Aristotle and the Poets: Truth, Fiction and Tragedy

Aristotle’s Poetics offers an account of imitative art and its pleasures that stands at the origins of Western aesthetic theory. In response to Plato’s critique of poetry as twice-removed from reality, Aristotle defends—and theorizes—imitation as an essential component of human education and of the “discovery of form in things.” Fiction is false in its particulars, but somehow true in its universality. What does drama teach us that history and philosophy cannot?

In this class, we will explore the unique power of drama by reading Aristotle’s Poetics, as well as a different Athenian tragedy each week (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides)—testing, as it were, Aristotle’s account against our direct experiences of reading tragic drama. What, according to Aristotle, are the rules, purpose, and unique power of tragedy? Why is representation essential to drama? What is the role of aesthetic experience in shaping an ethical life? 

We’ll evaluate Aristotle’s principal claims and arguments: on imitation and its universality, the interplay between self and circumstance and between character and action, the fragility of happiness, the work of the emotions, especially pity and fear, and the effect of katharsis, or “purification,” through artistic experience.

Please Note:
There *is* no physical Brooklyn Institute. We hold our classes all over (thus far) Brooklyn and Manhattan, in alternative spaces ranging from the back rooms of bars to bookstores to spaces in cultural centers, including the Center for Jewish History, the Goethe-Institut, and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. We can (and do) turn any space into a classroom. You will be notified of the exact location when you register for a class.

Instructors will contact students approximately one week prior to the first class with reading assignments and details about the course location.