Aristotle - Poetics

"He is a lot like his teacher Plato. Thus I hate them both."


"Well, I tell you what.

Did you ever see 'Dead Poet's Society'? You know that scene where it's the first day of school and Robin Williams has them read that essay out loud, with all sorts of formulae and things for analyzing poetry - where Robin Williams graphs a formula on the board: PxI=G ?

Remember that?

That's the feeling I got with this. It seems to miss the forest for the trees.

OK, it's an analysis of drama and epic poetry. But to what end?"


"Is it totally sacreligious for me to say that I think Aristotle is kinda wack?
...
It just seems so antiquated to me, and though I know I should honor my fathers and appreciate the history in this, it kills me that I have to read Aristotle's noodlings about tragedy vs. epic poetry for a playwriting class.
...
The real tragedy (ho ho ho) here was that I just don't give a shit about how an ancient Greek dude thought plays should be structured"


"It wasn't a bad book; in fact, I understood most of it. However, I didn't feel like I was left with a greater sense of wisdom."


"This doesn't strike me as a vital text in theory. It would seem to be of better use to those studying the Classics and simply as background than to any other particular purpose. I know there's an assumption among some folk that text anywhere near as dated as this could be of practical use in this day and age, but there's plenty of proof to the contrary."


"philosophy likes to go in circles. in circles philosophy likes to go. the philosophy of poetry is looked at closely. poetry and the philosophy behind it is analyzed on it's application to life. . . and on and on and on and on I can go."


"I'm glad I read it since now I'm more impressive to elitists, Aristotle wasn't exactly engaging because it was so decontextualized. I was just plopped down in this discussion and had no idea what he was responding to, besides Oedipus and the Odyssey and Iliad because I kind of know those texts, because Aristotle just assumes you're up on all the plays he's quoting."


"I loved how Aristotle continually referenced Greek poets who wrote incorrectly. Maybe they wrote correctly and he was wrong....? After all, they were in the majority and we have to be democratic about truth! :P"