p oetics -...

P o e t i c s

Some years ago, our family gathered together in our liv-ing room to watch a comedy entitled Throw Momma from the Train. Our son Paul was 14, our daughter Joanna was 10, and our daughter Mary was seven. You might be wondering why a parent would let young children watch something entitled Throw Momma from the Train. I hon-estly cannot remember nor otherwise account for this lapse in parental judgment. The movie is a comical take-off on Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, in which two men agree to murder each other’s nemesis. In this version, the character played by Danny DeVito throws the ex-wife of the Billy Crystal character off a cruise ship. In return, Billy Crystal will deal with Danny DeVito’s mother—played by Anne Ramsey as the most overbearing, obnoxious, hate-ful, non-maternal mother of all time— by throwing her off of a train. As this plot unfolded, the young daughters were getting rather dis-turbed. They had already witnessed one murder. And the storyline was building up to the climax promised in the title. Noticing their agitation, I said, “Don’t worry. Nobody is going to die in this movie. Momma isn’t going to get thrown off the train, and the lady that was thrown off the cruise ship is going to turn out not to be dead.” “How do you know?” they asked. “Because Aristotle said that in a comedy no one is slain.” Sure enough, at the end of the movie, we learn that the woman we thought had been murdered had only fallen overboard and was living it up in a Polynesian island paradise. Far from throwing Momma off the train, Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal actually prevent her from falling off the train. The act of saving her life turns her into a loving mother. No one was hurt after all. And everyone lives happily ever after—especially me, having been proven right and having my parental authority restored. Later, Joanna asked me, “How did Aristotle know that?” What a good question. Aristotle had not seen Throw Momma from the Train, having been born some 2,400 years too soon. Even if he was

somehow able to get hold of a copy, and even if he some-how had a television monitor, and if he had acquired an even more primitive playback device than the already primitive VHS tape player that we were using, there would have been no place in ancient Athens to plug it all in. And yet, Aristotle knew how this movie would end. Not only that, he knew what would happen in all comedies. How did he know?

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I told her that Aristotle was talking about the nature of comedy. Comedy needs to be light-hearted enough to make us laugh. If someone were to be slain in a com-edy, that would spoil the comic mood. Death is not funny. Death is tragic, which means that it belongs to the nature of tragedies. In comedies, the characters often think that bad things are happening, but they never are, really. Trage-dies have sad endings, but comedies have happy endings. Actually, there are some modern day comedies that violate Aristotle’s principles. For example, Weekend at Bernie’s is about two characters that carry around a dead body, a movie I watched but our children did not. That is an example of a “black comedy.” Today, many people no longer believe in either Christianity or the ordered universe that Aristotle analyzes. They think that life has no meaning. So they think comedy is a way to show the absurdity of life. So people get killed in them. The Greeks also believed that comedies should ridi-cule vice; but many comedies today instead ridicule vir-tue. This is because many people today no longer have a basis for morality and ignore the difference between right and wrong. These modern comedies might make you laugh while they are going on, but they end up depressing us. I could tell that Throw Momma from the Train, despite the title, was a light-hearted comedy that was making fun of bad behavior. That made it more of a classical comedy. So I assumed that it would also follow Aristotle’s rule about no one dying in a comedy. I like to think that our conversation played a role in making Joanna the classicist she is today. She survived my parenting and grew up to become a classics major who today teaches Latin and the online Omnibus cours-es. She is even a contributor to this volume.

General information

Author and Context Aristotle was born in 384 b.c. in the city of Stagira. This was in Macedonia, about 30 miles from Thessaloni-ca, to whom, much later, the apostle Paul would write his letters to the Thessalonians. When he was 17 or so, Ar-istotle went to Athens to study under Plato at his famed Academy. When Plato died 20 years later, Aristotle trav-eled in Asia (Minor) for a few years until his career took a new turn. King Philip of Macedon was looking for a teacher for his precocious but rather violent 13-year-old son. He wanted the best for his boy, so he hired Aristotle. Yes, Aristotle homeschooled Alexander the Great.

Alexander proved a worthy pupil. Later he would send his old teacher specimens of the exotic new animals and plants that he was discovering in the course of con-quering the world. It is said that the two had a falling out toward the end of Alexander’s life due to Aristotle’s harsh scolding of his former student when he started claiming to be a god. You can expect your Omnibus teachers to do the same if you ever claim to be a god. When Alexander became king in 336 b.c., Aristotle considered that a graduation and left for Athens. Here he founded a new school to rival Plato’s Academy. He called it the Lyceum, after a nearby shrine to Apollo Lykeios— literally, Apollo the Wolf. It was located just outside the walls of Athens in a grove of trees. Aristotle’s school in-cluded a temple to the Muses and a building with lecture rooms and a library. Classes, though, would be conduct-ed outdoors, as the teacher would lecture and have dia-lectical conversations with his students as they walked around amidst the trees. For this reason, the students at the Lyceum were called peripatetics, from the Greek word for walking around. There was a reason why Aristotle was not given lead-ership of the Academy after Plato’s death and had to start his own school. Though Plato evidently followed and even extended the precepts of his teacher, Socrates, Ar-istotle found himself disagreeing with his teacher Plato. Plato was more interested in the realm of ideas. Aristotle was more interested in the realm of things. Plato dismissed poetry—including myth, epic, trag-edy, and comedy, which was known to skewer Socrates as in The Clouds by Aristophanes—as being untrue. For Plato, art was a mere imitation of an imitation, one step further away from the universal reality that resided in the purely abstract realm of the ideals. Aristotle, though, who believed that the universals inhere in particular ex-amples, saw great value in poetry and in aesthetics. He was writing at a time when Athenian drama had reached heights exceeded only in England at the time of Shakespeare. Aristotle knew the work of the great trage-dians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, all of whom had lived a century earlier. Each year the city continued to award vigorously-contested prizes for the best trag-edies and comedies. Aristotle wanted to think through how poetry worked and why stories, plays, and specifically tragedy can move us so deeply. He wrote the Poetics in 335 b.c., which would have been the first year of his Lyceum. If you find its style to be somewhat meandering, just remember that it was probably composed—or was possibly transcribed by his students—as he was walking among the trees. When Alexander died in 323 b.c., Athenians found it safe to react against him and his supporters, including

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his old teacher. Aristotle found himself about to be legal-ly accused of not sufficiently believing in the mythologi-cal gods. Though Socrates, faced with the same charge, stayed in Athens, accepted the verdict of his trial and drank the hemlock, Aristotle disagreed once more with Plato, who celebrated the submission of Socrates. Saying that he did not want the Athenians “to sin twice against philosophy,” Aristotle fled the city. He died the next year, 322 b.c., at the age of 62.

