People forget Aristotle's Poetics in terms of modern day instructional fiction writing cannon because it is old, but the issues and even the medium of drama is as old as man, and more importantly, Aristotle's work stays timeless because he is not trying to understand the workings of the worst plays, but of the finest works.
Somehow we have come to believe that man's more primative nature is the most signficant, this attitudes prevades to an alarming degree in all sorts of bad habits, bad techniques, and bad public and private policy. Aristotle takes what he considers the highest form, Tragedy, and offers a cook book on how the good ones function. He doesn't waste time explaining to us bad works.
Has anybody else read, Poetics, it's only 80 or so pages, and I found it incredibly insightful.
[This message has been edited by Tanglier (edited March 07, 2003).]
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
If anyone wants to read it, you can find it on the web atThe Internet Classics Archive. Of course all the ancient Greeks seem to spend a certain amount of any work blowing snot out their noses, but Aristotle does touch on all the essential elements of powerful narrative, besides which most real studies of fiction writing refer to him at least some.