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Poetics

Poetics

Aristotle's Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. Aristotle does this by attempting to explain poetry through first principles (1447a13), and by classifying poetry into its different genres and component parts. The centerpiece of Aristotle's work is his examination of tragedy. This occurs in Chapter 6 of "Poetics:" :"Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions." (1449b24-29, SH Butcher transl.) He goes on to define the major characteristics of Greek dramatic structure. This work combined with the Rhetoric make up Aristotle's works on aesthetics.

Imitation or Mimesis (Chapter 1)

For Aristotle, poetry is a species of imitation or mimesis. () Poetry uses different media, objects and modes in order to carry out an imitation. For Aristotle mimesis is more important than just for aesthetic reasons. Michael Davis, a translator and commentator of the Poetics writes: :"Human [peculiarly human] action is imitation of action because thinking is always rethinking. Aristotle can define human beings as at once rational animals, political animals, and imitative animals because in the end the three are the same." (“Introduction” to the translation of Poetics by Davis and Seth Benardete p.xvii and p.xxviii, emphasis in original). In this Aristotle seems to have one famous modern follower: Tolkien. See his "On Fairy Stories". Also see Merlin Donald's works.

The Medium, Object and Mode of Poetry (Chapters 1-3)

Poetry has a medium, object and mode.
- Aristotle gives some examples of medium: color and shape (), harmony and rhythm (), metered and un-metered speech ().
- The object of poetry can be a certain kind of person with a certain kind of character. This character can be "either of stature or inferior" ().
- The mode (sometimes translated manner) of poetry determines how the poem is delivered and by whom. One can deliver a poem like a bard telling the story of the Iliad using different voices, or tell a story using only one, or have lots of different imitators imitating different people as in a play. (1448a23-25)

The Two Causes of Poetry (Chapter 4)

Poetry is caused either by imitation and/or melody and rhythm (). When Aristotle discusses the causes of poetry, he notes that poetry improved through improvisation and gradual innovation.

The Three Genres of Poetry

Aristotle taught that poetry could be divided into three genres: tragedy, comedy and epic verse.

Comedy (Chapter 5)

Comedy is an imitation of what is inferior in such a way that it is laughable (). Although it is not quite clear what Aristotle means by inferior, we do know that he uses the word as an adjective for character. Comedians imitate those of an inferior character, whereas tragedians imitate those of superior ("better than the rest of us") character.

Tragedy (Chapers 6-22)

Aristotle does not aim at giving a detailed account of tragedy, yet. That account is later found starting at . Aristotle merely points out how Greek tragedy evolved and then came to a resting point where it no longer underwent any changes. He brings up the innovations in theater that a number of tragedians, including Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, introduced as examples. Much is made of how certain techniques can be used to cause certain effects in the audience. For example, a tragedian will want to portray suffering in certain ways to produce certain effects. Another significant notion running throughout this section is that of unity: tragedy must observe unity of action, space, and time.

Epic Verse (Chapters 23-26)

Epic is the same as tragedy except that epic "uses one verse-form alone, and is narrative" ().

Influence of the Work

Poetics was not influential in its time, and was generally understood to coincide with the more famous Rhetoric. This is because in Aristotle's time, rhetoric and poetry were not as separated as they later became, and were in a sense different versions of the same thing. In later times, Poetics became hugely influential. The conception of tragedy during the Enlightenment especially owes much to Poetics.

External links

- (entire text in Greek and English, trans. by William Hamilton Fyfe)
- [http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/a8/poetics.html trans. by S. H. Butcher]
-
- [http://people.brandeis.edu/~rind/eng171/Aristotle_outline.html Outline of work]
- Ari Hiltunen, 2001, Aristotle in Hollywood, Intellect Books, ISBN 1841500607 Category:Ancient Greek works Category:Aristotle ja:詩学 ko:시학

Aristotle

by Lysippos. Louvre Museum.]] Aristotle (Greek: Αριστοτέλης Aristotelēs; 384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote many books about physics, poetry, zoology, logic, rhetoric, government, and biology. Aristotle, along with Plato and Socrates, is generally considered one of the most influential ancient Greek philosophers in Western thought. Among them they transformed Presocratic Greek philosophy into the foundations of Western philosophy as we know it. The writings of Plato and Aristotle form the core of Ancient philosophy. Aristotle placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses and would correspondingly be better classed among modern empiricists (see materialism and empiricism). He also achieved a "grounding" of dialectic in the Topics by allowing interlocutors to begin from commonly held beliefs (Endoxa); his goal being non-contradiction rather than Truth. He set the stage for what would eventually develop into the scientific method centuries later. Although he wrote dialogues early in his career, no more than fragments of these have survived. The works of Aristotle that still exist today are in treatise form and were, for the most part, unpublished texts. These were probably lecture notes or texts used by his students, and were almost certainly revised repeatedly over the course of years. As a result, these works tend to be eclectic, dense and difficult to read. Among the most important ones are Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics. Their works, although connected in many fundamental ways, are very different in both style and substance. Aristotle is known for being one of the few figures in history who studied almost every subject possible at the time. In science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics, and zoology. In philosophy, Aristotle wrote on aesthetics, economics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. He also dealt with education, foreign customs, literature and poetry. His combined works practically comprise an encyclopedia of Greek knowledge.

Biography

Early life and studies at the Academy

encyclopedia.]] Aristotle was born at Stageira, a colony of Andros on the Macedonian peninsula of Chalcidice in 384 BC. His father, Nicomachus, was court physician to King Amyntas III of Macedon. It is believed that Aristotle's ancestors held this position under various kings of Macedonia. As such, Aristotle's early education would probably have consisted of instruction in medicine and biology from his father. About his mother, Phaestis, little is known. It is known that she died early in Aristotle's life. When Nicomachus also died, in Aristotle's tenth year, he was left an orphan and placed under the guardianship of his uncle, Proxenus of Atarneus. He taught Aristotle Greek, rhetoric, and poetry (O'Connor et al., 2004). Aristotle was probably influenced by his father's medical knowledge; when he went to Athens at the age of 18, he was likely already trained in the investigation of natural phenomena. From the age of 18 to 37 Aristotle remained in Athens as a pupil of Plato and distinguished himself at the Academy. The relations between Plato and Aristotle have formed the subject of various legends, many of which depict Aristotle unfavourably. No doubt there were divergences of opinion between Plato, who took his stand on sublime, idealistic principles, and Aristotle, who even at that time showed a preference for the investigation of the facts and laws of the physical world. It is also probable that Plato suggested that Aristotle needed restraining rather than encouragement, but not that there was an open breach of friendship. In fact, Aristotle's conduct after the death of Plato, his continued association with Xenocrates and other Platonists, and his allusions in his writings to Plato's doctrines prove that while there were conflicts of opinion between Plato and Aristotle, there was no lack of cordial appreciation or mutual forbearance. Besides this, the legends that reflect Aristotle unfavourably are traceable to the Epicureans, who were known as slanderers. If such legends were circulated widely by patristic writers such as Justin Martyr and Gregory Nazianzen, the reason lies in the exaggerated esteem Aristotle was held in by the early Christian heretics, not in any well-grounded historical tradition.