Significance According to the myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, was born when she sprang out of the head of her father Zeus, already fully grown and fully armed. Western literature is that way, springing fully grown and fully armed out of the head of Homer. Evolutionists believe that complex organisms—including, presumably, literature— developed gradually out of simpler forms. And yet, the very first literary author that we have, writing the very first sustained, long, fictional poetic narratives, is still among our very greatest authors, and in the Iliad and the Odyssey, we see literary art already fully formed and at a level of quality few later works can mea-sure up to. Philosophy is that way too, only with two fully-armed intellectual warriors springing up as if from nowhere. Plato and Aristotle are still the two greatest philoso-phers, mighty adversaries yet kindred spirits like Achilles and Hector, with all other philos-ophers to come merely their minions or their feeble challengers. And in the Poetics we have literary criticism springing fully grown and fully armed out of the head of Aristotle. This is the first essay on literary art, and it is still one of the best. It will give you tools—and a language—to help you understand the other Greek plays that you will read in Omnibus. These plays and Aristotle’s principles continued to shape European drama. An important strain of English drama—the academic plays of the Renaissance, the neo-classicism of Ben Jonson, the plays of the Restoration and the Enlightenment—continued this tradition. Much of the drama of the other European countries, especially France with its great playwrights such as Racine and Mo-liere, never strayed from the classical style. The only rea-son English-speakers have had more options is because

of Shakespeare, who combined the multiple plotlines and narrative freedom of medieval drama—such as the bibli-cal mystery plays—with the depth of character required by Aristotle. Though Aristotle concentrates here on plays, what he has to say about plot and character applies also to other kinds of literature, including much later literary forms such as the novel. Aristotle was analyzing existing plays, but in doing so, he established principles that later play-wrights and other authors would follow. The Poetics is

also a model for later literary criticism. From scholars who analyze literature to film critics who review movies, they all owe a debt to Aristotle’s Poetics.

Summary and Setting Aristotle’s method is usually to break down everything he considers into categories which

themselves often get subdivided; he then ana-lyzes each possibility in exhaustive detail.

At one point in the Poetics, in a discus-sion of poetic diction, he breaks down language into its nouns and verbs, and

then breaks those down into syllables and then letters—to not much effect,

as far as we readers can tell! And yet, even while he seems lost in the woods, he tosses off observations about metaphorical language and how to create a po-etic style that are incisive and priceless. So you will get lost as you walk with Aristotle through the groves of Lyceum. Do not be discouraged. He is referring to a multitude of plays, most of which have been lost. If only the barbarians had not burned the li-brary at Alexandria! Do not get bogged down with what you do not understand. Watch for what you do under-

stand. Keep in mind that when Aristotle refers to “poetry,” he has in mind not so much lyric po-

etry, which expresses an emotion, but narrative poetry, which tells a story. Specifically, he is thinking of epics and the two kinds of plays that were performed in Ath-ens, tragedy and comedy, both of which were written in verse. Thus, Aristotle comments on the various kinds of poetic meter. Remember too that Greek plays incorpo-rated music and dance, especially with the chorus that sang and danced its parts. Thus, Aristotle comments on melody and rhythm. Eventually, Aristotle gets around to his main topic: tragedy. He considers tragedy to be the highest form of literary art. According to Aristotle, tragedy is better than epic be-cause a play can be taken in at one sitting; as a result,

This bronze statue shows Athena with her shield.

The owl on the shield

denotes her

wisdom.

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that person, to feel compassion. The more we know the person—a friend who has a death in the family; a family member who is hurt in an accident—the more compas-sion we feel. Compassion is a “good feeling;” it is morally good. Strangely enough, compassion also feels good, even though it takes something bad—someone suffering—to bring it on. Compassion can also be cathartic, making us feel cleansed. Pity or compassion is a species of love. Jesus extends the claims of compassion. He says that we should have compassion not only for our friends but also for our enemies. More than that—since we at least know our enemies and have a strong emotional tie to them—Jesus wants us to have compassion on people we do not know but whom God brings into our lives, like the Sa-maritan did for the “neighbor” bleeding on the side of the road (Luke 10:25–37). A successful tragedy makes us feel compassion for the characters who suffer. It is proof of our fallen nature that we sometimes find it easier to feel sorry for fictional characters—to get all teary-eyed over the fate of Bambi’s mother or Old Yeller or the misunderstood musician who finally finds true love just as he dies of cancer—while be-ing utterly callous about the actual suffering of the real human beings we encounter: the handicapped child that other kids make fun of; the World War II veteran in the nursing home; a member of your family who is hurting. Still, a work of fiction can help us cultivate positive emo-tions, training us to be more sensitive and compassionate, and thus play an important part in our moral formation. So Aristotle determines that the purpose of tragedy is to give us a cleansing rush of pity and fear: pity for the hero, and fear for ourselves. We feel close to the hero and so sympathize with him in his suffering. We feel pity. But then we consider that his fate might be our own. That makes us afraid. Those emotions—one pulling us outside ourselves and the other forcing us to look inward—come together at once in a powerful and healthy emotional impact. Having established that “end,” that purpose, Aristo-tle then reasons backwards. What kind of hero does a tragedy need in order to make the audience feel such pity and fear at the point of the catastrophe? The hero cannot be purely evil, Aristotle reasons. When the bad guy in a movie gets killed, we don’t feel pity or fear. We are glad. But the hero cannot be purely good, either. Here, Aristotle and the classical tradition start to differ from our mod-ern sensibility. When the good guy in a movie gets killed, we may feel pity and fear, but we also feel frustrated and angry. When Teen Angel rushes back to the car to recov-er her boyfriend’s high school ring only to get run over by a train, we feel cheated. It’s not fair! Things like that shouldn’t happen! Aristotle believed that a good tragedy

the audience can better experience its unity, a major value in classical aesthetics. Longer works, such as epics or the later-to-be-invented novel, take many sessions to read. How long did it take you to read the Odyssey? That breaks up the work, taking away from the intensity of its effect. We can experience an entire play, television program, or movie, though, in a couple of hours. We can read the whole thing at one time, which is good to do when you read the Omnibus plays; as a result, we get the whole im-pact at once. Actually, the authors of longer works made up for this problem with unity by breaking up their sto-ries into separate “books,” as Homer did, and “chapters,” as novelists did, each of which usually has a unity of its own and can be read in one sitting. Tragedy is more serious and more noble—and thus “higher”—than comedy. In addition to saying that in comedy no one is slain at the end, Aristotle says that the characters of comedy are “worse than average.” We are supposed to look down on the characters of classical comedy. Classical comedy ridicules vice. This distances the audience from their bad behavior. We shouldn’t want to be like the Three Stooges or the Simpsons. We laugh at them, and our laughter is a kind of moral judgment. The characters of a tragedy, though, are better than aver-age. We look up to them. We also care about them. That means they affect us more deeply. Aristotle’s typical mode of analysis is to zero in on the purpose of whatever he is examining. The purpose of trag-edy, he says, is to create a “catharsis” of pity and fear. In other words, a story with a sad ending evokes in the mem-bers of its audience certain powerful emotions. And some-how, these emotions are cathartic, that is to say, cleansing. Not being a fan of either roller coasters or horror movies, I have often asked people who are why they pay good money to get scared. It isn’t pleasant to be afraid. Isn’t fear a negative emotion, something we try to avoid? Perhaps a person is so courageous that it doesn’t bother him to go hurtling along a winding track high in the air at great speed, sometimes even looping upside down. But I know that is not the case. When I go to amusement parks and watch the people who ride the roller coaster, I can hear them scream. And then, after they survive and the ride is over, I can hear the screamers say, “I want to do it again!” Evidently, fear, in this context, is enjoyable. When roller coaster fans such as my wife try to ex-plain the appeal, they talk about the “rush” of emotion and adrenaline that they find to be exhilarating. When the ride is over, they feel drained but elevated. It is cathartic. A jump-out-of-your-seat horror movie can have that same effect. So can a tragedy. But Aristotle speaks of an-other kind of emotion that tragedy evokes: pity. When we see someone suffering, it is natural to feel pity for

