In so far as all human action is always already an imitation of action, it is in its very nature poetic. This places the beginning of Aristotles famous definition of tragedy that trage

Aristotle's On Poetics (c. 335 BC) Translated by Seth Benardete and Michael Davis

St. Augustine's Press 2002

Introduction by Michael Davis

Insofar as all human action is always already an imitation of action, it is in its very nature poetic. This places the beginning of Aristotle's famous definition of tragedy—that tragedy is an imitation of action—in a new light. On Poetics is about two things: poiêsis understood as poetry, or imitation of action, and poiêsis understood as action, which is also imitation of action. It is the distinctive feature of human action, that whenever we choose to do, we imagine an action for ourselves as though we were inspecting it from the outside. Intentions are nothing more than imagined actions, internalizings of the external. All action is therefore imitation of action; it is poetic.

xvii We are rational animals. Poetry, connected to the self-conscious character of action, at the same time manifests the doubleness of human action within itself. Aristotle turns to drama because, to a degree even greater than narrative [end of page xvii] poetry, it reflects the distinction between doing and looking at doing—between acting and reflecting. On the one hand drama must attempt to convince its audience of the reality of its action; on the other hand it must always remain acting—actors always imply spectators.

xvii-xviii Now, if poetry is paradigmatic for action, and drama for poetry—and if tragedy is the most complete form of drama, story the soul of tragedy, and reversal and recognition the core of a story—then by looking at Aristotle's treatment of recognition and reversal, we ought to be able to learn

something about why tragedy is singled out as the model for human action.

Xix [Since] the turn of events involves not to much a change as a reinterpretation of what has already occurred, some recognition seems necessary. Reversal must, therefore, be our recognition as an audience that what we thought to be is not what we thought it to be…Recognition as an-agnorisis, is a privation of ignorance. But might we not understand its etymology as ana-agnoroisis—knowing back or re-cognizing? As the very same syllables give us two quite different etymologies, it is not so obvious what "the name signifies." When this sort of ambiguity arises within a play, the conditions are present [end of page xx] for recognition. A prior confusion is discovered in a way that alters the action of the play. Recognition is thus the awareness within the play, i.e., of a character, which parallels the audience's awareness of a reversal.

xx-xxi

On Poetics

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action [mimesis praxeos] that is of stature and complete, with magnitude, that, by means of sweetened speech, but with each of its kinds separate in its proper parts, is of people acting and not through report, and accomplishes [end of page 17] through pity and fear the cleansing49 of experiences of this sort. 49. "Cleansing" is katharsis; Aristotle treats it at somewhat more length at Politics 1342a5-16.

17-18

In addition to these [end of page 21] parts the greatest things by which tragedy guides the soul61 are parts of the story, reversals and recognitions.62 Further, a sign of this is that those attempting to make

poetry [poiein], like almost all of the first poets, are able to be precise with respect to talk and characters earlier than they are able to put events together. Story, then, is the first principle63 and like the soul of tragedy, and characters are second. 61. "Guides the soul" is psuchagôgei; it referred originally to the leading of souls into or out of Hades and therefore to a kind of sorcery and black magic. The adjective psuchagôgikon occurs at 1450b16 of opsis. Neither word occurs anywhere else in Aristotle 62. "Recognition" (anagnôrisis) occurs once at Eudemian Ethics 1237a25 and nowhere else in Aristotle. It occurs once in Plato. It does not occur in any other classical author. "Reversal" (peripeteia) occurs twice elsewhere in Aristotle. 63. Archê, elsewhere translated as "beginning" is translated here as "first principle."

21-22 We have posited tragedy to be an imitation of a complete and whole action having some magnitude; for there is also a whole which has no magnitude. What has a beginning, middle, and end is a whole. A beginning is whatever in itself is not of necessity after something else but after which another [heteron] has a nature to be or to become. But an end, on the contrary, is whatever in itself has a nature to be after something else—but after it nothing else. And a middle is that which is both in itself after something else and after which there is another. Well-put-together stories, then, ought neither to begin from just anywhere nor end just anywhere but use the aforesaid forms.

24

8. A story is one not as some suppose it is if it is concerned with one human being, for countlessly many things happen to one human being out of which, with the exception of [end of page 25] some, nothing is a one…Just as in the other imitative arts the single imitation is of a single thing, so also the story, since it is an imitation of action, ought to be of one action, and this a whole. And the parts of the events ought to have been put together so that when a part is transposed or removed, the whole

becomes different and changes. For whatever makes no noticeable difference if it is added or not added is no proper part of the whole.

