Aristotle's Poetics: Exploring the Natural Laws of Human Nature

Amazon Customer: It's poetics as title says. There's no explanation in it. So if you want to read original work without angry critical comments and explanations then go for it. I suggest you to avoid this edition; get one with comments and analysis for better understanding

India on Oct 29, 2023

Kalpana Yadav: It encourages me to write my own poems

India on Oct 04, 2023

Pritish Mishra: Excellent

India on Sep 10, 2023

Sibaprasad: ita a good book for understanding poetics but i have still ain't red this as i thought this was some history book maybe i will read when i get so boread that i don't have anything to do

India on May 19, 2023

Jefferson RossJefferson Ross: This is still, after 2500 years, the most definitive pattern for telling a story that an audience will enjoy. Every movie, play or novel that you’ve been moved by? The template is here. Short read. Highly recommended.

United States on Sep 04, 2022

Bruno Richard Hauptmann: He is not Carl Reiner, but is over 2000 years old and he understands storytelling (and hence screenwriting). His name is Aristotle and he is from Athens. Or Sparta, or some such place. The writing is a bit dated as you might expect for a time 2000+ years ol, which makes his pop culture references hard to grasp. But the concepts are current and, "dead on balls accurate" as Mona Lisa Vito Gambini might say.
I hate Kindle books, but this one was the right price (probably due to copyright having expired >1950 years ago).

United States on Jul 19, 2021

Peter Williams: A good guide on how to write a story. Forget all this rising action/climax/falling action nonsense. Instead have a unity of action, a noble character or protagonist with a human failing. Have him make a tragic error (hamartia) which will lead to a peripeteia or reversal of fortune... good luck to bad luck. Let the plot become complicated with unforeseen consequences which will lead to disaster in which the main character suffers the most as a consequence of his foolish actions. Let the story finish with him understanding that he is the author of his own downfall (anagnorisis). Let the reader go away with a sense of pathos for the protagonist. Read Sophocles's Antigone and you will see this perfectly.

United States on Mar 20, 2018

Vincent Wijnstein: I was over thirty years of thinking what Shakespear meant by To Be or Not To Be. I guess I was not very culture minded, but between page 1 and 20 I got the answer to I was looking for over decennia.

I am a writer, and since a few years I've switched towards writing for movies screens. English is not my mother language, so that's my excuss for bad spelling or grammar. Anyhow, the reasson why I gave four stars, is because of the sticky way of my reading in the content of the book.

As I wrote above, English is not my mother tongue, and so I had made a long reading through this book.

But as for me, it helps to give my character a better mantaince on the pages of my script: Poetics define the nature of morale in a character by the way way he is found to be in a place, dnd not where he says he shall be...

The old To be or not to be line is finaly adapted in my way of thinking. More than I could describe what it is worth to know where Shakespear is comming from, I hope that my review lift a tip of the veil, if you are still in doubt to be purchasing or not to be purchasing...

United States on Feb 05, 2014

Melinda: I was surprised at how readable this was. Artistotle's world was very different that ours is today. He talks of poetry and drama, which we think of as separate, as being the same thing. And of the addition of a second player in that drama as being an innovation. But his talk of the use of spectacle in poetry/drama made me think of the sometimes tiresome CGI spectacles in our modern movie dramas. His observations applied equally to his time and to our most current entertainment.

He was the first to write down many of the principles of plot and character that sometimes seem so obvious as to not need mentioning. And then he'll use that obvious observation to provide an insight that might not otherwise be quite so clear.

Some parts are just as relevant now as they ever were. Some parts are fascinating from an historical perspective, and made me wish I were more familiar with his chosen exemplars, like Aeschylus, Homer, and Euripides. Some parts are just cool, like his dissertation on metaphors, and how to construct them. And Some parts are more wholely of his time than ours.

Readable, for the most part, and anyone who professes a love of writing should read this.

United States on Dec 10, 2011

J. C. Wrightson: As the shortest book I've got on my literature student bookshelf, this Dover Thrift Edition Poetics is the cheapest, and most flimsy, but completely worthwhile book.

There's no introduction to the book, just a note about when it was written (circa 330BC) and about Aristotle himself, taking up less than a page. The remaining 60 pages are left to Aristotle.

It's not difficult to read, which was my initial concern. Another review says this translation is simplified, but I would say it's not over simplified- you still need to understand general poetic terms like 'anapaests or trochaic tetrameters' (p22) so don't feel like you need to look for a more academic, archaic, hard to read version.

The content is so short, it's like an essay on how to spot the strengths and weaknesses in plays, and it's not generalised, it's specific- 'Tragedy endeavours, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun' (p9), which in playwriting books I've read, it takes a whole chapter to say 'you're best off writing a play set within one day, it works better'.

I'm just on my second reading, marking out the important parts I'll need to refer to in future....

United Kingdom on Mar 11, 2010