Aristotle's Poetics

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2011

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Aristotle's Poetics. The Poetics is, as far as we know, the first ever work of literary theory. Written in the 4th century BC, it is the work of a scholar who was also a biologist, and treats literary works with the detached analytical eye of a scientist. Aristotle examines drama and epic poetry, and how they achieve their effects; he analyses tragedy and the ways in which it plays on our emotions. Many of the ideas he articulates, such as catharsis, have remained in our critical vocabulary ever since. The book also contains an impassioned defence of poetry, which had been attacked by other thinkers, including Aristotle's own teacher Plato.Translated by medieval Arab scholars, the Poetics was rediscovered in Europe during the Renaissance and became a playwriting manual for many dramatists of the era. Today it remains a standard text for would-be Hollywood screenwriters.With:Angie HobbsAssociate Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of WarwickNick LoweReader in Classical Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonStephen HalliwellProfessor of Greek at the University of St AndrewsProducer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:10.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:12.0	Hello, in the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher and biologist Aristotle wrote a book about
0:18.4	plays and how to construct them.
0:20.8	He set down on paper his opinion of the works of Sophocles and Euripides and gave some hints on how to write a successful tragedy.
0:28.0	Aristotle's book is called The Poetics and as far as we know, it's the earliest surviving work of literary criticism and the most
0:35.3	influential. The work contains ideas that resonated down the centuries. It was translated
0:40.5	by Arab scholars and provided Renaissance playwrights with a rulebook for writing
0:44.7	great drama and even today it uses a manual on Hollywood screenwriting courses.
0:50.2	With me to discuss Aristotle's Poetics, Arangi Hobbs, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Warwick,
0:59.0	Nick Lowe, Reader in Classical Literature at Royal Holloway University of London and Stephen
1:04.9	Halliwell Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews.
1:08.3	Andjy Hobbs, Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Macedonia. Could you give a brief thumbnail sketching? in at the court of the Kings of Macedonia and was a friend of the grandfather of the future
1:24.8	Alexander the Great who's going to figure in a moment. When he was 17 Aristotle went to
1:30.8	Athens to study with Plato and studied with him for 20 years.
1:35.7	Then in 347 he seems to have felt it prudent to go into exile for about eight years
1:41.8	probably prompted by a wave of anti-Macedonian
1:44.8	feeling in Athens, possibly also peaked that he didn't get the headship of the academy
1:49.8	after Plato's death.
1:51.8	So he spends eight years traveling around the Eastern Aegean and
1:54.4	living on Lesbos. He marries money in the Eastern Aegean and he conducts a lot of
2:01.2	researches into the natural sciences.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.