25-26 It is also apparent from what has been said that this too is not the task of the poet, i.e., to speak of what has come to be, but rather to speak of what sort of things would come to be, i.e., of what is possible according to the likely or the necessary. For the historian and the poet do not differ by speaking either in meters or without meters (since it would [end of page 26] be possible for the writings f Herodotus be put in meters, and they would no less be a history with meter than without meters). But they differ in this: the one speaks of what has come to be while the other speaks of what sort would come to be. Therefore poiêsis is more philosophic and of more stature than history. For poetry speaks rather of the general things while history speaks of the particular things. The general, that it falls to a certain sort of man to say or do certain sort of things according to the likely or the necessary, is what poetry aims at in attaching names….It is clear then from these things, that the poet [poeiêtês] must be a maker [poiêtês] of [end of page 26] stories rather than of meters, insofar as he is a poet by virtue of imitation, and he inmates action.

26-27 Of simple stories and actions the episodic are worst. I mean [legô] by an episodic story one in which the episodes following one another are neither likely nor necessary.

28 Of stories, some are simple while others are of a complex weave, for the actions, also, of which the stories are imitations, are from the start just of these sorts. And I mean by simple an action that comes to be as continuous and one, as we defined them, and of which the change comes to be without reversal or recognition, and by a tragedy of a complex

weave, an action in which the change is with a recognition or a reversal or both. And these ought to come to be from the very putting together of the story so that it happens that, on the basis of what occurred previously, these things come to be either from necessity or according to the likely. It makes a great deal of difference whether what we have before us comes to be because of what we have before us or after what we have before us.

29 Recognition [anagnôrisis], on the other hand, just as the name too signifies, is a change from ignorance [agnoia] to knowledge [gnôsis], whether towards fellowship or enmity, of those whose relation to good or ill fortune has already been defined. A recognition is most beautiful when it comes to be at the same time as a reversal, for example as it is in the Oedipus.

30 Since, then, the putting together of the most beautiful tragedy should be not simple but of a complex weave, and what is more it should be imitative of fearful and pitiable things (for this is peculiar to this sort of imitation), first, just as it is clear that the sound82 men ought not to be [end of page 32] shown changing from good to bad fortune (for this is neither fearful nor pitiable but loathsome), so the wicked ought not to be shown changing from misfortune to good fortune (for this is the least tragic of all, since it has nothing of what it ought to have as it is neither productive of a feeling of kinship with the human83 nor pitiable nor fearful) and more than the very evil man ought to appear to fall from good fortune to ill fortune (for, though a putting together of this sort would have the feeling of kinship with the human, still it would not have either pity or fear; for with respect to one who has ill fortune, the pity concerns his not deserving it, and the fear concerns his being similar to us, so that what occurs will be neither pitiable nor fearful). The one between these, then, is left. He who is neither distinguished by virtue and justice nor changing to bad fortune on account of vice and wickedness if of this sort, but one who changes on account of

some mistake and is one of those in great repute and of good fortune such as Oedipus, Thyestes, notable men of families of this sort. 82. "Sound" translates epiekês. In Book 5 of the Nichomachean Ethics (1137a31- 1138a3) it is the virtue that belongs to the one who is more just than justice, for he sees where the general rules of justice embodied in the law fall short in every particular case. The epiekês is thus the man of equity. As one who in principle never errs, he ought never to suffer from making mistakes. 83. The greek is philanthrôpon. Aristotle discusses it once in the Nicomachean Ethics (1155a20) in the context of a discussion of friendship or philia.

32-33

Of every tragedy there is an entanglement120 and an unraveling,121 the things outside and often some of those without being the entanglement and the remainder the unraveling. And I mean the entanglement to be what is from the beginning until that part which is an extreme [escathon] from which it changes into good fortune or misfortune, and by unraveling what is from the beginning of the change until the end. 120. "Entanglement" is desis; it could also be translated "tying," "binding up," or "complication." 121. "Unraveling" is lusis, from the verb luô, to loosen or free; it also has the sense of resolving, and later in the text even of analysis.

45 About all the other kinds we have already spoken, but it remains to speak about talk and thought. Let the things about thought be those established in the writings about rhetoric, for this is more particular to that way of inquiry. Those things fall under thought which are to be produced by speech. The parts of these are proving, disproving, and the producing of passions (such as pity, fear, or anger and all that are of this sort) and further aggrandizing and belittlings.