Aristotle as philosopher and tutor

After the death of Plato (347 BC), Aristotle was considered as the next head of the Academy, a post that was eventually awarded to Plato's nephew. Aristotle then went with Xenocrates to the court of Hermias, ruler of Atarneus in Asia Minor, and married his niece and adopted daughter, Pythia. In 344 BC, Hermias was murdered in a rebellion, and Aristotle went with his family to Mytilene. It is also reported that he stopped on Lesbos and briefly conducted biological research. Then, one or two years later, he was summoned to Pella, the Macedonian capital, by King Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor of Alexander the Great, who was then 13. Plutarch wrote that Aristotle not only imparted to Alexander a knowledge of ethics and politics, but also of the most profound secrets of philosophy. We have much proof that Alexander profited by contact with the philosopher, and that Aristotle made prudent and beneficial use of his influence over the young prince (although Bertrand Russell disputes this). Due to this influence, Alexander provided Aristotle with ample means for the acquisition of books and the pursuit of his scientific investigation. It is possible that Aristotle also participated in the education of Alexander's boyhood friends, which may have included for example Hephaestion and Harpalus. Aristotle maintained a long correspondence with Hephaestion, eventually collected into a book, unfortunately now lost. According to sources such as Plutarch and Diogenes, Philip had Aristotle's hometown of Stageira burned during the 340s BC, and Aristotle successfully requested that Alexander rebuild it. During his tutorship of Alexander, Aristotle was reportedly considered a second time for leadership of the Academy; his companion Xenocrates was selected instead.

Founder and master of the Lyceum

In about 335 BC, Alexander departed for his Asiatic campaign, and Aristotle, who had served as an informal adviser (more or less) since Alexander ascended the Macedonian throne, returned to Athens and opened his own school of philosophy. He may, as Aulus Gellius says, have conducted a school of rhetoric during his former residence in Athens; but now, following Plato's example, he gave regular instruction in philosophy in a gymnasium dedicated to Apollo Lyceios, from which his school has come to be known as the Lyceum. (It was also called the Peripatetic School because Aristotle preferred to discuss problems of philosophy with his pupils while walking up and down -- peripateo -- the shaded walks -- peripatoi -- around the gymnasium). During the thirteen years (335 BC–322 BC) which he spent as teacher of the Lyceum, Aristotle composed most of his writings. Imitating Plato, he wrote Dialogues in which his doctrines were expounded in somewhat popular language. He also composed the several treatises (which will be mentioned below) on physics, metaphysics, and so forth, in which the exposition is more didactic and the language more technical than in the Dialogues. These writings show to what good use he put the resources Alexander had provided for him. They show particularly how he succeeded in bringing together the works of his predecessors in Greek philosophy, and how he pursued, either personally or through others, his investigations in the realm of natural phenomena. Pliny claimed that Alexander placed under Aristotle's orders all the hunters, fishermen, and fowlers of the royal kingdom and all the overseers of the royal forests, lakes, ponds and cattle-ranges, and Aristotle's works on zoology make this statement more believable. Aristotle was fully informed about the doctrines of his predecessors, and Strabo asserted that he was the first to accumulate a great library. During the last years of Aristotle's life the relations between him and Alexander became very strained, owing to the disgrace and punishment of Callisthenes, whom Aristotle had recommended to Alexander. Nevertheless, Aristotle continued to be regarded at Athens as a friend of Alexander and a representative of Macedonia. Consequently, when Alexander's death became known in Athens, and the outbreak occurred which led to the Lamian war, Aristotle shared in the general unpopularity of the Macedonians. The charge of impiety, which had been brought against Anaxagoras and Socrates, was now, with even less reason, brought against Aristotle. He left the city, saying (according to many ancient authorities) that he would not give the Athenians a chance to sin a third time against philosophy. He took up residence at his country house at Chalcis, in Euboea, and there he died the following year, 322 BC. His death was due to a disease, reportedly 'of the stomach', from which he had long suffered. The story that his death was due to hemlock poisoning, as well as the legend that he threw himself into the sea "because he could not explain the tides," is without historical foundation. Very little is known about Aristotle's personal appearance except from hostile sources. The statues and busts of Aristotle, possibly from the first years of the Peripatetic School, represent him as sharp and keen of countenance, and somewhat below the average height. His character—as revealed by his writings, his will (which is undoubtedly genuine), fragments of his letters and the allusions of his unprejudiced contemporaries—was that of a high-minded, kind-hearted man, devoted to his family and his friends, kind to his slaves, fair to his enemies and rivals, grateful towards his benefactors. When Platonism ceased to dominate the world of Christian speculation, and the works of Aristotle began to be studied without fear and prejudice, the personality of Aristotle appeared to the Christian writers of the 13th century, as it had to the unprejudiced pagan writers of his own day, as calm, majestic, untroubled by passion, and undimmed by any great moral defects, "the master of those who know". Aristotle's legacy also had a profound influence on Islamic thought and philosophy during the middle ages. The likes of Avicenna, Farabi, and Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi[http://www.ummah.net/history/scholars/KINDI.html 1] were a few of the major proponents of the Aristotelian school of thought during the Golden Age of Islam.

Methodology

Aristotle defines philosophy in terms of essence, saying that philosophy is "the science of the universal essence of that which is actual". Plato had defined it as the "science of the idea", meaning by idea what we should call the unconditional basis of phenomena. Both pupil and master regard philosophy as concerned with the universal; Aristotle, however, finds the universal in particular things, and called it the essence of things, while Plato finds that the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, philosophic method implies the ascent from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato philosophic method means the descent from a knowledge of universal ideas to a contemplation of particular imitations of those ideas. In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive. In Aristotle's terminology, the term natural philosophy corresponds to the phenomena of the natural world, which include: motion, light, and the laws of physics. Many centuries later these subjects would later become the basis of modern science, as studied through the scientific method. The term philosophy is distinct from metaphysics, which is what moderns term philosophy. In the larger sense of the word, he makes philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also called "science". Note, however, that his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that which is covered by the scientific method. "All science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical." By practical science he understands ethics and politics; by poetical, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; while by theoretical philosophy he means physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. The last, philosophy in the stricter sense, he defines as "the knowledge of immaterial being," and calls it "first philosophy", "the theologic science" or of "being in the highest degree of abstraction." If logic, or, as Aristotle calls it, Analytic, be regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, we have as divisions of Aristotelian philosophy (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics, Mathematics, (3) Practical Philosophy; and (4) Poetical Philosophy.

Aristotle's epistemology

Logic

History

Aristotle "says that 'on the subject of reasoning' he 'had nothing else on an earlier date to speak about'" (Bocheński, 1951). However, Plato reports that syntax was thought of before him, by Prodikos of Keos, who was concerned by the right use of words. Logic seems to have emerged from dialectics, the earlier philosophers used concepts like reductio ad absurdum as a rule when discussing, but never understood its logical implications. Even Plato had difficulties with logic. Although he had the idea of constructing a system for deduction, he was never able to construct one. Instead, he relied on his dialectic, which was a confusion between different sciences and methods (Bocheński, 1951). Plato thought that deduction would simply follow from premises, so he focused on having good premises so that the conclusion would follow. Later on, Plato realised that a method for obtaining the conclusion would be beneficial. Plato never obtained such a method, but his best attempt was published in his book Sophist, where he introduced his division method (Rose, 1968).

