aristotle would call tragedy.
After all, it is the count of a woman killing her parents with an axe. Whether Shakespeare provides a nobel action, however,is an issue of the culture of his time. Macbeth's life endsin the same way he took the other lives, through murder and deception. Dramatic irony is a very poignantexample of this theory. Lizzie was fairly stable and snapped into a murderous rage with no prior warning. The characters come across as being very complex, not wishy washy, but grey in terms of good and evil. Macbeth was written during theElizabethan age where ambition was highly regarded. But their prophecies stimulated his desire for kingship and intensifiedhis ambition which is the characteristic that led to his downfall. That is not to say that they are not sound, just that they do not apply. "According to Aristotle, the expectation of a tragedy consists of the arousal ofthe emotions of pity and terror in the audience. The prologos is that entire part of a tragedy which precedes the Parodos of theChorus. He says that man "learns his first lessons through imitation, and.
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