Week of Books - Poetics

 

Poetics
Aristotle

A common phenomenon is evidence of this: even when things are painful to look upon - corpses for instance, or the shapes of the most revolting animals - we take pleasure in viewing highly realistic images of them.
(Page 20)

I am not sure how I haven't picked this one up yet, but I am so glad I did. An alternative title for it could be "Advice to an Aspiring Author (with special notes to the murder mystery writer)". In this book, Aristotle is rejecting the previous philosophy of Plato's in the theory of ideas, and branching out to his focus on philosophy, poetry, and history. He sketches out the development of poetry, and argues how it is more philosophical than history, where history just give facts and poetry explores universal truths. The depth of morality can be explored through tragedy in story and plays, he explains. All the elements he depicts of course would be familiar to us as the Greek tragedy he finds some faults in those, however, it also could fit quite well (was he writing for the future?) with a very different kind of story we know today as the murder mystery or detective novel. You could study these guidelines in the context of the tragedy of King Oedipus or any of the Lord Peter Whimsey mysteries (by Dorothy L. Sayers). In each of these, the morality of the characters, the gruesome murder scene, the emotion and how they attempt to be virtuous, the twists of the story, etc all fit into Aristotle's guidelines for the storytelling of tragedy. 

I love that this book even includes a talk given by Dorothy L. Sayers in Oxford in 1935 titled "Aristotle on Detective Fiction." She discusses Poetics specifically, as an outline for writing detective novels. "In one phrase he sums up the whole essence of the detective story proper. Speaking of the denouement of the work, he says: 'It is also possible to discover whether some one had done or not done something.' Yes indeed."

Now let me get on with writing my next (detective) story, taking my notes/reminders from Aristotle.

Poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history; poetry utters universal truths, history particular statements.
(Page 28)