47 It is a virtue of talk to be clear and not low. That from ordinary words is thus clearest but low (the poiêsis of Cleophon is an example and that of Sthenelus), while the use of alien words is august and alters the idiomatic.

I mean by alien the foreign, metaphor, the lengthened, and everything beyond the ordinary. But, were someone to make everything of this sort, it would be either an enigma or a barbarism, an enigma if out of metaphors and a barbarism if out of foreign words. For this is the form of an enigma: while speaking of things that exist to join them together in impossible ways. One cannot do this in putting together [end of page 54] other words, but in putting together metaphors it is possible, for example, "I saw a man who welded bronze on a men with fire" and things of this sort. But when they are from foreign words, it is a barbarism. There ought to be, somehow, a blending of these. For, on the one hand, the non-idiomatic will make it not low, for example, the foreign, metaphor, ornament, and the other species [eidê] mentioned, and, on the other hand, the ordinary will make for clarity. The lengthenings, shortenings, and alterings of words contribute not the least part to the combination of clarity of talk with the non-idiomatic. For because of the occurrence of the unusual and its difference from ordinary talk, they will make for the non-idiomatic, but, because they share in the usual, there will be clarity.

54-55

10/19/22, 12:44 AM Topic: Introducing Our Thematic Frameworks

https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/143558/discussion_topics/1618168 1/3



This is a graded discussion: 100 points possible due Oct 21

Introducing Our Thematic Frameworks Michael Grafals

1 1

Due Date Your initial post and response post to a peer are due by midnight on Friday (by 11:59 PM) . You must write at least 600 words and your response to a peer should be at least 150 words.

Guidelines Avoid Plot Summary

Part of mastering college-level literary analysis is avoiding a response that focuses on summarizing the plot. Since you are writing to an audience that has already read the story, a focus on plot summary is not necessary.

Analyze Evidence Instead of relying on plot summary you will support your interpretation by using and analyzing textual evidence. When you quote the story make sure you cite the page number: for instance, after the quotation put the page number in parenthesis (60). Avoid writing out "on page 60". When you quote a passage from the story make sure you analyze the context and meaning of what you quoted.

Title Your Post After you finish writing your response make sure to write an original title that captures the main idea(s) you are focusing on. You want to avoid having a generic title like 'Discussion of Thematic Frameworks'.

DO NOT SUBMIT A BLANK POST Plagiarism in this course, whether the taking of information from the internet without citing the source or taking from the writings of your peers, will result in a failing grade in the course. In order to avoid plagiarizing from your peers, I have set up discussions so that you can only see the responses of your fellow peers after you submit your response. If you submit a blank post and then

10/19/22, 12:44 AM Topic: Introducing Our Thematic Frameworks

https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/143558/discussion_topics/1618168 2/3

post a response immediately afterwards I will assume you are taking information from your peers. You will not get credit on the assignment if you submit a blank post.

Focus on the Following in Your Response Using Textual Evidence and Analysis

Disclaimer: Please be aware that the aim of your initial discussion post is to touch on each of the prompts/questions listed below. How you choose to order and frame your response is entirely up to you. You need not answer each of the questions within each prompt in full detail—but do touch on each prompt overall. Divide your argument into 2-3 paragraphs as opposed to a single block of text, and please do not exceed 1100 words. Do not number your responses and cite your sources appropriately with MLA in-text citations and page numbers. Likewise, please do not forget to respond to at least one peer for full credit.

1. To Be Self-Conscious: In the excerpts you read from The Diary of Anne Frank, Frank describes her sense of self-consciousness: “I can watch myself and my actions, just like an outsider. The Anne of every day I can face entirely without prejudice, without making excuses for her, and watch what’s good and what’s bad about her. This ‘self-consciousness’ haunts me, and every time I open my mouth I know as soon as I’ve spoken whether ‘that ought to have been different’ or ‘that was right as it was’” (Frank 217). How does Frank’s understanding of her own self- consciousness here and in other parts of the excerpts compare with the definition you might have had prior to reading the text? How does it compare with the self-conscious feelings experienced by the narrators in “Sonny’s Blues” or in “The Child Hero’s Lament”?

