The Influence of Aristotle on William Wordsworth’s Poetry and William Shakespeare’s Plays
Aristotle’s Poetics is not one of his major works, although it has exercised a great deal of influence upon subsequent literary studies and criticism. In this work Aristotle outlines and discusses many basic elements that an author should adhere to in order to write a great tragedies and/or poetry. Two important topics that Aristotle addresses and believes to be crucial to the art work is the mimesis, or imitation of life, and that the audience has an emotional response from the work, or a catharsis. Both William Wordsworth and William Shakespeare were believers in Aristotle’s philosophy concerning tragedies and poetry, and employed these two elements within their works.
The basic definition for mimesis is the act of creating an image or images in someone’s mind, through an artistic representation such as, a play, a poem, or a painting, idea or ideas that will then be associated with past experiences. Aristotle is concerned with the artist’s ability to have a significant impact on others. First though the idea or belief that the artistic representation should be occurrences that people could relate to, or experiences that they would be familiar with. William Wordsworth intentions were made clear in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads when he states that a “…poem was to [chuse (sic) incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them… (650)” This mimesis can be seen throughout Wordsworth poem Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth is reflecting upon his memories of the effect that Tintern Abbey had on him while he was away, and describing them to his sister. Wordsworth grew up around Tintern Abbey and with his belief that nature taught humans moral lessons, he was very descriptive in his language describing the landscape and the basic affect that it personally had upon him.
Aristotle also believed that the use of simple language in the poetry will keep the ultimate meaning from becoming blurred by complicated figures of speech. Wordsworth basically rejects the ideas of “personification of abstract ideas (652)” and “poetic diction (653)” in The Preface to Lyrical Ballads, because his main goal is to imitate the language that the common men speak everyday. Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey is written in journal style, which is not known for loftiness in speech or complicated language, but for an easy flowing style which employs common everyday language and description. This allows the audience to understand and develop a picture of the image in their mind.
Have you ever wondered why there are minister’s that wear veils? Especially black veils! In my essay I will be arguing about why I conjecture Mr. Hooper wears the black veil. Mr. Hooper is a character from the story ‘’The Ministers Black Veil’’. I’ll be explaining all of my observations on why he wears the veil, and what precipitated Mr. Hooper to convey everyone’s sins.
Every year, more and more money is donated to Africa to promote democracy in order to get rid of the powerful coups in many countries through out the continent. While the coups are declining and democratic governments are being established, the economic growth and development of Africa is not anywhere it should be considering the abundant natural resources and coastline that the continent possesses. Even though countries, like the United States of America, donate millions of dollars they are a large reason why Africa is underdeveloped economically. The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade is the most devastating event in the history of the world. Nearly 14,000,000 men, women, and children were displaced, sold into slavery, and killed by the trade routes.(
For many years’ people have been using articles of clothing that have different meanings. Some cultures wrap their heads as a way of feeling bound to their culture. Other people wear merchandise that connects them to a group to be recognized as a part of that popular culture. Many people even get tattoos that represent their own struggle or burden. In this case, Mr. Hooper is wearing the veil to hold the burden of his own personal sins. This is apparent through the many ideals about the symbol of the veil that is interpreted through the different articles.
Aristotle, a philosopher, scientist, spiritualist and passionate critic of the arts, spent many years studying human nature and its relevance to the stage. His rules of tragedy in fact made a deep imprint on the writing of tragic works, while he influenced the structure of theatre, with his analysis of human nature. Euripides 'Medea', a Greek tragedy written with partial adherence to the Aristotelian rules, explores the continuation of the ancient Greek tales surrounding the mythology of Medea, Princess of Colchis, and granddaughter of Helios, the sun god, with heartlessness to rival the infamous Circe. While the structure of this play undoubtedly perpetuates many of the Aristotelian rules, there are some dramatic structures which challenge its standing with relevance to Aristotle's guidelines, and the judgment of Medea as a dramatic success within the tragic genre.
Doris Lessing, a British novelist in the modern and contemporary literary era. She was born in Persia 1919 and in 2007 won a literary Nobel Prize. Lessing wrote over forty books throughout her career concentrating on social criticism and science fiction, one of which is the science fiction novel, Briefing for a Descent into Hell. Lessing uses science fiction because she "has to use words to talk to us" T.S. Elliot, but words would have failed to express the meaning of this book. Lessing describes her view of mystical vision of human existence in the following ways, by describing man 's spiritual nature, remembering the purpose of one 's spiritual life, and challenging us to remember spiritual nature.
