Wednesday, March 24, 2010

ARISTOTLE(PART-1)

Aristotle takes all species of aesthetic expression to be nothing but a form of mimesis. He in a beginning of his trities makes his views on the origin of poetry and fine art very clear. He says :

Epic poetry is tragedy, as also comedy Dithysambic poetry and most flute playing and lyre–playings are all, viewed, as a whole, modes of imitation. But at the same time they differ from one another in three ways, either by a difference of kind in their means, or by differences of the objects, or in the manner of their imitations1.

Aristotle defines the whole space of mimesis along three main axes. The object of imitation, the medium of imitation and the manner of imitation from the point of view of dramatic presentation he lays emphasis on two main types of man, those above the average and those below the average. It is obvious that these two types of object account for two different genres : Tragedy and Comedy. He asserts :

This difference is that distinguishes Tragedy and comedy also; the one would make it personages worse, and the other, than the men of the present day2.

It is this clear that the object of imitation accounts for the principal discussion between tragedy and comedy, thus, the difference of the objects of imitation accounts for these two different and distinct form of dramatic imitation.

The manner of imitation is another very important factor which determines the genre and nature of imitation. The imitator may imitate a common object in a same medium yet the output may be different from each other. The writer of an epic and that of tragedy imitate a man above the average but if the manner of imitation is dramatic he produces a tragedy and if he imitates in a descriptive manner he produces an epic.

Aristotle firmly asserts that tragedy is supreme of all forms of imitations. Probably it is so far the simple reason that a tragedy skillfully assimilate two different forms of imitation. It presents a unique synthesis of speech and action. Speech is imitated in speech and action is rendered in action. Aristotle defines :

A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work, in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions3

The above quoted definition can be divided into four different clauses – The first clause comes out with a general and generic identity of tragedy. The second clause gives us a nature of the action, i.e. imitated by the playwright which makes us infer the nature of object of imitation. The third clause tells about a medium and manner of imitation and the fourth clause which is better known as catharsis clause tells us about the function of a tragedy. Thus, in the first three clause he makes clear the object medium and manner of the tragic composition and in fourth clause he discusses at length about function of a tragedy.

The concept of plot is almost as old a phenomenon in the history of criticism as is criticism itself which always acquired privileged status among other elements. Aristotle was, however, the first great critic who analysed the term carefully and its different constituents. It is, however, a pleasant irony that Aristotle's discussion on plot and other constituent elements has survived all the major attacks on it and his Poetics provides us with the most authentic discussion on the structural elements of a work of art. Aristotle, with his elaborate discussion on plot and other constituent elements of tragedy provides us with first methodological interpretation of a tragedy and initiates the tradition of textual criticism as against the moral approach of Plato. The words of David Daiches capture our attention here. He, in his famous book "Critical Approaches to Literature", says :

Aristotle's method is essentially one of examining observed phenomenon with a view to noting their qualities and characteristics. His concern is the ontological one of discovering what in fact literature is rather than the normative one of describing what it should be. He is describing, not legislating, yet his description is so organised as to make an account of the nature of literature involve emerges in terms of its function1.

Aristotle devotes around fourteen chapters in the Poetics to the study of tragedy and the greatest importance is given to the study of plot. The other five elements, character, thought, diction, songs and spectacles are placed in subordination to plot. It is this element which constructs the aesthetics of a tragedy. By plot, Aristotle doesn't mean the "mere summarizable epitome of events"2, but it is a determination of the dynamics of the action; "the whole causal change which leads to the final outcome"3. This is principally the reason why Aristotle imparts inordinate importance to plot and takes it to be "the soul of the tragedy". This also seems to be the justification to the controversial statement that "there can be a tragedy without a character but not without a plot"4.

Aristotle's ideal of a proper construction are manifest in his famous statement that a tragedy must have a beginning, a middle and an end. It is obligatory to analyse three division of a plot. About the beginning, Aristotle says :

That a beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by casual necessity or comes to be5.

The first one imitates the structure of a tragedy without any violation and the second one constricts the structure of first kind to the middle alone. In the second type much is left to the imagination of the reader about the beginning and the end which accounts for a kind of amorphous function which is pre–characteristic of short story only. Aristotle in his discussion on the plot of a tragedy lays optimum stress on unity and length. Aristotle while discussing the unity and length lays emphasis on the completeness and order. He says :

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 order6.

It is obvious here that Aristotle lays greater stress on the orderly manifestation of the constituents of a tragedy. Here Aristotle compares a work of art with the living creatures and hence denies the possibility that he speaks in terms of a formally imposed inanimate unity. The words of Humphry House capture our attention. He says :

This comparison of the unity of a work of art to that of a "living creature" is so important because it provides a vivid refutation of the charge that Aristotle is describing a formal, dead, mechanical kind of unity7.

It is an interesting observation here that the observations of Aristotle are applicable even today without any variation to almost every species of creative writing, even short story which is comparatively a new birth. The short story despite the novelty of form and genre shows its commitments to Aristotlean concept of completeness and order. Aristotle lays stress on the two criteria of probability and necessity for the purpose of coherence in the dramatic structure. There are numerous interpetations for these two words as they offer a variety of them. The word probable, in conjugation with necessary refers to Aristotle's insistence on the organic manifestation of events in the plot structure. To understand and interpret the word probable, Humphry House follows a method of contrast and examines the world 'improbability'. He says :

We can better understand what is meant by this double criteria by considering the word which Aristotle used to describe its opposite8.

Humphry House's study establishes the term meaning as rational and convincing. Obviously, Aristotle's stress here is on the organic correlation among the events. The criteria probable and necessary in mutual complementation with each other refers to a higher degree of organic rationality and an outright denial to the inclusion of superfluous incidents. Humphry House infers that "probable and necessary" taken together, imply a higher degree of rationality"9. He further says that "in this respect the criteria is intended to exclude from the play such things as chance; unrelated events for which adequate origins are not shown within the play itself ......"10.

It is again an interesting observation that the criteria of probability and necessity are as much relevant in the structure of short story as they are in the structure of a tragedy, an epic or a novel. In the case of in the structure of a short story the criteria of probability and necessity makes an inevitable structural need as the logical coherence is always an undeniable need in the plot structure of a short story as it deals with greater compactness than any other work of literature.

Aristotle describes two kinds of plot, Simple and Complex. the complex plot involves the two defining elements – Peripety and Anagnorisis. Peripety is defined as "a change from one state of thing within the play to its opposite of the kind described and that too in the probable or necessary sequence of events"11. Consequent upon peripety is anagnorisis. Aptly translated as discovery, it is defined by Aristotle as a change from ignorance to knowledge. J.W.H. Atknis elaborates the concept and takes it to be "the reversal of intention, a deed done in blindness"12. The plot structure of a tragedy involves both these elements nearly in a cause and effect relationship. Stephen Helliwell thinks that – "Aristotle conceives the recognition and reversal ideal in combination"13.