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Again, this classical perspective is different from the modern view of tragedy. We speak of “tragic accidents,” as when an innocent person dies in a car wreck. Aristotle would say that such an event is unbearably sad, but it is not “tragic.” If someone dies in a car wreck because he was drinking and driving, so that he was responsible for what happened, that would be tragic. Many of today’s sad stories and tear-jerking songs—including some that I have used as examples—are not really tragedies by Aristotle’s standards. Bambi’s mother dies because she is a deer, not because she has done any-thing wrong; the Teen Angel who runs back into the car when the train is coming is just being stupid. This is be-cause our contemporary culture does not believe much in personal responsibility. All suffering is pre-sented as accidental

needs to be satisfying. We need to think, “Yes, it’s sad, but that’s how it has to be.” Aristotle concludes that, to fulfill the purpose of trag-edy to create in the audience a catharsis of pity and fear, the hero needs to be noble—having certain qualities that we admire and look up to—whose fall comes about be-cause of some hamartia. This was traditionally rendered in English as a “tragic flaw.” More modern translations have “mistake” or “error.” But those of you who have stud-ied New Testament Greek should recognize the word. In translations of the Bible, hamartia is the word for “sin.” Here the theologians and the literary critics should get together and learn from each other. “Sin” is not just a bad thing we do. “Sin” is our tragic flaw. It inheres in our fallen nature so that we keep hurting people we care about, spoiling things we touch, bringing disaster upon ourselves through our own fault. Conversely, the “tragic flaw” is more than just the hero’s er-ror or mistake. It is the hero’s sin. The hero is not evil, as such; indeed, he usually has many virtues. The audience is on his side. But the hero has a sin. His character is flawed. His hamartia is what brings on the catas-trophe, the tragic ending. Thus, he brings his down-fall upon himself. He is re-sponsible for what happens, as horrible as it is. This is what makes it so tragic.

A successful tragedy makes us feel compassion for the characters who suffer. It is

proof of our fallen nature that we sometimes find it easier to feel sorry for fic-

tional characters while being utterly callous about the

actual suffering of the real human beings we encounter:

the handicapped child that other kids make fun of; the World War II veteran in the nursing home; a member of

your family who is hurting. A work of fiction can help us

cultivate positive emotions and thus can play an important part

in our moral formation.

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true. Such plays are dizzying in their irony, but watch for the hero’s harmartia.

Notice too that classical tragedy uses “hero” somewhat differently than what we

moderns do. We tend to think of “hero” as the good guy, who is opposed by the “villain,”

the bad guy. Heroes are handsome and wear white hats; villains are

ugly and wear black hats. We do not necessarily know what the heroes do that is so good, nor why the villains are so evil. The conflicts are all external and symbolic. The characters tend to be simple and one-dimensional.

But when we go beyond Sat-urday morning cartoons or Hol-

lywood blockbusters to truly great literature, the characters tend to

be complex. There may well be an external conflict of good vs. evil, but

the good guy may have some bad qualities that he has to overcome; the villain may have some good qualities.

Or, perhaps more often, the conflict between good and evil takes place with-

in the hearts of the characters. In the classical literature of ancient

Greece, to speak of a “hero” usually means the character who is flawed. This applies not

only to tragedy but to epic as well. Achilles is the hero of the Iliad, but his wrath and injured pride are

his flaws. He is the protagonist and Hector is his antago-nist, but Hector is not evil. Rather, Hector is a complex character himself, nobly trying to protect his family while being too tolerant of his adulterous brother. Aristotle says much more: about how plots must not just be one episode after another, but have a purposeful beginning, middle, and end; about how plots often turn upon some discovery; about how “spectacle” is the least artistic part of a drama. We can thus imagine what Aristo-tle would think about today’s movies that have hardly any plot and superficial characters but lots of special effects.

Worldview Aristotle lived several centuries before Christ, and he apparently knew nothing of the Jews. He did, however, be-lieve in an orderly, meaningful universe. As such, he has often been treated as an ally of Christianity. For example, in the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic scholar Thomas Aquinas made Aristotle’s philosophical system the founda-

because life is absurd and we are all passive victims of our environment. Thus, even stories that could be tragic because the hero brings the downfall on himself because of a sin—say, a drama about someone dying of AIDS con-tracted because of immoral behavior—are presented as meaningless accidents happening to an innocent victim. The principle that the tragic hero is responsible for his downfall holds true even for classical dramas in which the events seem determined by an irresistible fate. Oedipus is trying to escape the oracle’s prophecies, but it is his own hot temper and his pride that make the prophecies come

Because Oedipus solves the Sphinx’s riddle, the Thebans make him their king. This is one more link in the seemingly irresistible fate that leads to his ruin.

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Aristotle talks about the catharsis of pity and fear, he says that the value is in “purging” those emotions—that is, to get rid of them. We can see how it is helpful to purge ourselves of fear. Feeling vicarious fear can be a way to help us conquer that fear so as to become more courageous. But for many of the ancients, pity was also a feeling to overcome. You will not find much compassion in Homer—think of Odysseus mowing down the suitors—or in other Greek authors. The pagan Greeks and Romans spoke of the four car-dinal virtues: justice, self-control, courage, and prudence. You will find those everywhere in the literature, philoso-phy, and history of this great civilization. But, as Dante noted, they lacked the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. They had no faith, being ignorant of Christ. They had no hope, assuming that all the dead descended into Hades, so that life itself ended in misery. With their tragic sense of life, no wonder they were so good at writing tragedies. And they had no love in the Christian sense. Yes, they would love their spouses and children and country. But they had little sense of agape, the love of the undeserving, the love of forgiveness and grace with which God loves us and which He expects us to extend to our neighbors. Instead, their writings—whether epics or tragedies or philosophical discourses—often praise revenge and re-taliation, and, while often lifting up hospitality, loyalty, and friendship, tend to be weak when it comes to compassion. Pity was one of the few things Alexander the Great—leveler of cities, destroyer of kingdoms—never learned from Aristotle. But he could probably tell a very good story. And in his greatness and in his flaws, he made a very good tragic hero.

