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Questions tagged [aristotle]

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Questions about the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) and his works. Questions about his works should be tagged with [greek-language]. Two of his works are particularly relevant to literature: the 'Poetics' (written around 335 BC) and the 'Rhetoric' or 'Art of Rhetoric'.

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Explaining why Miletus was a congenial environment for philosophy, Anthony Gottlieb writes: It was a cultivated place, giving some people the leisure which Aristotle was later fond of claiming to be ...
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In reading, I recently came across a description of a modern poet as "the finest lyric poet of his generation". This was an unfamiliar term to me, so I looked it up: Wikipedia has it as: ...
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I found this amusing passage in Don Juan by Molière. It's a line by Sganarelle (Act 1, scene 1): « Quoi que puisse dire Aristote et toute la philosophie, il n’est rien d’égal au tabac : c’est la ...
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Aristotle argues that epic narration may have more complicated plot structures or a "multiplicity of plots" (Poetics XVIII), since it implies a higher level of action and character. Both ...
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In his hilarious review of The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students (1987), Robert Paul Wolff claims, straight-faced, ...
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How does the musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda reveal Aristotle's concept of mimesis (or imitation, from The Poetics), especially since it is a musical (which isn't very realistic at all?)
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The famous sentence "There are three sorts of people: those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who are at sea" is often attributed to Aristotle. However, I was unable to find an ...
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Supposedly, Aristotle said: The secret to humor is surprise. Why does Aristotle reckon that the secret to humor is surprise?
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In a comment on a recent question about T. S. Eliot's essay on Hamlet, Peter Shor wrote, According to Aristotle, in great tragedy the hero must have a fatal flaw that leads to his downfall. What ...
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Source: The Well-Educated Mind (2 edn 2016), p. 286 Top.   For Aristotle, tragedy is always a moral enterprise: Capable men, he writes "should not be shown changing from prosperity to disaster ...
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