Analytics and the Organon

What we call today Aristotelian logic, Aristotle himself would have labelled analytics. The term logic he reserved to mean dialectics. Most of Aristotle's work is probably not authentic, since it was most likely edited by students and later lecturers. The logical works of Aristotle were compiled into six books at about the time of Christ: #Categories #On Interpretation #Prior Analytics #Posterior Analytics #Topics #On Sophistical Refutations The order of the books (or the teachings from which they are composed) is not certain, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. There is one volume of Aristotle's concerning logic not found in the Organon, namely the fourth book of Metaphysics. (Bocheński, 1951).

Modal logic

Aristotle is also the creator of syllogisms with modalities (modal logic). The word modal refers to the word 'modes', explaining the fact that modal logic deals with the modes of truth. Aristotle introduced the qualification of 'necessary' and 'possible' premises. He constructed a logic which helped in the evaluation of truth but which was very difficult to interpret. (Rose, 1968).

Science

Aristotelian discussions about science had only been qualitative, not quantitative. By the modern definition of the term, Aristotelian philosophy was not science, as this worldview did not attempt to probe how the world actually worked through experiment. For example, in his book The history of animals he claimed that human males have more teeth than females. Had he only made some observations, he would have discovered that this claim is false. Rather, based on what one's senses told one, Aristotelian philosophy then depended upon the assumption that man's mind could elucidate all the laws of the universe, based on simple observation (without experimentation) through reason alone. One of the reasons for this was that Aristotle held that physics was about changing objects with a reality of their own, whereas mathematics was about unchanging objects without a reality of their own. In this philosophy, he could not imagine that there was a relationship between them. In contrast, today's "science" assumes that thinking alone often leads people astray, and therefore one must compare one's ideas to the actual world through experimentation; only then can one see if one's ideas are based in reality. This position is known as empiricism or the scientific method.

Aristotle's metaphysics

Aristotle's four causes

Aristotle names four "causes" of things, but the word cause (Greek: , aitia) is not used in the modern sense of "cause and effect", under which causes are events or states of affairs. Rather, the four causes are like different ways of explaining something: ; The Material Cause (That from which it comes): This is the material that makes up an object, for example, "the bronze and silver ... are causes of the statue and the bowl." ; The Formal Cause (That which it is): This is the blueprint or the idea commonly held of what an object should be. Aristotle says, "The form is the account (and the genera of the account) of the essence (for instance, the cause of an octave is the ratio two to one, and in general number), and the parts that are in the account." ; The Efficient Cause (That which moves it): This is the person who makes an object, or "unmoved movers" (gods) who move nature. For example, "a father is a cause of his child; and in general the producer is a cause of the product and the initiator of the change is a cause." This is closest to the modern definition of "cause". ; The Final Cause (That of which its purpose is): The final cause or telos is the purpose or end that something is supposed to serve. This includes "all the intermediate steps that are for the end ... for example, slimming, purging, drugs, or instruments are for health; all of these are for the end, though they differ in that some are activities while others are instruments." An example of an artifact that has all four causes would be a table, which has material causes (wood and nails), a formal cause (the blueprint, or a generally agreed idea of what tables are), an efficient cause (the carpenter), and a final cause (using it to dine on). Aristotle argues that natural objects such as an "individual man" have all four causes. The material cause of an individual man would be the flesh and bone that make up an individual man. The formal cause would be the blueprint of man, that which is used as a guide to create an individual man and to keep him in a certain state called man. The efficient cause of an individual man would be the father of that man, or in the case of all men an �unmoved mover� who breathed (anima: breath) into the soul (anima: soul) of man. The final cause of man would be as Aristotle stated, �Now we take the human�s function to be a certain kind of life, and take this life to be the soul�s activity and actions that express reason. Hence the excellent man�s function is to do this finely and well. Each function is completed well when its completion expresses the proper virtue. Therefore the human good turns out to be the souls� activity that expresses virtue.�

The difference between natural objects and artifacts

The difference between natural objects and an artifact is that natural objects have self movement. Aristotle defined the difference between a natural object and an artifact when he stated, �In contrast to these, a bed, a cloak, or any other artifact-insofar as it is described as such i.e., as a bed, a cloak, or whatever, and to the extent that it is a product of a craft-has no innate impulse to change; but insofar as it is coincidentally made of stone or earth or a mixture of these, it has an innate impulse to change and just to that extent. This is because a nature is a type of principle and cause of motion and stability within those things to which it primarily belongs in their own right and not coincidentally.� The natural objects are changed to artifacts through crafts but they have an innate impulse of self movement to convert through time to their natural state, and they will all turn into that state when all animals with reason are extinct from the earth.

Modes of causation

Aristotle states two modes of causation:
- Proper Causation: Things take place for the sake of something, and the result is that which is intended.
- Accidental Causation: Things that take place not out of necessity. E.g. things that take place by chance/coincidence. This cause is indeterminable.

Chance

Chance lies in the realm of accidental causes. It is "from what is spontaneous" (but note that what is spontaneous does not come from chance). For a better understanding of Aristotle's conception of "chance" it might be better to think of "coincidence": Something takes place by chance if a person sets out with the intent of having one thing take place, but with the result of another thing (not intended) taking place. For example: A person seeks donations. That person may find another person willing to donate a substantial sum. However, if the person seeking the donations met the person donating, not for the purpose of collecting donations, but for some other purpose, Aristotle would call the collecting of the donation by that particular donator a result of chance. It must be unusual that something happens by chance. In other words, if something happens all or most of the time, we cannot say that it is by chance. However, chance can only apply to human beings. According to Aristotle, chance must involve choice (and thus deliberation), and only humans are capable of deliberation and choice. "What is not capable of action cannot do anything by chance" (Physics, 2.6).

The Five Elements

- Fire which is hot and dry.
- Earth which is cold and dry.
- Air which is hot and wet.
- Water which is cold and wet.
- Aether which is the divine substance that makes up the heavens These four elements interchange (i.e. Fire ↔ Air ↔ Water ↔ Earth etc.), while aether is on its own. The Sun keeps this cycle going. God keeps the Sun going (and thus the Sun is eternal).

Aristotle's ethics

Although Aristotle wrote several works on ethics, the major one was the Nicomachean Ethics, which is considered one of Aristotle's greatest works; it discusses virtues. The ten books which comprise it are based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum and were either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus. Aristotle believed that ethical knowledge is not certain knowledge (like metaphysics and epistemology) but is general knowledge. Also, as it is not a theoretical discipline, he thought a person had to study in order to become "good." Thus, if a person was to become virtuous, they could not simply study what virtue is, they had to actually do virtuous activity. In order to do this, Aristotle had to first establish what was virtuous. He began by determining that everything was done with some goal in mind and that goal is 'good.' The ultimate goal he called the Highest Good. Aristotle contested that happiness could not be found only in pleasure or only in fame and honor. He finally finds happiness "by ascertaining the specific function of man. But what is this function that will bring happiness? To determine this, Aristotle analyzed the soul and found it to have three parts: the Nutritive Soul (plants, animals and humans), the Perceptive Soul (animals and humans) and the Rational Soul (humans only). Thus, a human's function is to do what makes it human, to be good at what sets it apart from everything else: the ability to reason or Nous. A person that does this is the happiest because they are fulfulling their purpose or nature as found in the rational soul. Depending on how well they did this, Aristotle said people belonged to one of four categories: the Virtuous, the Continent, the Incontinent and the Vicious. Aristotle believes that every ethical virtue is an intermediate condition between excess and deficiency. This does not mean Aristotle believed in moral relativism, however. He set certain emotions (e.g., hate, envy, jealousy, spite, etc.) and certain actions (e.g., adultery, theft, murder, etc.) as being always wrong, regardless of the situation or the circumstances.

