the rhetoric and the poetics of aristotle

In English, its title varies: typically it is titled Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric. Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BC. It was available through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.

The work was lost to the Western world and often misrepresented for a long time. He examines its 'first principles' and identifies its genres and basic elements his analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls 'poetry' (a term which in Greek literally means 'making' and in this context includes drama-comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play-as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). These two foundational works are key documents for understanding the culture and politics of Western civilization, and how they continue to evolve today.Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. Perhaps most essentially, Aristotle teaches us how to engage in the central civic activities of accusing and defending, recommending policies, and proving and refuting ideas. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle turns to the principles of persuasive writing, including argumentation and the logical development of proof, appeals to emotion, and matters of delivery and style. Rather than offer these ideas merely as abstract theories, Aristotle applies them in cogent analyses of the classic Greek dramas-the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Among them is the often misunderstood theory of the unities of action, place, and time, as well as such concepts as: art as a form of imitation, and drama as an imitation of human actions plot as a drama’s central element, and 'reversal” and 'recognition” as important elements within a plot and the purging of pity and fear from the audience as the function of tragedy. In the Poetics he focuses mainly on drama, especially tragedy, and introduces ideas that are still being debated more than two thousand years later. It is no exaggeration to say that all Western literary criticism flows from Aristotle.

The rhetoric and the poetics of aristotle