Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 514 views

    Sidney and Aristotle

    Uploaded by

    areeshanoor
    Sidney and Aristotle's definitions of poetry both focus on imitation. Sidney says poetry is an "art of imitation" that aims to "teach and delight." Aristotle suggests poetry imitates humans and nature, but transforms reality into something new and higher. There is debate around what poetry imitates - the material world or ideal forms. Aristotle also introduced the concept of "catharsis" where poetry purges emotions through pity and fear, bringing clarification or purification. The document examines how Sidney and Aristotle addressed the nature of poetic imitation and its purpose of teaching moral lessons.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Sidney and Aristotle

    Uploaded by

    areeshanoor
    514 views1 page
    Sidney and Aristotle's definitions of poetry both focus on imitation. Sidney says poetry is an "art of imitation" that aims to "teach and delight." Aristotle suggests poetry imitates humans and nature, but transforms reality into something new and higher. There is debate around what poetry imitates - the material world or ideal forms. Aristotle also introduced the concept of "catharsis" where poetry purges emotions through pity and fear, bringing clarification or purification. The document examines how Sidney and Aristotle addressed the nature of poetic imitation and its purpose of teaching moral lessons.

    Original Description:

    Original Title

    Sidney and Aristotle.docx

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Sidney and Aristotle's definitions of poetry both focus on imitation. Sidney says poetry is an "art of imitation" that aims to "teach and delight." Aristotle suggests poetry imitates humans and nature, but transforms reality into something new and higher. There is debate around what poetry imitates - the material world or ideal forms. Aristotle also introduced the concept of "catharsis" where poetry purges emotions through pity and fear, bringing clarification or purification. The document examines how Sidney and Aristotle addressed the nature of poetic imitation and its purpose of teaching moral lessons.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    514 views1 page

    Sidney and Aristotle

    Uploaded by

    areeshanoor
    Sidney and Aristotle's definitions of poetry both focus on imitation. Sidney says poetry is an "art of imitation" that aims to "teach and delight." Aristotle suggests poetry imitates humans and nature, but transforms reality into something new and higher. There is debate around what poetry imitates - the material world or ideal forms. Aristotle also introduced the concept of "catharsis" where poetry purges emotions through pity and fear, bringing clarification or purification. The document examines how Sidney and Aristotle addressed the nature of poetic imitation and its purpose of teaching moral lessons.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    Sidney and Aristotle's Definition of Poetry

    The definition of poetry, given by Sidney, agrees substantially with what might be designed
    Renaissance Aristotelianism. Poetry, says Sidney, “is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it,
    that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a speaking
    picture, with this end,—to teach and delight." The definition is less notable for its originality - it is
    indebted to Aristotle’s Poetics - than for the insights it gives into the critical controversies of the period.
    Sidney’s definition set as an agenda for the discussion of poetry. Generally, it raises three issues; the
    nature of imitation, the problem of defining nature, and the injunction that poetry serve moral ends.

    The principle of imitation reigned unchallenged in literary theory from Plato to the end of the eighteenth
    century, but Aristotle gives a significant argument of it. Aristotle suggest that it is human nature to write
    poetry. We are, by nature, imitative creatures that learn by imitating, and we naturally enjoy the works
    of imitation. As evidence, we are fascinated by representation of dead bodies or disgusting animals
    though the things themselves repel us. We can also learn by examining imitations of things and that
    learning is one of the greatest pleasures.

    At the centre of the controversy over imitation is a debate about nature itself, what constituted the
    nature and what the status of representation of “nature” is. Sidney uses the Platonic theory of Forms
    to refute Plato’s criticism of poetry. He says that the nature the poet imitates is the ideal, not the
    material, world. Aristotle takes the word “imitation” from his master, Plato, but breathes a new life in it.
    Plato considers imitation merely a mimicry copy of nature, but Aristotle interprets it as a creative
    process. The poet, while imitating reality, transforms it into something new and much higher. He brings
    the emotions within the range of imitation. Poetry imitates not only the externals, but also internal
    emotions and experience. According to Aristotle, poetry may imitate men as they are, or better and
    worse. Poetry is not concerned with what is, but what ought to be. It gives us an idealised version of
    reality. Unlike history, which produces knowledge only of specific situation, poetry describes the
    actions of characters who might be any humans.

    A fundamental aesthetic problem concerns the object and purpose of poetry’s representation. Sidney
    argues that “right poets imitate to teach and delight, and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath
    been, or shall be, but …..what may be and should be.” The purpose of the poet is ultimately to affirm
    the rule of justification and order. The ideal that Sidney invokes – what may be or should be – is more
    “real” than what is. Meanwhile, Aristotle claims that good poetry has a positive emotional effect on its
    audience, which he calls “Catharsis.” The theory of “Catharsis” enables Arristotle to demonstrate the
    healthy influence which poetry, in general, and tragedy, in particular, exercises over the emotions. He
    defines tragedy as “a representation of an action that is worth serious attention complete in itself and
    of some amplitude in a language enriched by a variety of artistic devices appropriate to the several
    parts of the play presented in the form of action, not narration by means of pity and fear bringing about
    the purgation of such emotions.” Some commentators have interpreted the term in a medical sense,
    as a purgative that flushes out the audience’s unwieldy emotion; others see in it in terms of moral
    purification. More recently, critics have equated catharsis with ethical and intellectual clarification.

    Posted 12th October 2012 by Mohamed Khamis

    You might also like