Nicomachean ethics

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle focuses on the importance of continually behaving virtuously and developing virtue rather than committing specific good actions. This can be opposed to Kantian ethics, in which the primary focus is on individual action. Nicomachean Ethics emphasizes the importance of context to ethical behaviour — what might be right in one situation might be wrong in another. Aristotle believed that happiness is the end of life and that as long as a person is striving for goodness, good deeds will result from that struggle, making the person virtuous and therefore happy.

Aristotle's critics

goodness (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael.]] Aristotle has been criticised on several grounds.
- His analysis of procreation is frequently criticised on the grounds that it presupposes an active, ensouling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive, lumpen female element; it is on these grounds that some feminist critics refer to Aristotle as a misogynist.
- At times, the objections that Aristotle raises against the arguments of his own teacher, Plato, appear to rely on faulty interpretations of those arguments.
- Although Aristotle advised, against Plato, that knowledge of the world could only be obtained through experience, he frequently failed to take his own advice. Aristotle conducted projects of careful empirical investigation, but often drifted into abstract logical reasoning, with the result that his work was littered with conclusions that were not supported by empirical evidence; for example, his assertion that objects of different mass fall at different speeds under gravity, which was later refuted by John Philoponus. Credit is often given to Galileo, even though Philopinus lived centuries before him.
- In the Middle Ages, roughly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the philosophy of Aristotle became firmly established dogma. Although Aristotle himself was far from dogmatic in his approach to philosophical inquiry, two aspects of his philosophy might have assisted its transformation into dogma. His works were wide-ranging and systematic so that they could give the impression that no significant matter had been left unsettled. He was also much less inclined to employ the sceptical methods of his predecessors, Socrates and Plato.
- Some academics have suggested that Aristotle was unaware of much of the current science of his own time, and that he was a far lesser mathematician than many of his learned contemporaries. Aristotle was called not a great philosopher, but "The Philosopher" by Scholastic thinkers. These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. It required a repudiation of some Aristotelian principles for the sciences and the arts to free themselves for the discovery of modern scientific laws and empirical methods. The Western mind is "Aristotelian". By this we mean that it formats the external world into factual and "scien"-tific categories. (By "Scien"-tific we mean that something is knowable or known. Latin scientia = knowledge). Under the premise of external categorization, the Aristotelian mind has come to equate "experience" with the unified chronical and spatial ontological structure that is the "external" universe -- visible, audible and sensible by the handful of our common, well-identified senses. By so equating the two, the Aristotelian mind is fully confident, or fully "positive" of the meanings of its utterances and the purposes of all actions. That is to say, it dismisses the possibility of dubious meanings as interpreted by subjects that are at variance in perspectives or phenomenology, and it dismisses the importance of anything other than an objectively defined "purpose" to an action. Therefore, the Aristotelian mind assumes that when subject A utters "I am X," he or she is referring to the same experience and is expressing the same purpose as subject B who also utters "I am X."

Bibliography

Note: Bekker numbers are often used to uniquely identify passages of Aristotle. They are identified below where available.

Major works

The extant works of Aristotle are broken down according to the five categories in the Corpus Aristotelicum. Not all of these works are considered genuine, but differ with respect to their connection to Aristotle, his associates and his views. Some, such as the Athenaion Politeia or the fragments of other politeia are regarded by most scholars as products of Aristotle's "school" and compiled under his direction or supervision. Other works, such On Colours may have been products of Aristotle's successors at the Lyceum, e.g., Theophrastus and Straton. Still others acquired Aristotle's name through similarities in doctrine or content, such as the De Plantis, possibly by Nicolaus of Damascus. A final category, omitted here, includes medieval palmistries, astrological and magical texts whose connection to Aristotle is purely fanciful and self-promotional. Those that are seriously disputed are marked with an asterisk.

Logical writings

- Organon (collected works on logic):
- (1a) Categories (or Categoriae)
- (16a) On Interpretation (or De Interpretatione)
- (24a) Prior Analytics (or Analytica Priora)
- (71a) Posterior Analytics (or Analytica Posteriora)
- (100b) Topics (or Topica)
- (164a) On Sophistical Refutations (or De Sophisticis Elenchis)

Physical and scientific writings

- (184a) Physics (or Physica)
- (268a) On the Heavens (or De Caelo)
- (314a) On Generation and Corruption (or De Generatione et Corruptione)
- (338a) Meteorology (or Meteorologica)
- (391a) On the Cosmos (or De Mundo, or On the Universe)
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- (402a) On the Soul (or De Anima)
- (436a) Little Physical Treatises (or Parva Naturalia):
- On Sense and the Sensible (or De Sensu et Sensibilibus)
- On Memory and Reminiscence (or De Memoria et Reminiscentia)
- On Sleep and Sleeplessness (or De Somno et Vigilia)
- On Dreams (or De Insomniis)
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- On Prophesying by Dreams (or De Divinatione per Somnum)
- On Longevity and Shortness of Life (or De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae)
- On Youth and Old Age (On Life and Death) (or De Juventute et Senectute, De Vita et Morte)
- On Breathing (or De Respiratione)
- (481a) On Breath (or De Spiritu)
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- (486a) History of Animals (or Historia Animalium, or On the History of Animals, or Description of Animals)
- (639a) On the Parts of Animals (or De Partibus Animalium)
- (698a) On the Gait of Animals (or De Motu Animalium, or On the Movement of Animals)
- (704a) On the Progression of Animals (or De Incessu Animalium)
- (715a) On the Generation of Animals (or De Generatione Animalium)
- (791a) On Colours (or De Coloribus)
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- (800a) De audibilibus
- (805a) Physiognomics (or Physiognomonica)
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- On Plants (or De Plantis)
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- (830a) On Marvellous Things Heard (or Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, or On Things Heard)
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- (847a) Mechanical Problems (or Mechanica)
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- (859a) Problems (or Problemata)
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- (968a) On Indivisible Lines (or De Lineis Insecabilibus)
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- (973a) Situations and Names of Winds (or Ventorum Situs)
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Metaphysical writings

- (980a) Metaphysics (or Metaphysica)

Ethical writings

- (1094a) Nicomachean Ethics (or Ethica Nicomachea, or The Ethics)
- (1181a) Great Ethics (or Magna Moralia)
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- (1214a) Eudemian Ethics (or Ethica Eudemia)
- (1249a) Virtues and Vices (or De Virtutibus et Vitiis Libellus, Libellus de virtutibus)
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- (1252a) Politics (or Politica)
- (1343a) Economics (or Oeconomica)

Aesthetic writings

- (1354a) Rhetoric (or Ars Rhetorica, or The Art of Rhetoric or Treatise on Rhetoric)
- Rhetoric to Alexander (or Rhetorica ad Alexandrum)
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- (1447a) Poetics (or Ars Poetica)

Writings absent from Corpus Aristotelicum

- The Constitution of the Athenians (or Athenaion Politeia, or The Athenian Consitution)
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- On Melissus, On Xenophanes, and On Gorgias. These are sometimes grouped together and called the "MXG" writings. They clearly are not written by Aristotle, and are believed to date from the fifth century AD. However, because they have frequently been attributed to him in the past, they are often included in compilations of his writings (for example, in the Loeb Classical Library).