—Gene Edward Veith

tion of his whole theology. For Aquinas, Aristotle accounts for what can be known by reason. This is complementary to what can be known only by revelation. Aquinas used Aristotelian arguments for his proofs of the existence of God. Aristotle argued that the universe had to have a “first cause.” He also argued that the uni-verse had to have a “final cause,” that is, a purpose, a de-sign, and thus a designer. Aristotle had no conception of a personal God, but for Aquinas, that knowledge is supplied by the revelation of Scripture. Aristotle’s analysis of moral-ity became the foundation for what would be described as “natural law,” the rational proofs for the moral law. The purpose of sex in its biological design is the engendering of new life. Therefore, sex outside of marriage and potential parenthood is wrong. Aquinas’s theology with his Aristote-lian methods became, more or less, the official position of the Roman Catholic Church and is called Thomism. The Reformers took issue with the way the medieval church exalted Aristotle as an authority, in effect, on a par with Scripture. For example, Aristotle’s distinction between “substance” and “accidents” became the basis for the Ro-man Catholic teaching about transubstantiation in the Lord’s Supper, the belief that the bread and wine on the altar is changed into the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ. More importantly, Aristotle’s confidence in the human will and human virtues downplayed sin and supported a works-righteousness that undermined the gospel of Christ. In general, the Reformers considered that the medieval church’s reliance on Aristotle was a manifestation of ra-tionalism, that impulse that is not unknown among Prot-estants too, to think that we must understand everything perfectly with our limited minds, as opposed to trusting God’s Word in faith. The Reformers believed not only in Scripture but in sola Scriptura, that the Bible alone is the only ultimate and infallible authority for doctrine and life. Luther called Aristotle a “many-headed serpent” whose influence must be purged from theology. Nevertheless, after excoriating Aristotle’s writings on meta-physics, the soul, and ethics in his “Open Letter to the Christian Nobility,” Luther writes, “I should be glad to see Aristotle’s books on Logic, Rhetoric and Poetics retained.” And yet, it is evident that the Poetics, for all of its value, is not the work of a Christian. When

Martin Luther called Aristotle a “many-headed serpent”

whose influence must be purged from theology.

Nevertheless, he appreci-ated his books on Logic,

Rhetoric, and Poetics.

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session i: Prelude

A Question to Consider How were dramas in Aristotle’s time, both tragedies and comedies, similar to and different from dramas to-day? How might this affect our understanding of Aristo-tle’s Poetics? There are both similarities and differences. Some similarities are: the serious nature of tragedy still the same; humorous nature of comedy still the same. Both comedy and tragedy still require the same essential elements in their styles, plots, char-acters, etc., in order to be considered “good.” Some differences: Then, all drama was writ-ten in verse. The performances were very differ-ent in that they used a “chorus,” “recitations,” masks, etc. Greek drama was simpler than modern drama. There were fewer characters, and usually only three speaking actors were allowed on the

For Further ReadingAdler, Mortimer. Aristotle for Everybody. New York: Touchstone, 1978.

Kaplan, Justin D., ed. The Pocket Aristotle. New York: Washington Square Books, 1958.

Rorty, A.O., ed. Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization. Seventh Edition. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Wadsworth, 2009. 80–82.

Veritas Press History Cards: Old Testament, Ancient Egypt. Lancaster, Pa.: Veritas Press. 31.

Veritas Press History Cards: New Testament, Greece and Rome. Lancaster, Pa.: Veritas Press. 15, 17.

Aristotle taught that comedy needs to be light-hearted enough to make us laugh. The Greeks believed that comedies should ridicule vice; but many comedies today instead ridicule virtue. This is because many people today no longer have a basis for morality and ignore the difference between right and wrong.

readinG assiGnment: Poetics, chapters 1–7

session ii: discussionPoetics, chapters 1–7

A Question to Consider What is your favorite movie or play? Why?It is really hard to pick just one. I have two mov-ies that I particularly like: The Godfather and O, Brother Where Art Thou. In both cases the reason they are my favorite is the same. They are enjoy-able to watch over and over. Every time I watch them I see some new level of craft or some nuance in the story that I had not seen before. Hamlet is my favorite play for the same reason.

Discuss or list short answers to the following questions:

Text Analysis1. Is Aristotle giving a descriptive (by examining dif-

ferent poems) or prescriptive (using language like “ought” and “should”) account of poetry? How do you know which? How does this relate to his overall philosophical approach?

Descriptive. For the most part, he doesn’t use normative, prescriptive language here (“ought,” “should,” “right,” etc.). He observes and studies poetry as he would any other natural phenom-enon by examining different “species” of poet-ry. This is consonant with his overall empiricist approach of scientifically observing the particu-lars he sees around him, rather than of prescrib-ing how things ought to be (chap. 1).2. How does Aristotle compare and contrast tragedy or

comedy? Which does Aristotle think is the superior form of drama, and why? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

He says tragedy is more serious and noble than comedy. He says that comedic characters are “worse than average,” and we rightly look down

stage at once. Dramas were not divid-ed into different “acts.” The audience interacted much more with the perfor-mance: they used shouts and applause, or groans and hisses to express their approv-al or disapproval of the drama. Dramas were performed during festivals, and an entire day was devoted to viewing the dramas, which comprised a competition, with a prize being given to the eventual winner. These similarities and differences can be seen by comparing and contrasting Death of a Salesman with Oedipus the King. Or compare and contrast the two movies Throw Momma from the Train and Weekend at Bernie’s, with Oedipus The King and The Clouds.

From the General Information above, answer the following questions:1. Who was Aristotle’s famous teacher?Aristotle’s famous teacher was Plato (who was trained by Socrates). 2. Who was Aristotle’s famous pupil?Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great. 3. What was the name of the school Aristotle founded,

and how did he conduct his classes there?Aristotle founded the school called the Lyceum. Because of philosophical differences with his teacher Plato, he was not offered leadership at the Academy which was founded by Plato. Classes, would be conducted outdoors, as the teacher would lecture and have dialectical conver-sations with his students as they walked around amidst the trees. For this reason, the students at the Lyceum were called peripatetics, from the Greek word for “walking around.”4. Why is this work of Aristotle’s called Poetics when it

deals mostly with drama?In ancient Greece both tragic and comedic plays were written in verse. 5. Briefly compare and contrast the overall philosophi-

cal approaches of Plato and Aristotle. How do their approaches affect their respective views of art, poetry, and drama?

Plato dealt more with ideas, abstract and “heav-enly” things, mathematical truths, universals, absolutes. Aristotle dealt more with concrete and “earthly” things, particulars, specifics. Thus, Plato dismissed art, poetry, and drama, as mere “cop-ies of copies,” whereas Aristotle lauded them for focusing on the things of the everyday world.

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5. The rhythm and harmony vary throughout the work

6. It is performed, not narrated7. It arouses pity and fear, then relieves these

through catharsis (chap. 6)5. What constitutes a well-formed plot, according to

Aristotle?A well-formed plot must have a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning must not derive by neces-sity from a previous circumstance. The middle must follow logically from the beginning. The end must follow logically from the middle, and must logically entail no further actions. A well-formed plot must be unified, having no “loose ends.” The best plots contain surprises, but surprises which eventually are seen to fit logically into the stream of events. A well-formed plot arouses pity and fear. It may seem here that Aristotle is prescrib-ing, not simply describing. Not so. He is still just observing what the most effective tragedies all contain (chap. 7, 9).