2. Anagnôrisis and Other Greek Concepts: In On Poetics (the first known work of literary theory) Aristotle focuses on the concept of self-consciousness in tragic narratives through his use of the term anagnôrisis—its translation being “recognition” (Aristotle 22). Consider Aristotle’s discussion of the importance of “recognition," "entanglements" (desis) “reversal” (peripeteia) and other Greek concepts in his theory of narrative. How might these terms apply beyond their use in a tragic narrative? When might these terms take place in “The Child Hero’s Lament” or in “Sonny’s Blues”? (Don't forget to read Seth Benardete and Michael Davis' footnotes!)

3. “Nothing is a One": Aristotle suggests that a narrative can never truly account for a single person because that single person is connected to a multitude of others, each with their own stories (Aristotle 25). How do you see this at work in any one of the three narratives you read (Frank’s diary, “Sonny’s Blues” or “The Child Hero’s Lament”)? What does the interconnected nature of these narratives suggest about the development of one’s own self-consciousness?

4. What is the Poetics Really About?: Often when students consider Aristotle's Poetics they take his work to be a literal how-to guide on how narratives ought to function—for instance, they focus on his description of the three-act story structure with a beginning, middle and end, how virtue is rewarded while wickedness is condemned, the various proper rules of a good tragedy, etc. However, how might you look at Aristotle's Poetics as a philosophical consideration of the

10/19/22, 12:44 AM Topic: Introducing Our Thematic Frameworks

https://fiu.instructure.com/courses/143558/discussion_topics/1618168 3/3

Replies are only visible to those who have posted at least one reply.

Search entries or author

 Reply

relationship between human action, narrative, and self-consciousness? Consider Aris’ own frustration with the SWBAT (Students Will Be Able To) portion of her lesson plan (Acevedo 70). Can you quantify self-consciousness as a specific “skill” to be learned in a lesson?

Unread  

Found online at: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/seminar1fall20

D O N A S H E R /

steel… But even as the pain took hold of my hand with the car s ¿ounce and rattle, my spirits began to lift, a small glow of assurance wanned me as Everett s words echoed far back in my m ind„ ., Let's go, we got to get this nigger to a doctor. Within the urgency, the humorous pky and idiom, was a suggestion of alliance, kinship, acceptance: I hadroade it a little way through the barrier. /

I turned to Wesley. “That was some powerM Panama Red last night.” /

Wesley nodded solemnly, "I can dig it." /

A thin white scar remains, riding the ridge of the knuckles like a badge of initiation, an emblem of brøle.

I never scored the big touchdown, never made it all the way through to the other side—none of us^whiteys do—but ten years later, when I was house pianist at the hungry i in San Francisco, a middle-aged black man approached me in the bar following an entr'acte medley of Duke Ellington tunes. He said4ie had enjoyed the music and that I must have grown up or spent a Lot of time around Harlem to play like that, I told him I had been boriAnd bred in eastern Massachusetts. *Gkay,” he said, “but somewhere ilong the line you mustve eaten some okra and sweet potato pie.” /

16

ipng/files/2010/08/Baldwin-Sonnys-Blues.pdf

£cfMwír»> Tomes. "Qonnj’s Blues." “The f i e f t o n A r t f h o f e j y . Ed. Feiris+ein and D«vi<J Rr'-fe. 8(o©mi'n«+on *

JrAtana Up 7 (T-##.

Sonny’s Blues

James Baldwin

I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn t believe it, and I read it again. Then perhaps I just stared at it, at the newsprint spelling out his name, spelling out the story* I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside.

It was not to be believed and I kept telling myself that, as I walked from the subway station to the high school And at the same time 1 couldn t doubt it. I was scared, scared for Sonny. He became real to me again, A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long, while I taught my classes algebra. It was a special kind of ice. It kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less. Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream. This would always be at a moment when I was remembering some specific thing Sonny had once said or done.

When he was about as old as the boys in my classes his face had been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it; and he’d had wonderfully direct brown eyes, and great gentleness and privacy. I wondered what he looked like now. He had been picked up, the evening before, in a raid on an apartment downtown, for peddling and using heroin.

I couldn't believe it: but what I mean by that is that I couldn’t find any room for it anywhere inside me. I had kept it outside me for a long time. I hadn't wanted to know. I had had suspicions, but I didnt name

17

JAMES BALDWIN

them, I kept putting them away. I told myself that Sonny was wild, but he wasn’t crazy. And he’d always been a good boy, he hadn’t ever turned hard or evil or disrespectful, the way kids can, so quick, so quick, espe­ cially in Harlem. I didn’t want to believe that I’d ever see my brother going down, coming to nothing, all that light in his face gone out, in the condition I'd already seen so many others. Yet it had happened and here I was, talking about algebra to a lot of boys who might, every one of them for all I knew, be popping off needles every time they went to the head. Maybe it did more for them than algebra could.