Specific editions

- Princeton University Press: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (2 Volume Set; Bollingen Series, Vol. LXXI, No. 2), edited by Jonathan Barnes ISBN 0-691-09950-2 (The most complete recent translation of Aristotle's extant works)
- Oxford University Press: Clarendon Aristotle Series. [http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/series/ClarendonAristotleSeries/?view=usa Scholarly edition]
- Harvard University Press: Loeb Classical Library (hardbound; publishes in Greek, with English translations on facing pages)

Named after Aristotle

- Aristoteles crater on the Moon.
- The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- Aristotle's Cockney legacy - The name of Aristotle, like that of J. Arthur Rank, became a common expression in Cockney rhyming slang.

References

Needless to say, the secondary literature on Aristotle is vast. The following references are only a small selection.
- A popular exposition for the general reader.
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- A detailed and scholarly work, but very readable.
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- For the general reader.

External links

Aristotle Aristotle
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- [http://Aristotle.thefreelibrary.com/ A brief biography and e-texts presented one chapter at a time]
- [http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/aristotl.htm The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Aristotle.], 2004.
- [http://www.non-contradiction.com/ An extensive collection of Aristotle's philosophy and works, including lesser known texts]
- [http://www.virtuescience.com/nicomachean-ethics.html Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.]
- [http://uk.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0505172 Aristotle and Indian logic]
- O'Connor, J. John & Robertson, Edmund F., [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Aristotle.html Aristotle], 2004.
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- [http://www.greektexts.com/library/Aristotle/index.html Large collection of Aristotle's texts, presented page by page]
- [http://www.greek-literature-online.com/aristotle/ Read Aristotle's works online]
- [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01713a.htm Source of most of the Biography and Methodology sections, as well as more overview]
- Category:Aristotle Category:Ancient Greek philosophers Category:Aristotelian philosophers Category:Ancient Greek mathematicians Category:Empiricists Category:Rhetoric Category:Greek logicians Category:Meteorologists ko:아리스토텔레스 ms:Aristotle ja:アリストテレス simple:Aristotle th:อริสโตเติล

Tragedy

:This article refers to the literary work. For the punk band see Tragedy (band) A tragedy may be defined loosely as any work of fiction in which the protagonist suffers a fall in his or her fortunes, and ends in a worse state than that in which they began. Works as diverse as Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, Hedda Gabler and Scarface may thus be classified as tragedies. Throughout much of Western thought, however, tragedy has been defined in more precise terms, following the precepts set out by Aristotle: it is a form of drama characterized by seriousness and dignity, usually involving a conflict between a character and some higher power, such as the law, the gods, fate, or society.

Origin of Western tragedy

The origins of tragedy in the West are obscure, but it is certainly derived from the poetic and religious traditions of ancient Greece. Its roots may be traced more specifically to the dithyrambs, the chants and dances honoring the Greek god Dionysus, later known to the Romans as Bacchus. These drunken, ecstatic performances were said to have been created by the satyrs, half-goat beings who surrounded Dionysus in his revelry, and the Greek words tragos meaning "goat" and aeidein "to sing" were combined in the word tragoidia, "goat-songs," from which the word "tragedy" is derived. (Another theory of the word origin is that a goat was presented as a prize at a song contest; yet another has it come not from tragos but from traegein, which means `to gnaw'.) There is some dissent to the dithyrambic origins of tragedy mostly based in the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing. a common decent from pre-hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested.

Theories of tragedy

The philosopher Aristotle theorized in his work The Poetics that tragedy results in a catharsis (emotional cleansing) of healing for the audience through their experience of these emotions in response to the suffering of the characters in the drama. Not all plays that are broadly categorized as "tragedies" result in this type of cathartic ending, though – some have neutral or even ambiguously happy endings. Exactly what constitutes a "tragedy", however, is a frequently debated matter. Some hold that any story with a sad ending is a tragedy, whereas others demand that the story fit a set of requirements (often based on Aristotle) to be considered a tragedy.

Greek tragedy

Greek literature boasts three great writers of tragedy whose works are extant: Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. The largest festival for Greek tragedy was the Dionysia, for which competition prominent playwrights usually submitted three tragedies and one satyr play each. The Roman theater does not appear to have followed the same practice. Seneca adapted Greek stories, such as Phaedra, into Latin plays; however, Senecan tragedy has long been regarded as closet drama, meant to be read rather than performed. A favorite theatrical device of many ancient Greek tragedians was the ekkyklêma, a cart hidden behind the scenery which could be rolled out to display the aftermath of some event which had happened out of sight of the audience. This event was frequently a brutal murder of some sort, an act of violence which could not be effectively portrayed visually, but an action of which the other characters must see the effects in order for it to have meaning and emotional resonance. A prime example of the use of the ekkyklêma is after the murder of Agamemnon in the first play of Aeschylus' Oresteia, when the king's butchered body is wheeled out in a grand display for all to see. Variations on the ekkyklêma are used in tragedies and other forms to this day, as writers still find it a useful and often powerful device for showing the consequences of extreme human actions. Another such device was a crane, the mechane, which served to hoist a god or goddess on stage when they were supposed to arrive flying. This device gave origin to the phrase "deus ex machina" ("god out of a machine"), that is, the surprise intervention of an unforeseen external factor that changes the outcome of an event. Nietzsche dedicated his famous early book, The Birth of Tragedy, to a discussion of the origins of Greek tragedy. He traced the evolution of tragedy from early rituals, through the joining of Apollonian and Dionysian forces, until its early "death" in the hands of Socrates. In opposition to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche viewed tragedy as the art form of sensual acceptance of the terrors of reality and rejoicing in these terrors in love of fate (amor fati), and therefore as the antithesis to Socratic notion of strictly rational explanation , or the belief in the power of reason to unveil any and all of the mysteries of existence. Ironically, Socrates was fond of quoting from tragedies. A landmark study in its era, Nietzsche's book and its theories are considered spurious by most contemporary scholars of Greek tragedy.

Renaissance tragedy

In the English language, the most famous and most successful tragedies are those of William Shakespeare and his Elizabethan contemporaries. Shakespeare's tragedies include:
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus A contemporary of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, also wrote examples of tragedy in English, notably:
- Tragedy of Dr. Faustus
- Tamburlaine John Webster (1580?-1635?), also wrote famous plays of the genre:
- The Duchess of Malfi
- The White Devil In France, Jean Racine, who brought a new face to the genre with his works. When his play, Bérénice, was criticised for not containing any deaths, Racine disputed the conventional view of tragedy. His rival, Pierre Corneille, also made his mark on the world of tragedy with plays like Medée (1635) and Le Cid (1636).

