Aristotle on the Art of Poetry
The oldest book on literature ever written, and arguably still the most influential. In just twenty-six pages, Aristotle invented the entire discipline of literary criticism, asking what makes stories work and why we need them at all. He argues that poetry is imitation of action, that tragedy purges our emotions through pity and fear, and that plot is not merely what happens but how one thing leads to another. These ideas have shaped every subsequent discussion of storytelling, from Renaissance drama to contemporary film theory. The Poetics is startlingly modern in its insistence that literature transmits universal truths more effectively than history or philosophy, and that the mechanics of narrative deserve rigorous analysis rather than casual appreciation. For anyone curious about why certain stories haunt us, why structure matters, or how the West learned to think about literature at all, this tiny, ancient text remains essential reading.
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“With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.””
— Aristotle
“A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles.””
— Aristotle
“Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.””
— Aristotle
“the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.””
— Aristotle
“A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of the sort in it.””
— Aristotle
“The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy; Character holds the second place.””
— Aristotle
“For the essence of a riddle is to express true facts under impossible combinations.””
— Aristotle
“All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of action.””
— Aristotle
“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids.””
— Aristotle
