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informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
informative
informative
slow-paced
Well, I tell you what.
Did you ever see "Dead Poet's Society"? You know that scene where it's the first day of school and Robin Williams has them read that essay out loud, with all sorts of formulae and things for analyzing poetry - where Robin Williams graphs a formula on the board: PxI=G ?
Remember that?
That's the feeling I got with this. It seems to miss the forest for the trees.
OK, it's an analysis of drama and epic poetry. But to what end? Aristotle apparently felt it would be prescriptive to writers, so that they could produce better work. Maybe to a small degree it does.
But if something works, it works. The success of any form of art is nothing more nor less than its gestalt effect - any checklist of qualities to determine its worth is necessarily bound to failure.
Did you ever see "Dead Poet's Society"? You know that scene where it's the first day of school and Robin Williams has them read that essay out loud, with all sorts of formulae and things for analyzing poetry - where Robin Williams graphs a formula on the board: PxI=G ?
Remember that?
That's the feeling I got with this. It seems to miss the forest for the trees.
OK, it's an analysis of drama and epic poetry. But to what end? Aristotle apparently felt it would be prescriptive to writers, so that they could produce better work. Maybe to a small degree it does.
But if something works, it works. The success of any form of art is nothing more nor less than its gestalt effect - any checklist of qualities to determine its worth is necessarily bound to failure.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Read with the Literary Life podcast.
The seminal work on literary criticism and in the entire field of aesthetics. Aristotle's observations on Greek tragedy. Many general principles of story (good plots have a beginning, middle, and end; events should cause other events; every event should matter).
Also some observations that don't universally apply, like the meters that fit best for different types of writing in Greek. Funny to hear that Shakespeare's neo-classical contemporaries read these as rules and scolded him for not following them, like for not confining his tragedies to a single 24-hour period.
Main takeaway is that Aristotle claims plot is more important that characters: "Tragedy is representation not of persons but of action and life..." When C. S. Lewis argued for this, he cited Aristotle, Bocaccio, and Jung in support.
Children learn through images.
Learning through representation is what separates man from animals.
Tragedy is the high brought low, while comedy is the low raised high.
Initially everything was written in verse (I assume he's not claiming that verse is more primal than prose, only that the Greeks started with verse?)
The seminal work on literary criticism and in the entire field of aesthetics. Aristotle's observations on Greek tragedy. Many general principles of story (good plots have a beginning, middle, and end; events should cause other events; every event should matter).
Also some observations that don't universally apply, like the meters that fit best for different types of writing in Greek. Funny to hear that Shakespeare's neo-classical contemporaries read these as rules and scolded him for not following them, like for not confining his tragedies to a single 24-hour period.
Main takeaway is that Aristotle claims plot is more important that characters: "Tragedy is representation not of persons but of action and life..." When C. S. Lewis argued for this, he cited Aristotle, Bocaccio, and Jung in support.
Children learn through images.
Learning through representation is what separates man from animals.
Tragedy is the high brought low, while comedy is the low raised high.
Initially everything was written in verse (I assume he's not claiming that verse is more primal than prose, only that the Greeks started with verse?)
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
This book was hard to get through. I fell asleep so many times and just kept plodding my way onward. But it was a fantastic book about what makes a good story and what makes a bad story. I have found myself contemplating multiple passages and my book is full of book darts. Also, the included essay by Dorothy Sayers entitled “Aristotle on Detective Fiction” was an absolute delight.