Poetics Quotes

“With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of the sort in it.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy; Character holds the second place.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“For the essence of a riddle is to express true facts under impossible combinations.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of action.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“poetry utters universal truths, history particular statements”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“The poet should even act his story with the very gestures of his personages. Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“The greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.” (VII)”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete action, but also of incidents arousing pity and fear.”
― Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry

“Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“And by this very difference tragedy stands apart in relation to comedy, for the latter intends to imitate those who are worse, and the former better, than people are now.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Every tragedy consists in tying and untying of a knot.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Comedy, as we said, is an imitation of people of a lower sort, though not in respect to every vice; rather, what is ridiculous is part of what is ugly.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“the laughable is a species of what is disgraceful.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Thus, since time immemorial, it has been customary to accept the criticism of art from a man who may or may not have been artist himself. Some believe that artist should create its art and leave it for critic to pass judgement over it. Whereas dramatists like Ben Jonson is of the view that to ‘judge of poets is only the faculty of poets; and not of all poets, but the best’. Only the best of poets have the right to pass judgments on the merit or defects of poetry, for they alone have experienced the creative process form beginning to end, and they alone can rightly understand it.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or newly-coined, or lengthened, or contracted, or altered.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“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.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“De lo que hemos dicho se desprende que la tarea del poeta es describir no lo que ha
acontecido, sino lo que podría haber ocurrido, esto es, tanto lo que es posible como
probable o necesario. La distinción entre el historiador y el poeta no consiste en que
uno escriba en prosa y el otro en verso; se podrá trasladar al verso la obra de Herodoto, y
ella seguiría siendo una clase de historia. La diferencia reside en que uno relata lo que ha
sucedido, y el otro lo que podría haber acontecido. De aquí que la poesía sea más
filosófica y de mayor dignidad que la historia.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“The same distinction marks off Tragedy from Comedy; for Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life. III”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“A sign of this is what happens (10) in our actions, for we delight in contemplating the most accurately made images of the very things that are painful for us to see, such as the forms of the most contemptible insects and of dead bodies.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“A well constructed plot should, therefore, be single in its issue, rather than double as some maintain. The change of fortune should be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there were one a thousand miles long. As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms a certain magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length which can be easily embraced by the memory. The limit of length in relation to dramatic competition and sensuous presentment, is no part of artistic theory. For had it been the rule for a hundred tragedies to compete together, the performance would have been regulated by the water-clock,--as indeed we are told was formerly done. But the limit as fixed by the nature of the drama itself is this: the greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous. And to define the matter roughly, we may say that the proper magnitude is comprised within such limits, that the sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity, will admit of a change from bad fortune to good, or from good fortune to bad.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“The diction should be elaborated in the pauses of the action, where there is no expression of character or thought. For, conversely, character and thought are merely obscured by a diction that is over brilliant.”
― Aristotle, Poetics

“one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.”
― Aristotle, Poetics