The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's Poetics

by Watson, Walter

• ISBN13: 9780226875088
• ISBN10: 0226875083
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Of all the writings on theory and aesthetics-ancient, medieval, or modern-the most important is indisputably Aristotle's Poetics, the first philosophical treatise to propound a theory of literature. In the Poetics, Aristotle writes that he will speak of comedy-but there is no further mention of comedy. Aristotle writes also that he will address catharsis and an analysis of what is funny. But he does not actually address any of those ideas. The surviving Poetics is incomplete. Until today. Here, Walter Watson offers a new interpretation of the lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics. Based on Richard Janko's philological reconstruction of the epitome, a summary first recovered in 1839 and hotly contested thereafter, Watson mounts a compelling philosophical argument that places the statements of this summary of the Aristotelian text in their true context. Watson renders lucid and complete explanations of Aristotle's ideas about catharsis, comedy, and a summary account of the different types of poetry, ideas that influenced not only Cicero's theory of the ridiculous, but also Freud's theory of jokes, humor, and the comic. Finally, more than two millennia after it was first written, and after five hundred years of scrutiny, Aristotle's Poeticsis more complete than ever before. Here, at last, Aristotle's lost second book is found again.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's Poetics	p. 1
Aims of the Present Book	p. 9
Method to Be Followed	p. 11
Prospective Readers	p. 13
Groundwork
Aristotle's Arts and Sciences	p. 19
The Organon	p. 19
Preface to the Theoretical Sciences	p. 22
Mathematics	p. 23
The Physical Sciences	p. 25
The Biological Sciences	p. 27
First Philosophy	p. 29
The Order of the Arts and Sciences	p. 31
The Practical Sciences	p. 35
The Productive Sciences: Poetics	p. 42
Rhetoric	p. 44
Scientific Rationality as a Guiding Idea	p. 46
Causes	p. 47
The Symbolon Argument
Causes in the Poetics	p. 59
Poetic Imitation	p. 65
The Analysis of Poetic Imitation	p. 65
The Scope of Poetic Imitation	p. 67
The Evolution of Poetic Imitation	p. 71
Expectations of Poetics II	p. 79
The Epitome of Poetics II	p. 83
Comparison of the Epitome with Our Expectations	p. 86
The Kinds of Poetry
Imitative Poetry	p. 99
The Autonomy of Imitative Poetry	p. 99
The Autonomy of Aristotelian Disciplines	p. 99
Autonomy of Art in the Aristotelian Tradition	p. 101
Historical, Educational, and Imitative Poetry	p. 106
Historical Poetry	p. 110
History of the Problem	p. 110
Historical Poetry and History	p. 114
Historical Poetry and Imitative Poetry	p. 118
Historical Poetry and Rhetoric	p. 121
Educational Poetry	p. 125
Poetry and Philosophy	p. 125
Poetry and Education	p. 130
Transition to the Specific Ends of Imitative Poetry	p. 135
The End of Tragedy
The End of Tragedy as Catharsis	p. 141
The Fearful Emotions	p. 150
The Removal of Emotions by Emotions	p. 152
The Aim of Tragedy: Symmetry	p. 158
The Mother of Tragedy: Pain	p. 164
Poetry and the Practical Sciences	p. 168
Poetic and Therapeutic Catharsis	p. 168
Is Catharsis in the Poem or in the Audience?	p. 170
Is Catharsis Educative?	p. 172
The Practical Ends of Poetry	p. 174
Comedy
The Definition of Comedy	p. 179
The Mother of Comedy: Laughter	p. 183
The Laughable	p. 188
The Definition of the Laughable	p. 189
Accounts of the Laughable	p. 191
The Causes of the Laughable	p. 192
Laughter from the Diction	p. 196
Laughter from the Incidents	p. 210
Cicero's Account of Laughter	p. 215
The Science of the Laughable	p. 223
The Embodiment of the Laughable in Comedy	p. 235
The Matter and Parts of Comedy	p. 235
Old, New, and Middle Comedy	p. 248
Conclusion	p. 251
Appendix: The Order and Provenance of the Aristotelian Corpus	p. 253
Notes	p. 277
Bibliography	p. 289
Index	p. 295
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