Poesis (An essai on Aristotle’s Poetics, chapter 1)

[superversive]

Our subject being Poetry, I propose to speak not only of the art in general but also of its species and their respective capacities; of the structure of plot required for a good poem; of the number and nature of the constituent parts of a poem; and likewise of any other matters in the same line of inquiry.

-Aristotle, Poetics (tr. Ingram Bywater)

Comments

[sartorias]

This is interesting stuff. Looking forward to more. (You might want to close the quote after Tolkien's remarks.)

Poetry

[livejournal]

User abendlander referenced to your post from Poetry saying: [...] Poesis [...]

[mythusmage]

So when I make up a bad joke I'm engaged in poetics. :)

[mythusmage]

So when I make a bad joke I'm engaged in poetics. :)

[superversive]

Indeed you are. Not very good poetics, but poetics nonetheless.

It is a particular failing of thoughtless people that they want to make all their definitions into value judgements. They hear a song they don’t like and say, ‘Oh, that’s not music,’ and read a book they don’t like and say, ‘That’s not literature.’ They are wrong. The song is bad music; the book is bad literature. If a thing admits of being done well, then logically, it must also be possible to do it badly.

I suppose the error is an instance of the ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy. Whatever it is, it poisons the well of reason at its source.

Now, if you made a good joke, you would be engaging in poesis of a very high class indeed. Solemn people have no idea how much harder it is to make a good joke than almost anything else. That’s why nearly all the good jokes you hear are old: we have to conserve the supply by recycling.

[marycatelli]

It gets the most fun I think when people try to say that Star Wars is not SF because they haven't got the gumption to call it bad -- and such like situations.

[marycatelli]

Defining terms up front! How philosophic!

[superversive]

When in Stageira. . . .