Principles of Drama: Aristotle

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Principles of DramaAristotleTragedy

• Dr. Stephen Ogden
• BCIT Liberal Studies

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Commentary on Drama

• PLATO (5th C. BC)
• The Republic describes, from pure reason alone,
  the perfect State.
• Set in dramatic form
• Drama must justify its place in the perfect
  society.
• But, drama is not the truth, by definitionit is
  a copy an imitation, a LIE.
• It also shows bad things in a likeable way

• The quality of the drama is irrelevant in fact
  excellent artistry in an evil cause is the worst
  possible evil coruptio optima est pessima.
• Drama is extremely dangerous because ordinary
  people mistake or even prefer lies to truth
  that is, fantasy to reality.

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Two Main Conceptions of Drama

• Plato the Rationalist-Moralist conception of
  Drama.
• use rational process of reason to determine what
  drama is (i.e. its nature) and what follows from
  that necessarily by logic. Shows what should be
  the case in theory.
• Aristotle the empirical-scientific conception of
  Drama.
• use observation to show what works and what
  doesnt work in fact. Shows what is the case.

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One Alternative Modern Conception of Drama

• The political-ideological conception of Drama.
• drama is approved to the degree that it promotes
  the principles or propaganda points of some
  specific political or ideological system.
• e.g. totalitarian systems demand that theatre
  supports advances their underlying doctrines
• e.g. a playwright constructs a drama according to
  his social, political or religious system (an
  ology or ism). Examples
• heroes personify his principles ideas and
  villains oppose his ideas.
• structure of drama reflects the structure of his
  dogmas
• Sometimes termed didactic drama
• (didact L. teacher.)

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ARISTOTLE foundational science of Drama

• Aristotle was taken to be scientific truth for so
  long in Western society that
• his particular method of analysis the very
  terms and the concepts that he used became part
  of the way of not only thinking writing about
  Drama, but of actually writing the drama itself
• dramatists wrote their plays according to
  Aristotles analysis.
• present-day dramatists go out of their way to
  claim that they do Greek drama

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ARISTOTLE method

• Aristotle is modern, in the sense that his
  analysis of Drama is founded on its effectsthe
  way that drama works on the audience.
• Aristotle is thus grounding his analysis of drama
  on human psychology, not on abstract or
  theoretical ideals or on morality or theology.
• Aristotle is showing what works thus the best
  drama is the drama that works best.
• (He does have first principles about quality.)

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ARISTOTLE Origin

• Drama is imitation Mimesis.
• Imitation natural to humans from birth.
• unique among animals, man learns likes learning
  by imitation
• There is a universal human pleasure in
  imitationwe like seeing images of objects.
• a means to understanding i.e. a form of pleasure

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ARISTOTLE Drama Agents

• Drama agents people DOING things
• Gr. dram to do
• Drama has the following characteristic aspects
  identifying its species of mimesis
• Medium rhythm, language melody
• (e.g. diegetic non-diegetic in film)
• Mode (i.) narration, (ii.) monologue, or (iii.)
  agents engaged in activity (dialogue)
• Object to imitate agents (actors).
• Agents can be either admirable or inferior.
• Characterthe practice of moral behavior
• Characters differ by defect or excellence
• Thus agents can be better, worse or the same as
  us
• Tragedy imitates people better than us Comedy
  worse

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Origins of Greek Tragedy

• Greek drama was originally religion
• socially-integrated liturgical ecclesiastic
  function
• Over time, narration (orig. oral epic poetry) was
  replaced by actors choral parts reduced.
• Poiesis (Gr. to make) divided into types of
  agents imitated
• Serious-minded people imitating fine actions
  Tragedy
• Trivial-minded people imitating inferior persons
  Comedy
• Comedy imitating inferior people means laughter,
  since we laugh at what is disgraceful.
• Laughableerror or disgrace that does not
  involve pain or destruction

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ARISTOTLE Tragedy Defined

• TRAGEDY imitates action that is as follows
• Admirable
• Complete
• Possessing magnitude
• Pleasurable language
• Separated into different parts (sections)
• Acted not narrated
• Effecting fear and pity
• Through fear and pity, purifying the emotions

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ARISTOTLE Tragedys Parts

• Spectacle
• Diction (Dialogue)
• Character
• Reasoning
• Lyric Poetry (Music Score in film?)
• Plot (the organisation of the actionevents)
• SPECTACLE Tragedy never performed is still a
  tragedy, and a good tragedy can be badly
  performed or set.
• DIALOGUE Likewise, because drama is the
  imitation of action, the choice arrangement of
  action to be imitated is more important than the
  way that the imitation is realised in words. A
  good dramatic idea can be badly written.
• AGENTS (characters) Tragedy imitates actions,
  not persons.
• PLOT Thus, because Drama is action Plot is the
  source and (as it were) the soul of tragedy.

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ARISTOTLE PLOT

• PLOT Reasoning and Character.
• Given the action of drama, character reasoning
  will be part of tragedy.
• CHARACTER What an agent does in a particular
  dramatic circumstance is determined by his
  characteri.e. his moral virtue. An unattended
  purse with a lot of money inside will he steal
  it? Depends upon his character.
• REASONING What are the factspast, present
  futurethat affect the agents decision about the
  purse?
• The decision will depend upon the agents
  reasoning.
• Character reveals the nature of choice.