I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn’t have been much older than these boys were now. These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual pos­ sibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two dark­ nesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone.

When the last bell rang, the last class ended, I let out my breath. It seemed I’d been holding it for all that time. My clothes were wet—I may have looked as though I’d been sitting in a steam bath, all dressed up, all afternoon. I sat alone in the classroom a long time. I listened to the boys outside, downstairs, shouting and cursing and laughing. Their laughter struck me for perhaps the first time. It was not the joyous laughter which— God knows why— one associates with children. It was mocking and insular, its intent was to denigrate. It was disenchanted, and in this, also, lay the authority of their curses. Perhaps I was listening to them because I was thinking about my brother and in them I heard my brother. And myself.

One boy was whistling a tune, at once very complicated and very simple, it seemed to be pouring out of him as though he were a bird, and it sounded very cool and moving through all that harsh, bright air, only just holding its own through all those other sounds.

I stood up and walked over to the window and looked down into the courtyard. It was the beginning of the spring and the sap was rising in the boys. A teacher passed through them every now and again, quickly,

SONNY S BLUES

as though he or she couldn’t wait to get out of that courtyard, to get those boys out of their sight and off their minds. I started collecting my stuff. I thought I’d better get home and talk to Isabel.

The courtyard was almost deserted by the time I got downstairs. I saw this boy standing in the shadow of a doorway looking just like Sonny. I almost called his name. Then I saw that it wasn’t Sonny, but somebody we used to know, a boy from around our block. He’d been Sonny’s friend. He’d never been mine, having been too young for me, and, anyway, I’d never liked him. And now, even though he was a grown­ up man, he still hung around that block, still spent hours on the street corners, was always high and raggy. I used to run into him from time to time and he’d often work around to asking me for a quarter or fifty cents. He always had some real good excuse, too, and I always gave it to him, I don’t know why.

But now, abruptly, I hated him. I couldn’t stand the way he looked at me, partly like a dog, partly like a cunning child. I wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing in the school courtyard.

He sort of shuffled over to me, and he said, “I see you got the papers. So you already know about it.”

“You mean about Sonny? Yes, I already know about it. How come they didn’t get you?”

He grinned. It made him repulsive and it also brought to mind what he’d looked like as a kid. “I wasn’t there. I stay away from them people.”

“Good for you.” I offered him a cigarette and I watched him through the smoke. “You come all the way down here just to tell me about Sonny?”

“That’s right” He was sort of shaking his head and his eyes looked strange, as though they were about to cross. The bright sun deadened his damp dark brown skin and it made his eyes look yellow and showed up the dirt in his kinked hair. He smelled funky. I moved a little away from him and I said, “Well, thanks. But I already know about it and I

got to get home.” “I’ll walk you a little ways,” he said. We started walking. There were

a couple of kids still loitering in the courtyard and one of them said goodnight to me and looked strangely at the boy beside me.

19

JAMES BALDWIN

“What re you going to do?” he asked me. “I mean, about Sonny?” “Look. I haven’t seen Sonny for over a year, I’m not sure I’m going

to do anything. Anyway, what the hell can I do?”

“That’s right,” he said quickly, “ain’t nothingyou can do. Can’t much help old Sonny no more, I guess.”

It was what I was thinking and so it seemed to me he had no right to say it.

"I’m surprised at Sonny, though/’ he went on—he had a funny way of talking, he looked straight ahead as though he were talking to him­ self—“I thought Sonny was a smart boy, I thought he was too smart to get hung.”

“I guess he thought so too/’ I said sharply, “and that’s how he got hung. And how about you? You’re pretty goddamn smart, I bet.”

Then he looked directly at me, just for a minute. “I ain’t smart/’ he said. “If I was smart, I’d have reached for a pistol a long time ago."

“Look. Don’t tell me your sad story, if it was up to me, I’d give you one.” Then I felt guilty—guilty, probably, for never having supposed that the poor bastard had a story of his own, much less a sad one, and I asked, quickly, “What's going to happen to him n

Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers

Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.

Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS

Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?

Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.

We write plagiarism Free Content

Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.

Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.