Modern tragedy

In modern literature, the definition of tragedy has become less precise. The most fundamental change has been the rejection of Aristotle's dictum that true tragedy can only depict those with power and high status. Arthur Miller's essay 'Tragedy and the Common Man' exemplifies the modern belief that tragedy may also depict ordinary people in domestic surroundings. A Doll's House (1879) by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, which depicts the breakdown of a middle-class marriage, is an example of a more contemporary tragedy. Like Ibsen's other dramatic works, it has been translated into English and has enjoyed great popularity on the English and American stage. Although the most important American playwrights - Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller - wrote tragedies, the rarity of tragedy in the American theater may be owing in part to a certain form of idealism, often associated with Americans, that man is captain of his fate, a notion exemplified in the plays of Clyde Fitch and George S. Kaufmann. Arthur Miller, however, was a successful writer of American tragic plays, among them The Crucible and Death of a Salesman. Contemporary postmodern theater moves the ground for the execution of tragedy from the hubris of the individual tragic hero to the institutions, discourses and policies that shape the course of a character's life. The fate decreed from the gods of classical Greek tragedy is replaced by the will of institutions that shape the fate of the individual through policies and practices.

Tragedy in film

main article: Tragedy on screen The general belief in Hollywood that audiences prefer happy endings might seem to preclude the genre of tragedy from film. However, the popularity of several cinematic tragedies indicates that audiences can be receptive to the genre. Recent examples include Titanic and Gladiator, both of which can be seen as tragedies, at least by some definitions.

External links

- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1122 Hamlet]
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1129 Macbeth]
- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1531 Othello] Category:Drama Category:Ancient Greek theatre Category:Literary genres ko:비극 ja:ギリシア悲劇 simple:Tragedy

Greek drama

] Greek theatre or Greek Drama is a theatrical tradition that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 600 and c. 200 BC. The city state of Athens, the political and military power in Greece during this period, was the epicenter of ancient Greek theatre. Athenian tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays were some of the earliest theatrical forms to emerge in the world. Greek theatre and plays have had a lasting impact on Western drama and culture.

History

Origins

Early tradition holds that formal theatre in Athens evolved from festivals related to the cult of Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility and wine. This tradition is probably accurate, since Athenian drama occurred at the Dionysia, an annual festival honoring Dionysus. However, it is impossible to know for sure how fertility rituals developed into tragedy and comedy. Aristotle's Poetics contain the earliest known theory about the origins of Greek theatre. He says that tragedy evolved from dithyrambs, songs sung in praise of Dionysus at the Dionysia each year. The dithyrambs may have begun as frenzied improvisations but in the 600s BC, the poet Arion is credited with developing the dithyramb into a formalized narrative sung by a chorus. Then, in the 500s BC, a poet named Thespis is credited with innovating a new style in which a solo actor performed the speeches of the characters in the narrative (using masks to distinguish between the different characters). The actor spoke and acted as if he were the character, and he interacted with the chorus, who acted as narrators and commentators. Thespis is therefore considered the first Greek "actor," and his style of drama became known as tragedy (which means 'goat song', perhaps referring to goats sacrificed to Dionysus before performances, or to goat-skins worn by the performers. Thespis's new style subsequently became part of the official celebrations of the Dionysian festivals. In 534 BC, annual competitions for the best tragedy were instituted at the City Dionysia in Athens. In 471 BC, the dramatist Aeschylus innovated a second actor, thus making dialogue between characters possible onstage. Then, around 468 BC, Sophocles introduced a third actor making more complex dramatic situations possible. Three actors subsequently became the formal convention (the actors could still play more than one character, distinguising between them with masks). The chorus could also function as a separate character rather than a narrator (see Greek chorus). In addition, the subject matter of the plays expanded so that rather than just Dionysus, they treated the whole body of Greek mythology.

Golden Age

By the 5th century BC, theatre had become formalized and was a major part of Athenian culture and civic pride, and this century is normally regarded as the Golden Age of Greek drama. The centerpiece of the annual Dionysia was a competition between three playwrights at the Theatre of Dionysus. Each submitted a three tragedies, plus a satyr play (a comic, burlesque version of a mythological subject). In the 430s BC, competitions for comedy were also held. Although there were many playwrights in this era, only the work of four playwrights has survived in the form of complete plays. All are from Athens. These playwrights are the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the comic writer Aristophanes. Their plays, along with some secondary sources such as Aristotle, are the basis of what is known about Greek theatre. Because of this, there is much that remains unknown.

Hellenistic period

The power of Athens declined following its defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Although its theatrical traditions seem to have lost their vitality, Greek theatre continued into the Hellenistic period (the period following Alexander the Great's conquests in the fourth century BC). However, the primary Hellenistic theatrical form was not tragedy but 'New Comedy', comic farces about the lives of ordinary citizens. The only extant playwright from the period is Menander. One of New Comedy's most important contributions was its influence on Roman comedy, an influence that can be seen in the surviving works of Plautus and Terence.

Characteristics

Writing

Tragedy and comedy were viewed as completely separate genres, and no plays ever merged aspects of the two. Satyr plays dealt with the mythological subject matter of the tragedies, but in a purely comedic manner.Insert non-formatted text here]]) but as he was writing over a century after the Athenian Golden Age, it is not known whether dramatists such as Sophocles and Euripides would have thought about their plays in the same terms.

Rhetoric (Aristotle)

Aristotle's Rhetoric (or "Ars Rhetorica", or "The Art of Rhetoric" or "Treatise on Rhetoric") places the discipline of public speaking in the context of all other intellectual pursuits at the time. Moreover, Aristotle is working to rehabilitate the reputation of rhetoric in light of Plato's attacks on the art as just a knack and not an art. () Aristotle wishes to demonstrate that "[p]roofs alone are intrinsic to the art." ( or 1354a) Although we can "more easily achieve persuasion by speaking rhetorically" (1355a), the rhetoric's "function is not persuasion." (1355b)

The Definition of Rhetoric

In 1.2.1, Aristotle defines rhetoric as: 'the power to observe the persuasiveness of which any particular matter admits.'

External links

- [http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/a8rh/ trans. by W. Rhys Roberts]
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- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/ Aristotle's Rhetoric at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Species (metaphysics)

Species (used as a noun) in metaphysics are defined by their genus (genos) and differentia (diaphora). For example, a human being as a species can be defined as an animal (genus) that can reason (differentia). The term is derived from the Greek word, eidos, which means form in Plato's dialogues, but should be taken to mean species in Aristotle's corpus. Category:Metaphysics

External links

- Aristotle's Logic, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, has a succinct entry on species.
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/#definitions

Mimesis

Mimesis (μίμησις from μιμεîσθαι) in its simplest context means imitation or representation in Greek.

