4. CAUSALITY
Cause means (1) that from which, as immanent material, a thing comes into being,
e.g. the bronze is the cause of the statue and the silver of the saucer, and so are
the classes which include these. (2) The form or pattern, i.e. the definition of the
essence, and the classes which include this (e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general
are causes of the octave), and the parts included in the definition. (3) That from
which the change or the resting from change first begins; e.g. the adviser is a cause
of the action, and the father a cause of the child, and in general the maker a cause
of the thing made and the change-producing of the changing. (4) The end, i.e. that
for the sake of which a thing is; e.g. health is the cause of walking. For 'Why does
one walk?' we say; 'that one may be healthy'; and in speaking thus we think we have
given the cause.
āAristotle, Metaphysics
8. POIESIS
Material
Formal
artist
Art
āIt follows that an art is the same thing as a rational quality, concerned
with making, that reasons truly. All Art deals with bringing some thing
into existence; and to pursue an art means to study how to bring into
existence a thing which may either exist or not, and the efficient cause
of which lies in the maker and not in the thing madeā¦.ā
āAristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
9. POIESIS
It is clear, then, from what we have said
that the poet must be a "maker" not of
verses but of stories, since he is a poet in
virtue of his "representation," and what he
represents is action. Even supposing he
represents what has actually happened, he
is none the less a poet, for there is
nothing to prevent some actual
occurrences being the sort of thing that
would probably or inevitably happen, and
it is in virtue of that that he is their
āmaker."
āAristotle, Poetics
Parthenon Metope, Centaurs and Lapiths
10. IMITATION
Speaking generally, poetry seems
to owe its origin to two particular
causes, both natural. From
childhood men have an instinct for
representation, and in this respect,
differs from the other animals that
he is far more imitative and learns
his first lessons by representing
things.
āAristotle, Poetics
Polykleitos,
Doryphorus
11. IMITATION
ā¦if a man smeared a canvas with
the loveliest colors at random, it
would not give as much pleasure
as an outline in black and white.1
And it is mainly because a play is a
representation of action that it
also for that reason represents
people.
āAristotle, Poetics
Polygnous,
Iliupersis
12. IMITATION
And then there is the enjoyment people
always get from representations. What
happens in actual experience proves
this, for we enjoy looking at accurate
likenesses of things which are
themselves painful to see, obscene
beasts, for instance, and corpses. The
reason is this: Learning things gives great
pleasure not only to philosophers but
also in the same way to all other men
āAristotle, Poetics
Laocoƶn
17. CATEGORIES
Properties
Substantial
Gen
eral
Human
Being a
Warrior
Spec
ific
Being a
Poet
Being a
Ruler
Being
David
Accidental
Being
Male
Having
used a sling
Having
slain
Goliath
ā¦poetry is something more
scientific and serious than history,
because poetry tends to give
general truths while history gives
particular facts.
By a "general truth" I mean the
sort of thing that a certain type of
man will do or say either probably
or necessarily.
āAristotle, Poetics
19. CATEGORIES
Properties
Substantial
Gen
eral
Human
Being a
Warrior
Depictio
Spec {
n
ific
portraya
{
l
Being a
Poet
Being a
Ruler
Being
David
being
David
Accidental
Being
Male
Having
used a sling
Having
slain
Goliath
Depiction is a representation of
an exemplary specimen (not any
particular individual) that fuses
essential traits, including
functions, from various
individuals.
Portrayal, a representation of a
specific individual by virtue of
mimicking unique (or essential)
properties.
20. CATEGORIES
Properties
Substantial
Gen
eral
Human
Being a
Warrior
Depictio
Spec {
n
ific
portraya
{
l
Being a
Poet
Being a
Ruler
Being
David
being
David
Accidental
Being
Male
Having
used a sling
Having
slain
Goliath
What we have said already makes it further
clear that a poet's object is not to tell what
actually happened but what could and would
happen either probably or inevitably. The
difference between a historian and a poet is
not that one writes in prose and the other in
verseāindeed the writings of Herodotus
could be put into verse and yet would still be
a kind of history, whether written in metre
or not. The real difference is this, that one
tells what happened and the other what
might happen.
āAristotle Poetics
23. POIESIS
History
Exemplar
History
ā¦poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because
poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.
By a "general truth" I mean the sort of thing that a certain type of man will do
or say either probably or necessarily.
āAristotle, Poetics
24. POIESIS: ACTION
Climax
Rising Action
Reversal
Falling Action
Tragedy is, then, a representation of an action that is heroic and
complete and of a certain magnitudeāby means of language enriched
with all kinds of ornament, each used separately in the different parts of
the play: it represents men in action and does not use narrative, and
through pity and fear it effects relief to these and similar emotions.
āAristotle, Poetics
28. POIESIS: CHARACTERS
The objects the imitator represents are
actions, with agents who are necessarily
either good men or badāthe diversities
of human character being nearly always
derivative from this primary distinction,
since the line between virtue and vice is
one dividing the whole of mankind. It
follows, therefore, that the agents
represented must be either above our
own level of goodness, or beneath it, or
just such as we areā¦.
āAristotle, Poetics
Massacchio, Expulsion
from the Garden of Eden
29. POIESIS: CHARACTERS
In respect of Character there are
four things to be aimed at. First,
and most important, it must be
good. Now any speech or action
that manifests moral purpose of
any kind will be expressive of
character: the character will be
good if the purpose is good.
Donatello, Penitent
Magdalene
31. POIESIS: CHARACTERS
The second thing to aim at is
propriety. There is a type of manly
valor ā¦ unscrupulous cleverness is
inappropriate.
