Art

Artistic production

Aristote thinks artistic creation and the artisanal production like the realization of an idea conceived beforehand. In that, he is opposed to Plato according to which the artist is inspired by the divinity and the process of its creation does not control. Thus, any production requires:

- a formal cause (idea of the object to be produced presents in the imagination of the craftsman or the artist)

- a material cause: the matter on which the man acts

- an efficient cause: the technical control and the furnished effort by the man to transform the matter and to return it conform to the initial idea (prod technical) or to approach some (art)

- and a final cause: the object carried out

(Kant will take as a starting point the design aristotelician of art)

Art like imitation

In Poetic the , Aristote seems to fall under the Platonic tradition by presenting art as being an imitation, indeed, Plato explains in the Republic that the craftsman imitates the Idea of the object which it produces (this idea not being thus him). As for the artist, it does nothing but imitate the object produced by the craftsman. Art, as a production of object, is thus only one imitation of second order, of poor value. Aristote introduces to the concept of imitation under one day completely new, for him, the men like to imitate, for two essential reasons which are the pleasure and knowledge.

The esthetic pleasure makes its first appearance in the history of philosophy. It is related on the colors… and surprised (??) ; Aristote develops the idea according to which we can take pleasure to see a representation of a thing immonde: the important one not being the object of the representation but this representation itself. (Cf " Charogne" of Baudelaire). He insists at the distance existing between the thing represented and his imitation:

  • the imitation resembles this object but is not him, it results from the work of the artist, the way in which he formats his model.
  • the imitation can thus be beautiful, as a fruit of the development of the artist, starting from any model, and even if this model is not beautiful in itself.

With regard to knowledge, Aristote is opposed here radically to Plato which exhorts us to detach us from significant appearances and to turn us towards Idéale reality. He explains why it is necessary to impregnate the sensitive one in order to form an idea of it that one keeps in memory, thus, can us recognize the object instantaneously when it is again presented to us. So the imitation of significant reality, enables us to impregnate ourselves some, therefore to know it and recognize it more easily. This is why we start by looking at picture books…

The tragedy

In this work, Aristote grants a place essential with the tragedy. It is a point discussed between philologists, and almost mythical, to know if volume 2 of Poetic, devoted to the Comédie, and that certain comments of Aristote let imagine, written forever.

Definitions

It is about the “imitation of a noble, accomplished action until its end and having a certain extent, in a language raised of seasonings (rate/rhythm, melody and song)… It is an imitation made by characters in action, and not by the means of the narration, and which via pity and fear, achieves the purging of the emotions of this kind (...) " (chap6)

It is about a history which has an introduction, a development and an end. the action of the characters must be probable and it is advised that at least one of the characters refers to a person having existed. The tragedy is distinguished from the epopee in what the latter is done by means of the narration and is not held with probability, since she imitates facts having existed.

Catharsis

the purging of the emotions, or catharsis, occurs in the following way: the spectator starts by feeling pity or fear, but it does not give any broadth to them since it is carried by the action which proceeds under its eyes. Thus can it be detached some. In other words, which makes it possible to be detached from these emotions is the construction of the history. only a quite dependant history according to the above mentioned rules, i.e., formatted… makes it possible to obtain this result. (chap 14)

  • if one wants to make a bringing together with recent works, in particular cinematographic, one can be appropriate to consider that only a “worked” work formally and aesthetically allows this catharsis, and not presentation of rather raw images which do not allow to the spectator any remote setting…

“Left” the tragedy” or means by which must be realized this imitation…

  • the organization of the spectacle, which includes the 5 other parts, but which does not belong truly to poetic the

  • the history, or “fitting of the accomplished acts” is its greatest part, insofar as it includes/understands its end => chap 8,9,10,11,13,14 (+ concept of catharsis), 17,18
  • the character “is what is likely to determine a choice” => “what makes it possible to say that the characters in action are such or such” => “the character will be good if the choice is good” chap 15
  • the thought (chap. 19) “belongs to the field of the thought all that must be product not of the words: to show, refute, produce emotions like pity…” But, in the case of the tragedy, the effects must appear without reasoning, rising from the words or of the acts
  • the composition of the song and the expression (with the means of which the imitation occurs)
  • the song is the principal seasoning
  • the expression is “the manifestation of the thought through the words” and “fitting of the meters” => chap 17: it “makes it possible to give to the stories their form completed by as much as possible putting the situations under the eyes… thus making it possible to avoid internal contradictions…”

Parts of the expression, or anticipation of linguistics

The chap. 20 exposes “the parts of the expression taken as a whole: the letter, the syllable, the conjunction, the noun, the verb, the article, the inflection and the statement”… It is advisable here to notice the completely innovative character of this study which one could indicate, by anticipation, of the Linguistique.

Opposition of G and D, like that of p and the B, which makes it possible to define the language as a system of opposition. indeed, these consonants are always distinguished only one compared to the other what causes certain difficulties, topicality, at the time of the training of the reading, the structure being necessary to identify the element (from where global method of training of the reading)-->.

Smaller unit of sound

“The syllable is a sound without significance” will be thus reformulated by the linguists: the phoneme cf; gr. or will gra (which often corresponds to the syllable) is the smallest unit of sound, but is not meaning in itself.

Smaller unit of direction

“The name is a its compound and meaning which does not indicate the time, of which no part is meaning by itself” (see also interpretation, 2)

> the name is the smallest meaning unit… any word is a combination of sound and direction.

The articulation of the language

The linguistic concept of articulation of the language is present and even fundamental at Aristote, insofar as it enables him to distinguish the man from the animal: - articulation of the letters in syllables (or phonemes); poetic XX, 1456 B, 20 to 25 - articulation of the syllables (...) in names; poetic XX, 1457 have, 10 to 15; and Of interpretation II, 20 to 30 - articulation of the names in speech; interpreration, 4

Conventional character of the language

In the text of interpretation, Aristote specifies the conventional character of the language: “the name is a vocal sound, having a conventional significance… nothing is not by nature a name, but only when it becomes symbol, because even when inarticulate sounds, like those of the animals, mean something, none of them constitutes a name however”.

Old editions of Poetic the

See too

  • the Poetic one of Aristote in numerical reading.
  • Video

    : the influence of Poetic of Aristote on Nicolas Chick (video of analysis of interactive work)

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