History

Both Plato and Aristotle saw, in mimesis, the representation of nature. However, Plato thought all creation was imitation, and so God's creation was an imitation of the truth and essence of nature, and an artist's re-presentation of this God-created reality therefore was twice-removed imitation. Aristotle thought of drama as being "an imitation of an action", that of tragedy as of "falling from a higher to a lower estate", and so being removed to a less ideal situation in more tragic circumstances than before. He posited the characters in tragedy as being better than the average human being, and those of comedy as being worse. Aristotle's most well known work on this subject is his Poetics. Walter Kaufmann in Tragedy and Philosophy Ch.II suggests that we translate mimêsis in Aristotle’s Poetics as “make-believe”. Michael Davis, a translator and commentator of Aristotle writes: "At first glance, mimêsis seems to be a stylizing of reality in which the ordinary features of our world are brought into focus by a certain exaggeration, the relationship of the imitation to the object it imitates being something like the relationship of dancing to walking. Imitation always involves selecting something from the continuum of experience, thus giving boundaries to what really has no beginning or end. Mimêsis involves a framing of reality that announces that what is contained within the frame is not simply real. Thus the more “real” the imitation the more fraudulent it becomes." (The Poetry of Philosophy p.3) More recently Erich Auerbach and Merlin Donald have written about mimesis.

Mimesis in contrast to diegesis

It was also Plato and Aristotle who contrasted mimesis with diegesis. In diegesis it is not the form in which a work of art represents reality but that in which the author is the speaker who is describing events in the narrative he presents to the audience.
It is in diegesis that the author addresses the audience or the readership directly to express his freely creative art of the imagination, of fantasies and dreams in contrast to mimesis. Diegesis was thought of as telling, the author narrating action indirectly and describing what is in the character's mind and emotions, while mimesis is seen in terms of showing what is going on in characters' inner thoughts and emotions through his external actions.

What it does

In the arts, mimesis is considered to be re-presenting the human emotions in new ways and so re-presenting to the onlooker, listener or reader the inherent nature of the emotions and the psychological truth of the work of art. Mimesis is thus thought of as a means of perceiving the emotions of the characters on stage or in the book; or the truth of the figures as they appear in sculpture or in painting; or the emotions as they are being configured in music, and of their being recognised by the onlooker as part of their human condition.

Some examples how mimesis works in the arts

In sculpture, mimesis mirrors the placticity of an image an onlooker has with which he can empathize within a given situation. In Rodin's The Kiss, for example, the protective arms of the male and seeming trustfulness of the female figure enclosed within her partner's limbs, down to the stance of their feet, is a position all humans would recognize immediately in that the trust and truth that permeates the erotic element of the statue is that which is entailed in the relationship of any man and woman in a similar situation. In Picasso's Guernica, the artist re-presents the destruction of life and the terror it causes in a way this kind of cubistic image lends itself to most dramatically. The fractured details of the composition, the tortured faces, the screams that may be almost audibly imagined, the terrified horse, the bull, the dismembered limbs: all these things help making the picture most memorable for the truth it brings to the observer. However, the face of the woman holding a light may be seen either as a face of stoic resignation throwing light on the devastation, or a face of luciferous evil swooping in malevolent satisfaction. In Beethoven's 6th Symphony (the Pastoral), music re-presents the various stages of a stay in the country, of a person's emotions and moods that are metamorphosed into movements of music most faithfully corresponding to these emotions. Thus, the pleasurable anticipation on arrival in the country; the various happy scenes of their associating with countryfolk; a shepherd's song; birdsongs; a storm and the thankfulness after it is over; all will be observed and recognised readily by the audience. A further paragraph, highlighting Erich Auerbach's ideas of mimesis, will be added as soon as possible.

External links

- [http://web.org.uk/picasso/guernica.html Guernica]
- [http://www.statue.com/rodin-the-kiss.html The Kiss]
- [http://d-sites.net/english/mimesis.htm 'Mimesis' - reconsideration of an apparently obsolete concept]
- [http://d-sites.net/english/abstraction.htm 'Mimesis and abstraction' - a dialectic] Category:Narratology

Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) is best known as the author of The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. He worked as reader and professor in English language at Leeds from 1920 to 1925, as professor of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and of English language and literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was a strongly committed Catholic. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis', and a member of the Inklings, a literary discussion group to which both Lewis and Owen Barfield belonged. In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's published fiction includes The Silmarillion and other posthumous books about what he called a legendarium, a fictional mythology of the remote past of Earth, called Arda, and Middle-earth (from middangeard, the lands inhabitable by Men) in particular. Most of these posthumously published works were compiled from Tolkien's notes by his son Christopher Reuel Tolkien. The enduring popularity and influence of Tolkien's works have established him as the "father of the modern high fantasy genre". Tolkien's other published fiction includes adaptations of stories originally told to his children and not directly related to the legendarium.

Biography

The Tolkien family

As far as is known, most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were craftsmen. The Tolkien family had its roots in Saxony (Germany), but had been living in England since the 18th century, becoming "quickly and intensely English (not British)" (Letters, 165). The surname Tolkien is anglicised from Tollkiehn (i.e. German tollkühn, "foolhardy", the etymological English translation would be dull-keen, a literal translation of oxymoron). The character of Professor Rashbold in The Notion Club Papers is a pun on the name.

Childhood

Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State), South Africa, to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, who was born on February 17, 1894. When he was three, Tolkien went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of a severe brain haemorrhage before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Birmingham, England. Soon after in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent Hills and Lickey Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books along with other Worcestershire towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt's farm of Bag End, the name of which would be used in his fiction. Alvechurch Mabel tutored her two sons, and Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany, and she awoke in her son the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees. But his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early. He could read by the age of four, and could write fluently soon afterwards. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and, while a student there, helped "line the route" for the coronation parade of King George V, being posted just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. He later attended St Phillip's School and Exeter College, Oxford. His mother converted to Roman Catholicism in 1900, despite vehement protests by her Baptist family. She died of diabetes in 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, at Fern Cottage, Rednal, which they were then renting. For the rest of his life, Tolkien felt that she had become a martyr for her faith; this had a profound effect on his own Catholic beliefs. Tolkien's devout faith was significant in the conversion of C. S. Lewis to Anglicanism. During his subsequent orphanhood he was brought up by Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham. He lived there in the shadow of Perrott's Folly and the Victorian tower of Edgbaston waterworks, which may have influenced the images of the dark towers within his works. Another strong influence was the romantic medievalist paintings of Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has a large and world-renowned collection of works and had put it on free public display from around 1908. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Youth

Tolkien met and fell in love with Edith Mary Bratt, three years his senior, at the age of sixteen. Father Francis forbade him from meeting, talking, or even corresponding with her until he was twenty-one. He obeyed this prohibition to the letter. In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Birmingham, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society which they called "the T.C.B.S.", the initials standing for "Tea Club and Barrovian Society", alluding to their fondness of drinking Tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, illegally, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch, and in December 1914, they held a "Council" in London, at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry. In the summer of 1911, Tolkien went on holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter (Letters, no. 306), noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of twelve hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembers his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn ("the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams"). They went across the Kleine Scheidegg on to Grindelwald and across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass and through the upper Valais to Brig, and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. Zermatt (from Carpenter's Biography)]] On the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien telephoned Edith and asked her to be his bride, and she converted to Catholicism for him. They were engaged in Birmingham, in January 1913, and married in Warwick, England, on March 22, 1916. With his childhood love of landscape, he visited Cornwall in 1914 and he was said to be deeply impressed by the singular Cornish coastline and sea. After graduating from the University of Oxford (Exeter College, Oxford) with a first-class degree in English language in 1915, Tolkien joined the British Army effort in World War I and served as a second lieutenant in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. His battalion was moved to France in 1916, where Tolkien served as a communications officer during the Battle of the Somme, until he came down with trench fever on October 27, and was moved back to England on November 8. Many of his fellow servicemen, as well as many of his closest friends, were killed in the war. During his recovery in a cottage in Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps, and was promoted to lieutenant. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, one day he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a thick grove of hemlock. This incident inspired the account of the meeting of Beren and Lúthien, and Tolkien often referred to Edith as his Lúthien.