The main character in the story is Mr. Hooper. He is a minister trying to teach the people of his parish. He comes to mass on Sunday wearing a black veil over his face, and the parishioners begin to wonder. They begin to make conclusions as to why he is wearing the veil, but no one actually comes up to question him. He would give his sermons in the same style as usual, but with the veil on it seemed to have more of a powerful effect. “Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meetinghouse” (Hawthorne, Minister’s 275). The subject of the sermon was about secret sin; how we hide from them from the ones we love most. We try to forget about them and move on with our lives, but we forget that God can see those sins (Hawthorne, Minister’s 275). That reason why Mr. Hooper wore the veil; so that people could realize that everyone wears a veil, and that we all are hiding behind it. But the people didn’t get it. They assumed that Hooper was trying to hide from his sins. Everyone in the village began to avoid him; children ran away from him if they saw him. All the resentment began to encumber Mr. Hooper; his fiancée even left him because he wouldn’t take the veil off. Mr. Hooper was on his deathbed when he finally revealed why he was wearing the veil, but even then he didn’t take the veil off. Mr. Hooper’s last words were, “Why
Neoclassical writers emphasized the importance of the Poetics of Aristotle, as well as the unities of place, time, and action that they extracted from his works. In Poetics, Aristotle laid out the six essential elements of tragedy: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song (McManus). Each of these components held certain value to what Aristotle believed to be a successful play, however, plot and character held to be the most important.
Courageous and admirable with noble qualities defines a heroine. In Aristotle’s Poetics he describes a tragic hero as a character who is larger than life and through fate and a flaw they destroy themselves. Additionally, Aristotle states excessive pride is the hubris of a tragic hero. The hero is very self-involved; they are blind to their surroundings and commit a tragic action. A tragedy describes a story that evokes sadness and awe, something larger than life. Furthermore, a tragedy of a play results in the destruction of a hero, evoking catharsis and feelings of pity and fear among the audience. Aristotle states, "It should, moreover, imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation." (18) For a tragedy to arouse fear, the audience believes similar fate might happen to them and the sight of the suffering of others arouses pity. A tragedy's plot includes peripeteia, anagnorisis, hamartia and catharsis. Using Aristotle’s criteria, both characters in Oedipus The King and The Medea share similar qualities that define a tragic hero such as being of noble birth, having excessive pride, and making poor choices. They both gain recognition through their downfall and the audience feels pity and fear.
In this paper I ask, how did slavery begin in Ghana? What impact did it have on Ghana? How badly is Ghana underdeveloped due to this enslavement that took place? Lovejoy, Northrup, and Rodney argue that the transatlantic slave trade did in fact contribute to the underdevelopment of Africa. I support their arguments and believe the trade didn’t exactly “destroy” Ghana, but it did affect it by not letting the country improve faster, although eventually Ghana was able to depart from that “underdeveloped” category.
In Aristotle’s Poetics it is said that everything violent should happens off stage; that the drama is not from the spectacle or gore, but should result from what the characters have done. Oedipus Rex is a good example of this technique because much of the story is relayed through the messenger. An example is when Oedipus stabs himself and when the queen commits suicide.
Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. Gerald F. Else. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1967. Dorsch, T. R., trans. and ed. Aristotle Horace Longinus: Classical Literary Criticism. New York: Penguin, 1965. Ley, Graham. The Ancient Greek Theater. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991. Reinhold, Meyer. Classical Drama, Greek and Roman. New York: Barrons, 1959.
The sixth and least important in Aristotle’s point of view is that of Spectacle, or costumes and props. This is the least important because Aristotle believes that the plot will overcome all the rest. Although Aristotle recognizes the emotional attraction of spectacle, he argues that superior poets rely on the inner structure of the play rather than spectacle to arouse pity and fear; those who rely heavily on spectacle “create a sense, not of the terrible, but only of the monstrous”(http://www.cnr.edu/home/).
Throughout time, the tragedy has been seen as the most emotionally pleasing form of drama, because of its ability to bring the viewer into the drama and feel for the characters, especially the tragic hero. This analysis of tragedy was formed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, and also noted in his Poetics (guidelines to drama). As a playwright, Shakespeare used Aristotle’s guidelines to tragedy when writing Othello. The play that was created revolved around the tragic hero, Othello, whose tragic flaw transformed him from a nobleman, into a destructive creature, which would inevitably bring him to his downfall. This transformation follows an organic movement of the complex plot from the beginning, middle, to the end of the drama while keeping the tragic hero consistent and also real. As the play moves on the audience feels pity for the tragic hero as well as fear for themselves as they watch the event taking place on stage. Othello can be seen as one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, because it follows the guidelines set up by Aristotle’s Poetics.
In Poetics, Aristotle defines plot as “the arrangement of the incidents” (Aristotle 12). He indicates that there are six elements in every tragic play, which are plot, character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle, among these plot is placed in the foremost positi...
The fact that the opening lines of the epic are about Achilles’ power and the people he has killed as a soldier on the Greek side show the huge importance given to him and his power. In his confrontation with Agamemnon regarding Chryseis, he tells Agamemnon that the Greek people want him to give Chryseis back to her father, the priest. This is an example of his great status among his people – he represents them, the one that lets Agamemnon hear their voice.