Cultural Analysis1. What do people today think makes a good movie

or play?People today, depending on their spiritual condi-tion, intellectual level, and/or cultural level, look for such things as a moral lesson, immorality of all sorts, action, violence, sweetness, cuteness, etc. Some people think the height of movie-making is something like Casablanca or Citizen Kane; others would opt for something like Dumb and Dumber or The Little Mermaid. As was mentioned in the essay above, one can evaluate works subjectively, according to our pleasures (“I like this movie”) or objectively, according to standards (“This movie is good.”)2. Does everybody have the same standards for judging

this question, or are they different? How do you know?People’s standards today vary greatly from one person to another, because we live in a very individualistic, subjectivist, diverse, pluralistic, relativistic—in sum, postmodern— society and culture. Interestingly, however, Aristotle’s stan-dards still tend to carry the day. For example, the successful TV dramas are almost always character-driven, usually featuring complex characters such as Aristotle recommends. The plots are nearly always structured as Aristotle calls for rather than being merely episodic. They do tend to aim at a powerful emotional, even cathartic effect on the audience, etc.]

on them and don’t care about them. However, tragic characters are “better than average,” they have something “noble” about them and their actions, and we rightly look up to them and do care about them. Comedy teaches by ridiculing vice, but the purpose of tragedy is to instruct and bring about catharsis, which is more important (Aristotle merely implies this point). For these rea-sons, Aristotle says, tragedy is superior to comedy (chap. 2, 4, 5, 6).3. How does epic poetry differ from tragedy? Why does

Aristotle think that tragedy is superior to epic poetry?He says that epic poetry agrees with tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a higher type. They differ in that epic poetry admits but one kind of meter and is narrative in form. They differ, again, in their length: for trag-edy endeavors, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the epic action has no limits of time. This, then, is a second point of difference; though at first the same freedom was admitted in tragedy as in epic poetry. Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar to tragedy: whoever, there-fore, knows what is good or bad tragedy, knows also about epic poetry. All the elements of an epic poem are found in tragedy, but the elements of a tragedy are not all found in the epic poem. Thus, if tragedy contains all the elements of epic poetry but epic poetry does not contain all the elements of tragedy, then tragedy would be superior (chap. 5). Aristotle addresses later the question of which of these is superior in Poetics chapter 26. In sum, he claims that tragedy can be expe-rienced in just one session, whereas epics take many sessions to read. The breadth and scope of epic is much greater. Therefore, he implies, in tragedy one has a better sense of unity of plot, and this unity was a major value in classical aesthetics. Tragedy is also more vivid, because of its use of music and staging, and more intense, because it operates in a shorter scope. For these reasons, Aristotle says, tragedy is superior to epic (chap. 5).4. How does Aristotle define tragedy?1. It is mimetic (imitative of action)2. Done in a serious manner3. Having magnitude complete unto itself (i.e., it

is a full story of appropriate length)4. Having language’s “pleasurable accessories”

(i.e., rhythm and harmony)

Poetics 1 1

2. Does Hebrew poetry appeal to the heart or to the mind?

It appeals to both. Hebrew poetry in the Bible is meant to appeal not just to the mind, but to the heart as well. It seeks to draw us near to God and to live lives that are pleasing to him. It achieves this through its beautiful forms and emotive lan-guage. Of course, Greek poetry appeals not just to the mind but to the heart also, though not with the same Spirit-driven impressive power as Scripture.3. Are there any examples of drama, either comedy or

tragedy, in the Bible? If so, what role does each one play (Ezek. 4)?

There are no plays in Scripture that fit the form that we are studying exactly, but the

Bible certainly does con-tain much that is highly

dramatic. One of the most dramatic occurs

in Ezekiel 4. The prophet sets up a staged scene

to demonstrate the judgment

that will come against

Biblical Analysis1. The Bible contains beautiful poetry in the book of

Psalms, e.g., Psalm 1 and 136. What are the major features of this Hebrew poetry, and is it in any way similar to any of the poetry Aristotle analyzes?

Hebrew poetry usually appears in couplets. The second line reinforces and parallels the first. See the chapter in this book on the Psalms for more information. There is rhythm and rhyme in both Hebrew and Greek poetry. Both Hebrew and Greek poetry were meant to appeal not just to the mind, but to the heart as well, with their beautiful forms and emotive language. The narra-tives in the Bible are written in prose, which isevidence that they are histories, not fictions.

A jump-out-of-

your-seat horror movie

is cathartic. Roller coaster fans describe

the same kind of appeal,

the “rush” of emotion

and adrenaline that they find

to be exhilarat-ing. When the

ride is over, they feel drained but

elevated.


movies such as The Patriot or Braveheart (and others).


session iii: discussionPoetics, chapters 1–14

A Question to Consider In Poetics chapter 10, Aristotle maintains that a sim-ple plot or “story” is just a series of events, one following another, with no necessity attaching from previous events to subsequent events, and which contains no reversal of situation or recognition. A complex plot, on the other hand, does have this sort of necessity attaching to subse-quent events (so he says), and does contain reversal and recognition. The key issue is whether subsequent events follow previous events in a merely post hoc (“after this”) sort of way or a propter hoc (“because of this”) sort of way. Can you think of any simple plots or “stories,” as Aristotle describes them? What about any “complex plots?”“Complex plots” abound. All the great Greek tragedies would be examples. Examples of “sim-ple plot” are much harder to find. Perhaps we could point to the simple one-paragraph answers that school children give to the back-to-school essay, “What I Did on My Vacation.” There are, however, many examples of what we would call “episodic” plots in literature: Don Quixote, L’Morte de Arthur, Robinson Crusoe, which basi-cally recount one episode after another in the life of the characters, without tying them all together into one overarching plot.