Brunelleschi, Sacrificeof
Isaac
32. POIESIS: CHARACTERS
The second thing to aim at is
propriety. There is a type of manly
valor ā¦ unscrupulous cleverness is
inappropriate.
Ghiberti, Sacrificeof
Isaac
34. POIESIS: CHARACTERS
Thirdly, character must be true to
life: for this is a distinct thing from
goodness and propriety, as here
described. The fourth point is
consistency: for though the subject
of the imitation, who suggested the
type, be inconsistent, still he must be
consistently inconsistent.
Drunken Satyr or Barberini
Faun
35. POIESIS:
CHARACTERS
Character is that which reveals
choice, shows what sort of thing a
man chooses or avoids in
circumstances where the choice is
not obvious, so those speeches
convey no character in which there is
nothing whatever which the speaker
chooses or avoids.
āAristotle, Poetics
36. POIESIS: CHARACTERS
Climax
Rising Action
Reversal/Discovery
Falling Action
Clearly the story must be constructed as in tragedy, dramatically,
round a single piece of action, whole and complete in itself, with a
beginning, middle and end, so that like a single living organism it may
produce its own peculiar form of pleasure.
āAristotle, Poetics
40. POIESIS: SIX PARTS OF TRAGEDY
Necessarily then every tragedy has six constituent parts, and on these
its quality depends. These are plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle,
and song
The most important of these is the arrangement of the incidents, for
tragedy is not a representation of men but of a piece of action, of life, of
happiness and unhappiness, which come under the head of action, and
the end aimed at is the representation not of qualities of character but
of some action; and while character makes men what they are, it's their
actions and experiences that make them happy or the opposite.
āAristotle, Poetics
41. POIESIS: PLOT
Climax
Rising Action
Reversal/Discovery
Falling Action
By "plot" I mean here the arrangement of the incidents: ācharacterāā¦.
All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for
which we live is a certain kind of activity, not a quality.
āAristotle, Poetics
43. GLEN GARRY, GLEN
ROSS
POIESIS: CHARACTER
Character: that which determines the quality of the agentsā¦Character gives us qualities, but it is in our actionsāwhat we
doāthat we are happy or the reverseā¦Character in a play is that which reveals the moral purpose of the agents,
48. Los Straightjackets: My Heart Will Go
On
POIESIS: MELODY
āMelodyā, what is too completely understood to require explanation.
āAristotle, Poetics
49. Moldy Peaches: Anyone Else But
You
POIESIS: MELODY
āMelodyā, what is too completely understood to require explanation.
āAristotle, Poetics
50. BEAUTY
Moreover, in everything that is beautiful, whether it
be a living creature or any organism composed of
parts, these parts must not only be orderly
arranged but must also have a certain magnitude of
their own; for beauty consists in magnitude and
ordered arrangement. From which it follows that
neither would a very small creature be beautifulā
for our view of it is almost instantaneous and
therefore confusedānor a very large one, since
being unable to view it all at once, we lose the
effect of a single whole; for instance, suppose a
creature a thousand miles long. As then creatures
and other organic structures must have a certain
magnitude and yet be easily taken in by the eye, so
too with plots: they must have length but must be
easily taken in by the memory.
āAristotle, Poetics
Picasso, Girl Before a
Mirror
55. VIRTUES
Thus a master of any art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate
and chooses thisāthe intermediate not in the object but relatively to us. If it
is thus, then, that every art does its work wellāby looking to the
intermediate and judging its works by this standard (so that we often say of
good works of art that it is not possible either to take away or to add
anything, implying that excess and defect destroy the goodness of works of
art, while the mean preserves it; and good artists, as we say, look to this in
their work), and if, further, virtue is more exact and better than any art, as
nature also is, then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate.
I mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions,
and in these there is excess, defect, and the intermediate.
61. CATHARSIS
since tragedy represents not only a complete action but also
incidents that cause fear and pity, and this happens most of all when
the incidents are unexpected and yet one is a consequence of the
other. For in that way the incidents will cause more amazement than
if they happened mechanically and accidentally, since the most
amazing accidental occurrences are those which seem to have been
providential, for instance when the statue of Mitys at Argos killed
the man who caused Mitys's death by falling on him at a festival.
Such events do not seem to be mere accidents. So such plots as
these must necessarily be the best.
āAristotle, Poetics
62. CATHARSIS
A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also,
as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable
accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work;
in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity
and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
āAristotle, Poetics
70. VIRTUES OF THE ARTIST
Mean
Magnificence
over the top
A Virtue Specific to Patrons and Artists
71. VIRTUES OF THE ARTIST
There are also other dispositions in
relation to money, namely, the mode
of observing the mean called
Magnificence ... the excess called
Tastelessness or Vulgarity, and the
defect called Paltriness....
In respect of honor and dishonor,
the observance of the mean is
Greatness of Soul, the excess a sort
of Vanity, as it may be called, and the
deficiency, Smallness of Soul.
A Virtue Specific to Patrons and Artists
78. ML King Jr Memorial Waterfall
Houston Conwill, Estella Majoza and Joseph De Pace, Photo by Ariana McNulty
79. MAGNIFICENCE
The defect corresponding to the magnificent disposition is called
Paltriness, and the excess Vulgarity, Want of Taste or the like. The
latter vices do not exceed by spending too great an amount on
proper objects, but by making a great display on the wrong
occasions and in the wrong way. We will however speak of them
later
The magnificent man is an artist in expenditure: he can discern what
is suitable, and spend great sums with good taste.
āAristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IV.4-5