Understanding The Tragic Act In Aristotle’s Poetics

UNDERSTANDING THE TRAGIC ACT IN ARISTOTLE’S POETICS Helen Horgan

Action is central to our concept of drama. It is action that initiates the unfolding events of a plot, in a way that engages our minds and involves us also physically. In this way action initiates the movement of plot, played out through its chosen characters. Plot and character, character and plot are intricately and equallyemployed in instancing the motion of the act or action. In the following paper I would like to talk about Aristotle’s notion of the ‘act’ in the Poetics with particular emphasis on the dramatic art of Tragedy. I would like at the same time to consider the ‘act’ in relation to the broader concept of Praxis that is is action which is purposeful and goal-directed alongside Aristotles teleologicalphilosophy; that is that objects of nature bear an inherent function and their development is a lifelong process of proceeding towards this end. The telos, singular in its goal, signifies for Aristotle the essential form and function of each living thing. Aristotle is often spoken about as one of the first metaphysical thinkers and at the same time a scientist. His works reflect a consistent interest inuncovering and categorising the underlying essences of objects in the world and relating them by analogy to a wider philosophy. In the Poetics Aristotle outlines a broad yet rigorously defined treatise on the dramatic arts, poetry and fine art in general “noting the essential quality of each”1. Among the dramatic arts he gives most weight to Epic Poetry and Tragedy. These are the more seriousforms and their aims are to represent universal aspects of the nature of the human condition. Methods of artistic representation for Aristotle are bound up within specific forms of imitation, or mimesis. In the Poetics Aristotle speaks about mimesis as being an instinct towards imitation that mankind shares. It is by imitating the acts of others that we learn what it means to be human; byappreciating our likeness in others we can find ourselves thinking and inferring ‘Ah, that is he.” In a similar way through rhythm, language and harmony, in varying applications, the poetic arts should imitate and illuminate the elementary forms of life. Their purpose being to bring it again to our awareness in a sustained frame of observation. The concept of Praxis is itself a specific form of mimesis ormode of imitation,

1

Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle, Ed. S.H Butcher (The MacMillan Company, New York 1907) pg 7

the imitation of an act.2 As Aristotle puts it in book four of the Poetics “Hence, some say, the name of ‘drama’ is given”3 as the representation of action. The dramatic form of Tragedy, at first a loose form of improvisation, developed from the dithyramb and satyric drama.The dithyramb was a hymn sung and danced in honor of the greek god of wine and fertility Dionysius and it mostly leant an air of merry making and festivity. The satyric drama was a lighthearted predecessor to the later more somber tragedy. It had a lampooning or trivial manner and had greater affinities with dancing then with well crafted plots. The dancing and merriment of the Satyric drama wasoften accompanied by a chorus of actors dressed as ‘satyrs’ the mythical half-man half-goat. The etymological root of the word tragedy as ‘tragos’ ‘oide’ literally ‘goat song’ could be seen to retain a hidden suggestion to this mythical duality, highlighting the human condition as a divided state of both conscious actor and passively driven animal. Satyr and Dithyramb as interpreted in the Poeticsare inflated and crude forms of what Greek Tragedy later refined. Certainly for Aristotle in the Poetics the Satyric and Dithyrambic forms represent the interests of men of a more base character. For Aristotle there are two kinds of poets and each find themselves inclined to a particular mode of interests. The jocular and satiric poets are those whose aim is to represent the lowlier ignoble...