Text Analysis1. According to Aristotle, how does poetry imitate life? Poetry, which for the ancient Greeks included epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and music (specifically of flute and lyre), can imitate life by representing character, emotion, action, or even everyday objects, and through the use of rhythm, language, and harmony (chap. 1).2. For Aristotle, must a piece of writing use verse in or-

der for it to be considered poetry? Why or why not?Yes, it must use verse. Aristotle simply notices

Jerusalem in the Babylonian siege. After setting up the scene, he acts it out in front of the people so that they can see the coming judgment. The comical elements in the Bible generally poke fun at evil and evil (or merely stupid) characters. In The Bible and the Comic Vision (Cambridge, 1998), J. William Whedbee propounds the thesis that there is a great deal of comedy in the Bible. It is there to facilitate survival in the midst of exile and oppression, and to transform less-than-ideal social and political structures. Tragedy, of course, is ubiquitous in Scripture. There are so many examples, it’s hard to know where to start. These tragic elements serve to demonstrate man’s sinful-ness, the wretched states of affairs he manages to inflict on himself and others when he rejects God and God’s standards, and the great fact that only God can save man from himself and bring about individual and corporate redemption. Those who view God’s ultimate redemption of humans and the world in general as in some sense comedic, do so from within the tradition that began with Dante, who evidently was the first to think in terms of a “Divine Comedy.” Tragedies, however, are not necessarily tragic; just as comedies are not always comic. Dante’s Divine Comedy, for instance, is, as advertised, a comedy, but its lines are hardly ever used by stand-up comedians.

summa Write an essay or discuss this question, integrating

what you have learned from the material above. You might know a person who always says of the last play or movie that he or she watched, “This is the greatest movie ever!” What should we be looking for if we are to judge a work of art as great?A great work of art is one that has great quality or worth. This raises the question as to what we mean by “quality” and “worth,” an extremely difficult philosophical question that gets right to the heart of aesthetic theory. One could spend an entire course profitably studying just this one issue. Most everyone would agree that technical excellence must be a component of a truly great work of art, as well as thoughtfulness and seri-ousness. From a Christian perspective, we can say that it must deal with great themes, and should exalt truth, beauty, and goodness in one way or another. Obvious movies come to mind such as The Passion of the Christ, Amazing Grace, and The Shadowlands, but students need to investigate other, not-so-overtly-Christian movies as well,

Poetics 1 3

parts: the parode, the first full performance of the chorus while it is processing into the stage area, and the stasima, the choric performances between the episodes of the actors’ dialogues.Commos – a performance within the tragedy in which both actors and chorus take part in some, but not all tragedies (chap. 12)7. What are the four elements in a really good tragic

plot, according to Aristotle?One single issue•Hero must go from fortune to misfortune.•The misfortune must result from hamartia.•The hero must be of at least as much “worth” •as the average person (chap. 13).

8. Aristotle claims that pity and fear are the “pleasures” of tragedy. He says that this fear and pity arise in the audience during a good tragedy and should ideally result from the plot itself rather than from “spectacle”—i.e., the costume, the music, the scenery, etc. Why does he say this?

He says this because with spectacle, the author is relying on outside help—sort of like a film that gains an audience only because of special effects—whereas without it, he is relying only on the inner structure of the piece, which comes from his own ingenuity and creativity alone, and nothing external, such as “spectacle” (chap. 14).

Cultural Analysis1. How do contemporary tragedies compare to ancient

Greek tragedies?The main differences are that 1) nowadays, the hero (protagonist) is often the “common man” in his ordinary daily life and need not be noble or “better than average,” and 2) instead of the hero’s hubris being the main cause of his down-fall (reversal of fortune), now it is often aspects of contemporary society, such as our institutions and their policies and practices, that bring him misfortune.2. Does modern American culture seem bent toward

tragedy or comedy? Sadly, we are losing both as fewer people are familiar with the great stories of the faith and of Western civilization. Modern American culture seems at points to vacillate between meaningless tragedy and crude humor. Americans are typi-cally more comedic and hopeful in their outlook, sometimes portraying man as the captain of his fate, a notion exemplified in the plays of Clyde Fitch and George S. Kaufmann, and to the typi-cally American belief in optimism and “progress,”

that every literary genre that he categorizes as “poetry” is in fact written in verse. This is like say-ing that for an animal to be properly categorized as a normal dog, it must have a tail (chap. 1).3. Tragedy is sometimes said to incorporate three “uni-

ties:” unity of action, unity of time, and unity of place. Does Aristotle “require” a tragedy to have all three? Which one or ones does he require?

Aristotle describes a tragedy by saying that it has unity of action (chap. 6–8).4. Aristotle claims that human beings are by nature imi-

tative creatures that delight in imitation. Why does he say this?

Aristotle says this because his empirical observa-tions of human beings lead him to this conclu-sion. Aristotle claims that he has observed that we learn from imitation, that we in fact take pleasure in learning by means of imitation, and so are naturally drawn to tragedy and other mimetic arts. Specifically, he says that the instinct of imita-tion is implanted in man from childhood and is one difference between him and other animals being that he imitates more than other creatures and learns his earliest lessons through imitation. Everyone seems to take pleasure in some form of imitation. Facts and experience teach this. Objects which in themselves we view with pain (like a corpse), we might delight in seeing as when reproduced as sculpture (like a figure of a person over a tomb). This means that we learn from imitations and we delight in learning from them. This leads him to claim we are imitative by nature (chap. 4).5. How does Aristotle distinguish between poetry and

history? He says history deals with specific, real events, with no necessity or logic connecting them, whereas poetry expresses universal and general truths, incorporating both necessary and logical connections. Tragedy also, necessarily arouses fear and pity which is relieved by catharsis. Thus, poetry is philosophical, whereas history is not (chap. 9).6. What are the various parts of the performance of a

Greek tragedy? Prologue –from the opening of the play to the first full performance by the chorusEpisode – the scenes of the tragedy between choric performancesExode – from the final choric performance to the end of the play Chorus – The chorus’s performances come in two


against philosophy. But tragedy was often the poets’ answer to some of these new questions: How should one behave? How can one accept the injustices of life? What is the price of hubris?


session iV: discussionPoetics, chapters 11–21

A Question to Consider A good tragic plot is often compared to the tying and untying of a knot. Why or how is this a good metaphor for the plot in a good tragedy?Of the seven points, by far the most inter-esting is (4), which concerns Complication and Dénouement. The Greek word for Complication, desis, literally means “tying” and the Greek word for Dénouement, lusis, means “untying.” (Dénouement is a word we borrow from French.) These two words give us a vivid metaphor for Aristotle’s understanding of how a tragedy works: the plot is like a piece of string that is twisted up into a complex knot and then untied. The plot is thus structured around the moment of peripeteia, or reversal, where the knot begins to unravel. Every event before the “plot twist,” or perip-eteia, serves to complicate the plot, and every event from this twist should serve to untie these complications. We also speak of knots to refer metaphorically to tension. A tragic plot builds up tension only to release it subsequently. This release of tension we find in the Dénouement might explain why Aristotle treats catharsis as a desired effect of tragedy (chap. 18).


Text Analysis1. What does Aristotle say about the role of choral

songs in tragedy? Why?He claims that the Chorus should be regarded as actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action (as they do in the plays of Sophocles rather than those of Euripides). He also criticize later poets who use the chorus to sing inter-ludes rather than songs that pertain to the plots —a

both individual and societal. However, the most important American playwrights—Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller—did write tragedies.