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ARISTOTLE Primacy of Plot

• Tragedy is imitation of actions life, not of
  persons
• Well-being and ill-being reside in action
• The goal of life is an activity not a quality.
• (Good and Evil are not what you are but what you
  do.)
• The imitation of character is not the purpose
  what actors do character is included as one of
  the actions in the drama.
• So, eventsthe plotare what tragedy (drama) is
  there for and that is the most important thing of
  all.

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ARISTOTLE PlotBasic Concepts

• MAGNITUDE a sense that too small and too large
  are incomprehensible, so a plot has to
  sufficiently sized to be held in memory
  comprehension
• UNITY DETERMINATE STRUTURE each component
  event must be related to the concepts of drama
  (e.g. exciting fear pity) and must be such that
  the removal of it dislodges changes the whole.
  If the event does not do this, it is not part of
  the unity or structure.

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ARISTOTLE PlotBasic Concepts

• UNIVERSALITY The dramatist says what would
  happen, as opposed to the historian who says what
  has happened.
• Thus the dramatist is more philosophical
  serious than the historian the historian
  expresses only particulars but dramatist
  expresses what is universal.
• Universal means speech or action that agrees
  with some given kind of person in accordance
  probability or necessity.
• The facts of life require plausible responses and
  expected responses e.g. parents protect their
  kids
• No Deus ex Machina.

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The Three Unities

• Unity of Time
• the audience cannot easily comprehend, and
  stagecraft is challenged to present, radical
  shifts in time.
• Unity of Action
• human psychology expects and feels rewarded by
  single series of complete action
• Unity of Place
• stagecraft is overcome by, and audiences are
  puzzled by, radical change of setting.

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ARISTOTLE PlotBasic Concepts

• COMPLETENESS A (correct) Plot has a beginning,
  middle and end.
• Not a trivial remark a plot thus has Unity and
  is non-arbitrary.
• Beginning How the events come about.
• Ab initio ab ovo in media res.
• Middle the sequence of action.
• End a resolution and a closure.
• Not Episodic no soap opera
• Two parts Complication and Resolution
• what come (a.) before and (b.) after the change
  of fortune.

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ARISTOTLE PlotSimple vs Complex

• COMPLEX ACTION the best kind of plot.
• Delivers a change of fortune one that involves
  reversal or recognition or (best) both
• REVERSAL (peripeteia) a change to the opposite
  in the actions being performed, in accordance
  with probability or necessity
• RECOGNITION (anagnorisis) a change from
  ignorance to knowledge.
• disclosing a either a close relationship or
  enmity on people marked out for good or bad
  fortune.
• best when occurs simultaneously with peripeteia.
• involves fear and pity, and astonishment.

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ARISTOTLE PlotBest kind

• Should not show decent men or women changing from
  good fortune to bad
• this creates disgust not fear pity
• Nor should depraved people been seen changing
  from bad fortune to good
• This least tragic not even agreeable
• Nor again should a wicked person be seen falling
  from good to bad fortune.
• Agreeable but no fear or pity
• Therefore the person should be intermediate
  between these (The Golden Mean).
• Not outstandingly morally bad or good.
• But better than we are.
• Will be shown to commit a serious error
  (hamartia)
• The consequences of this hamartia will create
  fear pity

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ARISTOTLE Plotbasic concepts

• ASTONISHMENT (to thaumaston)
• Tragedy is imitation of events that evoke fear
  and pity.
• These come about when things happen contrary to
  expectation and because of one another (rather
  than randomly)
• When this happens we feel astonishment

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ARISTOTLE Plotbasic concepts

• SUFFERING (pathos)
• an action which involves pain or destruction
• death, injury, extreme agony (includes emotional
  pain and destruction of attachments)
• Audience feels fear and pity
• essential for purification (katharsis)

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ARISTOTLE Hamartia (w. Hubris)

• Misunderstood as Tragic Flaw.
• Not flaw but serious error.
• remember that character is action not quality.
• The error should be, in principle, correctible,
  but
• Allows for the (factual) operation of Fate in
  human affairs.
• Serves as warning against Hubris

• wanton insolence
• In ancient Greece, a high crime
• humiliating a victim to gratify the victors
  desire.
• In drama, challenge to the gods.
• C. S. LEWIS Walk carefully, do not wake the envy
  of the happy gods, Shun Hubris.
• Brings about Nemesis.

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Hamartia examples?

• Odysseus
• Icarus (cf. Ovids Metamorphoses)
• Ozymandias
• Anakin Skywalker
• female characters?
• Creon
• look ahead to Frankenstein.

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Percy Bysshe ShelleyOzymandias

•  "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in
  the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a
  shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled
  lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its
  sculptor well those passions readWhich yet
  survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The
  hand that mocked them and the heart that fed

• And on the pedestal these words appear'My
  name is Ozymandias, king of kingsLook on my
  works, ye Mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside
  remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck,
  boundless and bareThe lone and level sands
  stretch far away.

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From Hamartia to Katharsis

• Katharsis purification of the emotions
• (the complex (best) plot has effected fear pity
  in the audience.)
• A medical idea early psychiatry
• Aristotle recognises what is a very modern
  positionthat emotions are an important part of
  human health.
• Disordered emotions lead to stress which effect
  physical symptoms to the point of fatality.
• Drama is thus a means of ordering, or balancing,
  the emotions so that good individual and social
  health are promoted,
• this seems like a direct engagement with Platos
  position on drama (that drama excites the
  emotions over Reason and thereby creates
  individual and, ultimately, social imbalance.)