Oxford

Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary (among others, he initiated the entries wasp and walrus). In 1920 he took up a post as Reader in English language at the University of Leeds, and in 1924 was made a professor there, but in 1925 he returned to Oxford as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College. Tolkien and Edith had four children: John Francis Reuel (November 17, 1917), Michael Hilary Reuel (October 1920–1984), Christopher John Reuel (1924) and Priscilla Anne Reuel (1929). Tolkien assisted Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the unearthing of a Roman Asclepieion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928. During his time at Pembroke, Tolkien wrote the The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings. Of Tolkien's academic publications, the 1936 lecture "Beowulf: the monsters and the critics" had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. In 1945, he moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien completed the The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches. During the 1950s, Tolkien spent many of his long academic holidays at the home of his son John Francis in Stoke-on-Trent. Tolkien had an intense dislike for the side effects of industrialisation, which he considered a devouring of the English countryside. For most of his adult life he eschewed automobiles, preferring to ride a bicycle. This attitude is perceptible from some parts of his work, such as the forced industrialisation of The Shire in The Lord of the Rings. industrialisation, next to one of his favourite trees (a Pinus nigra) in the Botanic Garden, Oxford.]] W.H. Auden was a frequent correspondent and long-time friend of Tolkien's, initiated by Auden's fascination with The Lord of the Rings: Auden was among the most prominent early critics to praise the work. Tolkien wrote in a 1971 letter, "I am [...] very deeply in Auden's debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it." (Letters, no. 327).

Retirement and old age

During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien increasingly turned into a figure of public attention and literary fame. The sale of his books was so profitable that Tolkien regretted he had not taken early retirement. While at first he wrote enthusiastic answers to reader inquiries, he became more and more suspicious of emerging Tolkien fandom, especially among the hippy movement in the USA. Already in 1944, he made a somewhat sarcastic comment about a fan letter by a twelve-year-old American reader (It's nice to find that little American boys do really still say 'Gee Whiz'., Letters no. 87). In a 1972 letter he deplores having become a cult-figure, but admits that :even the nose of a very modest idol (younger than Chu-Bu and not much older than Sheemish) [idols in a story by Lord Dunsany] cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense! (Letters, no. 336). Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth at the south coast. Tolkien was awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on March 28, 1972. 1972 Edith Tolkien died on November 29 1971, at the age of eighty-two, and Tolkien had the name Lúthien engraved on the stone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on September 2 1973, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with Beren added to his name, so that the engraving now reads: Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889–1971 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892–1973 Posthumously named after Tolkien are the Tolkien Road in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and the asteroid 2675 Tolkien. Tolkien Way in Stoke-On-Trent is named after J.R.R.'s son Father John Francis Tolkien, who used to be the priest in charge at the nearby Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Angels and St. Peter in Chains.

Writing

Stoke-On-Trent Beginning with The Book of Lost Tales, written while recuperating from illness during World War I, Tolkien devised several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of Beren and Lúthien and that of Túrin, were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in The Lays of Beleriand). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into The Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-Earth. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis. Tolkien was strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon literature, Germanic and Norse mythologies, Finnish folklore, the Bible, and Greek mythology. The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include Beowulf, the Kalevala, the Poetic Edda, the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga. Tolkien himself acknowledged Homer, Oedipus, and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas. His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. In addition to his mythological compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other stories included Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, and Smith of Wootton Major. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium. Tolkien never expected his fictional stories to become popular, but he was persuaded by a former student to publish a book he had written for his own children called The Hobbit in 1937. However, the book attracted adult readers as well, and it became popular enough for the publisher, George Allen & Unwin, to ask Tolkien to work on a sequel. Even though he felt uninspired on the topic, this request prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings (published 1954–55). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it. Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings as a children's tale like The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense back story of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien's influence weighs heavily on the fantasy genre that grew up after the success of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien continued to work on the history of Middle-earth until his death. His son Christopher, with some assistance from fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay, organised some of this material into one volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. In 1980 Christopher Tolkien followed this with a collection of more fragmentary material under the title Unfinished Tales, and in subsequent years he published a massive amount of background material on the creation of Middle-earth in the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth. All these posthumous works contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress, and Tolkien only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not even complete consistency to be found between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien was never able to fully integrate all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to completely rewrite the entire book. The library of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, preserves many of Tolkien's original manuscripts, notes and letters; other original material survives at Oxford's Bodleian Library. Marquette has the manuscripts and proofs of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and other manuscripts, including Farmer Giles of Ham, while the Bodleian holds the Silmarillion papers and Tolkien's academic work. The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the twentieth century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the "Nation's Best-loved Book". In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2002 Tolkien was voted the ninety-second "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted thirty-fifth in a list of the Greatest South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited just to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK’s "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings (Der Herr der Ringe) to be their favourite work of literature.

Languages

See also Languages of Middle-earth. Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialised in Greek philology in college, and in 1915 graduated with Old Icelandic as special subject. He worked for the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918. In 1920, he went to Leeds as Reader in English Language, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged 33, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club". Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and he entertained notions of an inherited taste of language, which he termed the "native tongue" as opposed to "cradle tongue" in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language. He considered west-midland Middle English his own "native tongue", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955 (Letters, no. 163), "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)". Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for the construction of artificial languages. The best developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which are at the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonæsthetic" considerations. It was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish and Greek (Letters, no. 144). A notable addition came in late 1945 with Numenorean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by

Poetics

Imitation or Mimesis (Chapter 1)

The Medium, Object and Mode of Poetry (Chapters 1-3)

The Two Causes of Poetry (Chapter 4)

The Three Genres of Poetry

Comedy (Chapter 5)

Tragedy (Chapers 6-22)

Epic Verse (Chapters 23-26)

Influence of the Work

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Aristotle

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Early life and studies at the Academy

Aristotle as philosopher and tutor

Founder and master of the Lyceum

Methodology

Aristotle's epistemology

Logic

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Analytics and the Organon

Modal logic

Science

Aristotle's metaphysics

Aristotle's four causes

The difference between natural objects and artifacts

Modes of causation

Chance

The Five Elements

Aristotle's ethics

Nicomachean ethics

Aristotle's critics

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Metaphysical writings

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Writings absent from Corpus Aristotelicum

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Named after Aristotle

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References

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Tragedy

Origin of Western tragedy

Theories of tragedy

Greek tragedy

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Modern tragedy

Tragedy in film

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History

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Hellenistic period

Characteristics

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Rhetoric (Aristotle)

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Some examples how mimesis works in the arts

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The Tolkien family

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Retirement and old age

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