Page 26 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes Ch VII: Plot-Construction
Having given his definition of tragedy, and the six formal parts of a tragedy, Aristotle now
proceeds to examine in detail the construction of an ideal plot, which he considers of the first
importance in tragedy. First of all he explains what he means by the tragic action being a ‘whole’.
A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning or the exposition is
causally connected with what follows, but it has nothing antecedent to it. It is not consequent
upon anything else. This does not mean that the tragic story must begin from the very beginning.
Rather, the tragic action is more effective if it begins late in the career of the hero. What Aristotle
means is that the beginning must be self-explanatory. It must not provoke us to ask ‘why’ and
‘how’; no knowledge of antecedent circumstances should be necessary for its understanding. The
middle must follow naturally and inevitably upon the beginning, and must logically lead to ‘the
end’ or catastrophe. Thus the artistic wholeness means that there is a link-up of the various
incidents, each following the other naturally and inevitably.
Aristotle then discusses the question of ‘magnitude’, i.e. the proper length of a tragic play. It must
be a whole story, not a collection of incidents. And if that whole is to be beautiful, it must belong
enough to allow us to appreciate the orderly arrangement of the parts, i.e. the development from
an incident, which may reasonably be detached from its antecedent causes and taken as a
‘beginning’, through the intermediate stages to an end that is inevitable or at any rate probable.
On the other hand, it must not be so long that the beginning is forgotten before the end is reached.
Similarly, according to this view, an animal so minute that the proportion of parts to the whole
cannot be distinguished is not beautiful, except under a microscope. Nor would an animal a
thousand miles long be beautiful, because we can get no impression of it as a whole. Beauty
consists in a proper relation between the whole and its parts. Provided that a play is thus well-
proportioned’ and can be readily comprehended as a, whole, then the larger the better. In any case
it must be long enough to allow room for the sequence of events by which the hero falls “from
happiness into misfortune.
Aristotle’s comparison of the plot of a tragedy to a living creature is significant. As a matter of fact,
he conceives of tragedy in organic terms, and speaks of its ‘organic’ wholeness and ‘organic’
unity. Artistic beauty requires that the relation of the parts to the whole must be symmetrical and
proportionate, as in a living organism.
Ch VIII: Unity of the Plot
In this chapter, Aristotle makes two significant statements. First, that the formal unity cannot be
imparted to the plot merely by the story of a single hero’s life. Infinitely varied things may happen
to the hero, the dramatist must make a proper selection out of these numerous incidents and not
introduce all of them. Just as in the other arts, the artist imitates only one object, so also the
dramatist must imitate only one action.
Secondly, the unity of plot must be an organic one. Just as in a living organism every part is
essential for the life of the organism and cannot be removed without injury to it, in the same way
there should be nothing superfluous in the tragic action. There should be no action which can be
transposed or removed without damaging the whole.
It is only such organic unity of action which Aristotle considers essential; he has not much to say
about the so-called unities of Time and Place which were derived from him by later critics.
Ch IX: The Nature of Poetic Truth: Poetry and History
Poetry does not aim at photographic realism. It is the function of a poet to relate not what has
actually happened, but what may possibly happen according to the law of probability and necessity.
By ‘probability and necessity’ he means the principle of natural causation. The events described
should be such as are possible in real life, and they should follow each other logically and inevitably.
What tragedy imitates is not life, but some conception of life, some possibility of life seized by the
poet’s mind. Poetry is an imitation of the poet’s idea of life, and from this arises its universality.
Poetry is more philosophical than History, because by giving an idealised and ordered imitation
of life, the poet is in a better position to generalise the law of things, and make us understand

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