Biblical Analysis 1. How does the worldview instantiated within ancient

Greek tragedy differ from the Christian worldview? The Greek worldview had no concept of an all-powerful infinite-personal triune Creator of all things whose very being contains the essence of morality. Not only the Greek heroes, but even the Greek gods found themselves at the mercy of fate, or fortuna. The Christian view of the world rests on an understanding of providentia Dei, not for-tuna; thus history takes on a different significance as a meaningfully continuous series of events. The Greeks had no concept of a caring, all-powerful God who shapes history and ensures its glorious eventual outcome. Thus, the Greeks were bereft of any notion of real meaning and purpose in the life of an individual, nation or society.


what you have learned from the material above. Why were the Greek drama festivals so popular

in ancient Greece? Greek tragedy did not develop in a vacuum. It was an outgrowth of what was happening at the time in Athens. Greek religion had dictated how people should behave and think for centu-ries. But Athens in the fourth and fifth centuries b.c. experienced a birth of free thought and intellectual inquiry. It was alive with discussions of democracy and philosophy, and significant advances in mathematics, science and art were being made. It boasted philosophers like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Democritus. There were the first known historians Thucydides and Herodotus. In these respects—a blossoming of free thought after years of religious dicta—ancient Athens resembled Renaissance England, which not coincidentally spawned the next great era in theater. In essence, the ancient Athenians had begun to question how nature works, how society should work, and what man’s role was in the scheme of things. Granted, one could still get in plenty of trouble with the authorities if one questioned traditional religion too much—Socrates, for one, and even Aristotle, who fled Athens so that the city would not “sin twice”

Poetics 1 5

d. Through deductive reasoninge. Through faulty reasoning or speech on the

part of the other character f. That follows naturally and logically from the

sequence of events or incidents in the play (chap. 16)

5. Chapter 20 comprises a fairly rigorous analysis of language and its various parts. Why do you think Ar-istotle includes this here?

No one really knows. It seems out of place. Perhaps the answer is that Aristotle, knowing that language indeed plays a large role in tragedy, wanted to analyze language merely for the sake of completeness and thoroughness and Aristotle was nothing if not thorough in his observations and analyses (chap. 20).

Cultural Analysis1. Where do we see examples of catharsis in the movies

and in plays today?Horror movies are certainly cathartic. So are the abundance of sentimental “tear-jerkers.” You can have catharsis with a poor or even an immoral work. 2. Do audiences today still look for the same qualities

that Aristotle claimed should characterize the tragic hero?

Aristotle said a tragic hero should be of this nature:

A good character with correspondingly good moral purposeHis good qualities should be appropriate for him, not for someone else.He must be realistic.He must act consistently, if only in his inconsistency.He must have a tragic flaw, a hamartia/ sin that brings about his doom

These are very commonsensical requirements. It’s hard to see how an audience could be interested in a tragic hero who does not have at least these minimal characteristics. But people today look for other qualities as well: good looks, physically fit and able to engage in strenuous action, and per-haps others. In addition, the tragic hero no longer need be of “noble” blood; tragic heroes today are as likely as not to be “commoners,” and perhaps more so. The point would be that contemporary heroes tend to be “good guys,” rather than com-plex figures with good and evil contending within themselves. Contemporary tragic heroes are also generally portrayed as innocent and passive vic-

practice first begun by Agathon(chap. 18).2. What role do pity and fear play in the plot, according

to Aristotle? Why?The basic difference Aristotle draws between tragedy and other genres, such as comedy and the epic, is the “tragic pleasure of pity and fear” the audience feels watching a tragedy. In order for the tragic hero to arouse these feelings in the audience, he cannot be either all good or all evil but must be someone the audience can identify with; however, if he is superior in some way(s), the tragic pleasure is intensified. His disastrous end results from a mistaken action, which in turn arises from a tragic flaw or from a tragic error in judgment. Often the tragic flaw is hubris, an excessive pride or error that causes the hero to ignore a divine warning or to break a moral law. It has been suggested that because the tragic hero’s suffering is greater than his offense, the audience feels pity; because the audience mem-bers perceive that they could behave similarly, they feel pity. Good tragedies arouse pity and fear in the audience as the audience identifies with and sympathizes with the hero. The audi-ence feels for the hero, but they also worry/fear that the same thing could happen to them. They keep the audience engrossed in the plot, wonder-ing what will happen next, and how the hero and those close to him will wind up. Pity and fear in the audience build up to such an extent that they are more than ready for the catharsis to occur, if only subconsciously (chaps. 11, 13).According to Aristotle, pity and fear in the audi-ence, together with the events of “recognition” and “untying” or “loosing” in the plot, are sup-posed to trigger the catharsis, the true “end” (goal) of tragedy. 3. How does Aristotle describe the tragic hero? a. A good character with correspondingly good

moral purposeb. His good qualities should be appropriate for

him, not for someone elsec. He must be realisticd. He must act consistently, if only in his inconsis-

tency (chap. 15)4. What are the six different kinds of Discovery that Ar-

istotle points out? The six kinds of anagnorisis (recognition or dis-covery) area. By means of signs or marksb. That is contrived by the authorc. That is prompted by memory


session V: actiVity

Create Your Own Tragedy Today we will sketch out and outline our own trag-edy. Remember the requirements that Aristotle has for tragedy. The goal is for our audience to reach a catharsis and be purged of their own feelings of fear and pity. An-swer the questions below and create an outline of your own tragedy.

C r e a t e y o u r h e r o w i t h h i s t r a g i C f l a w

He needs to be a character with a good character with correspondingly good moral purpose. His good quali-ties should be appropriate for him, not for someone else. He must be realistic. He must act consistently, if only in his inconsistency. Hero goes from fortune to misfortune. The misfortune must be caused by hamartia, an error or character flaw. The hero’s character must never be worse than that of the average person. So, what will your tragic hero be like?My tragic hero will be the star basketball player on the school team—Troy Carlise. He will be a player who comes from a broken home. He works in the summers to earn the tuition to pay to go to a Christian school and works every night at the gym perfecting his game, his conditioning, his strength, and his basketball skills. He is industri-ous and is severe in his judgment of himself and others. He consistently applies this standard of excellence and hard work to himself and others. This bothers some of his teammates who do not work as hard and find themselves criticized by this great player for their own pleasure-seeking and lack of commitment.

C r e a t e a p l o t t h a t f o C u s e s o n o n e i s s u e In my tragedy, Troy leads his team into the state playoffs—taking the little Christian school much further than they have ever gone. He continues to drive himself and his teammates hard, criticiz-ing their mistakes along with any that he makes and their work ethic. After big victories when they go to have a party, he goes back to the gym to shoot free throws. Everyone around him feels the weight of his criticism and begins to despise him, even though his efforts carry the team to the state semifinals. In the semifinal game, his team-mates decide to lose intentionally simply to pay Troy back for his critical attitude.

tims, rather than being held responsible for bring-ing on their own doom because of their sin.

Biblical Analysis 1. Identify two or three tragic figures in Scripture. Do

they meet the requirements that Aristotle sets forth for a tragic hero? Why or why not?

Students might focus on such figures as Job, Saul, David, Absalom, Jonah, Samson, Paul, or others. Most of these do meet Aristotle’s standards. Most of them had good character, appropriate quali-ties, were definitely realistic since they were in fact real, historical persons, and acted consistently with their character. However, they were still not tragic heroes in Aristotle’s sense, because they did not appear in a tragedy per se in the Bible, that is, as characters in a tragic drama. However, since some of these have appeared as characters in movies in plays, it could be argued that in that sense, they later became tragic heroes.2. According to the Scriptures is life tragic or comedic?

How is this different for ancient pagans?Christianity presents a complex picture in which particular lives are comedic and others are tragic. The soul ending his journey in Hell is a tragedy. The soul such as the Pilgrim Dante who finally gazes upon the face of God redeemed and for-given is a comedy. The story of history as a whole is a comedy because eventually the entire world is redeemed. For the ancient pagan, all lives are tragedies for all end up in Hades.


what you have learned from the material above. Can Aristotle help believers build excellent

tragedies?Yes, he can. The principles of telling a good story are ones that believers should use to craft excel-lent tales. Our stories, of course, will have differ-ent content and themes than those who do not have faith, but Aristotle’s principles can help us to craft excellent tales.


Poetics 1 7

Optional Activityf r o m t r a g e d y t o C o m e d y

What would be needed to change your tragedy into a Christian comedy?In the example above, when Troy realizes that his criticism is leading to his downfall, he asks every-one’s forgiveness during the timeout and pulls them together as a team. They respond by work-ing with Troy to make the comeback in the last seconds. With Troy’s team down by one, he steals the ball and passes it to his open teammate, who hits the shot—although the ball should still hang on the rim for an eternity. Troy finds friendship, and with his newly found mercy he is able to lead his team to the state title.

Optional Activityd e v e l o p y o u r t r a g e d y f u r t h e r

Write out a short version of your tragedy using the outline you created in Session V. Then perform the play for your classmates, church group, or family.

oPtional session: WritinG Film Review This session is a writing assignment. Remember, quality counts more than quantity. You should write no more than 1,000 words, either typing or writing legibly on one side of a sheet of paper. You will lose points for writ-ing more than this. You will be allowed to turn in your writing three times. The first and second times you turn it in, your teacher will grade it by editing your work. This is done by marking problem areas and making suggestions for improvement. You should take these suggestions into consideration as you revise your assignment. Only the grade on your final submission will be recorded. Your grade will be based on the following criteria: 25 points for grammar, 25 points for content accuracy—historical, theological, etc.; 25 points for logic—does this make sense and is it structured well?; 25 points for rhetoric—is it a joy to read?

h o w w i l l t h e d i s C o v e r y o r r e C o g n i t i o n o C C u r ?Remember, there are basically six ways that this happens.

1. By means of signs or marks2. That is contrived by the author 3. That is prompted by memory 4. Through deductive reasoning5. Through faulty reasoning or speech on the

part of a disguised character6. That follows naturally and logically from the

sequence of events in the play

h o w w i l l t h i s r e v e r s a l h a p p e n w i t h y o u r t r a g i C h e r o ?Troy realizes that his teammates are trying to lose when—down fifteen points in the middle of the third quarter—he overhears one of the managers saying to one of the players “Great job, this will teach Mr. Critical.” He recognizes then that his teammates, his coach, the fans, the officials and the newspaper writer are all waiting for him to fail because he has been so harsh in his criticism of all of them.

C r e a t e a C l i m a x

All plays have a point where the main issue of the play is resolved. How will this occur in your tragedy?During the timeout, when Troy recognizes that everyone is against him, he decides to win the game himself. He takes the ball at every opportu-nity, refuses to pass, and starts to mount his own comeback. His skills are so sharp that he brings his team back to only one point behind, even with his teammates playing to lose, without trying to be too obvious. In the closing seconds of the game, Troy steals the ball, dribbles to half-court, sees an open teammate under the basket, the one team-mate who seems to be least in with the guys try-ing to lose, and has to choose whether to shoot the half-court shot or pass to his teammate under the basket. He shoots and the ball hits the rim and rockets straight up in the air. It falls again, rattles around the rim and the backboard, finally balanc-ing on the rim for what seems an eternity, then falls off—and Troy’s team loses. The paper, the fans, the players and the reporters criticize Troy mercilessly for failing to make the last pass.


(error or character flaw or sin); and their character is not worse than that of the average person. Now, it might fairly be asked, where is the hamartia-induced misfortune in the plot? Rick and Ilsa certainly seem to act appropriately and consistently during the story. However, I believe there is nevertheless hamartia involved. Cleverly and intriguingly, it occurs before the action of the movie itself. I would maintain that Ilsa’s failure to inform Rick of her reason for leaving him back in Paris was the real key moment of hamartia-induced misfortune, for even though it doesn’t occur during the movie, it drives all of Rick’s and Ilsa’s psychological and emotional torment throughout. Indeed, Ilsa’s lapse of judg-ment back in Paris, together with Rick’s eventual decision to help the Allied war effort by getting the safe-travel papers to Ilsa’s husband, drive the entire plot. We must laud Rick at this juncture for this decision of his. It is noble and self-sacrificial. It eventuates in his shooting a man, and in his sacri-fice of his own romantic attachment to Ilsa, for he knows that in order for Ilsa’s husband to do the best job he can do in working to defeat Nazism, he must have Ilsa with him. From a Christian point of view, of course, Rick should give up Ilsa simply because she is someone else’s wife, regardless of the fact that Ilsa prefers to stay with Rick, not with her husband. There is no real moment of Aristotelian “rec-ognition,” unless you interpret Ilsa’s re-entering Rick’s life as such. And it could be argued that there are really a number of suspenseful plot “tyings” and “loosenings,” not just one, as it twists and turns all around. You think everything is going to turn out just right, and then all of a sudden a new complication arises. There are a number of ways, then, in which Casablanca does not fully fit the mold of an Aristotelian tragedy.

Your assignment is to write a review of a movie or play that is connected in some way to the book that you have been reading—in this case you will be using Aristo-tle’s standards to judge the worth of a play or movie. Your review should be persuasive—fitting, of course, for the rhetoric years. You should tell your reader if this movie is worth watching and why. Your teacher may ask you to write a positive review or a negative review, or leave it up to you. You should be encouraged to praise or condemn the content, the worldview and the style of the movie. Also, remember that you are responsible for represent-ing a Christian worldview, so you need to critique the movie for language, any glorification of violence, and any sensuality. Remember that you need to learn to both con-demn and praise, and that both skills must be more than a simple affirmation or denial of “liking” it.Casablanca is one of the great all-time movie tragedies. It is highly recommended. Even though it does not incorporate an overtly Christian world-view, the plot certainly pits good against evil. Good wins out in the end, but at the price of per-sonal tragedy to both main characters. These two main tragic characters are Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund (played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman) who were once in love in Paris. After a time of separation fate brings them together again in early-World War II Morocco. Morocco had been a French colony, but during the period between the Nazi defeat of France and the final defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies, Morocco was administered as a German colony by the puppet French Vichy government. Since there are two main characters, Aristotle’s requirement of only one main tragic hero is not met. However, both main characters do meet Aristotle’s require-ments for a tragic hero: they are good characters with correspondingly good moral purposes; their good qualities are appropriate for their charac-ters; they are realistic; they act consistently; they go from fortune to misfortune due to hamartia

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