Aristotle: Some Key Concepts
	Look up the Orignal Article! Notes based on Leon Golden's Article on Aristotle for the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism, edited by Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, c1994. Reference Area PN81 .J554 1994
	Aristotle's former teacher Plato is down on art because 1> Its character as mimesis forces on it a profound ontological alienation from true reality. 2> Artistic mimesis addresses itself essential to the emotional, rather than the intellectual, aspect of the psyche.
	For Aristotle, different art forms use mimesis with different means of representation, different manners of communicating that representation to an audience, and different levels of ethical behavior represented. For Aristotle, mimesis comes from a fundamental "desire to know." Human learning is inherently mimetic. People derive a pleasure of "learning and inference" from mimesis. Poetry is "more philosophical and significant" than history because it aims to represent the universal instead of the particular, which is history's object.
	Literary mimesis represents a complete and unified action with a beginning, middle, and end linked by necessary and probable causes. The art form should also be small enough for the audience to clearly remember it. Arts succeeds when the beginning, middle, and end of an action are clearly and persuasively motivated (i.e. are sufficiently mimetic for learning and inference). Good plots should include Peripeteia--reversal of fortune--and Anagnorsis--recognition of some unknown person or fact. Overly simple plots fail when there is no peripeteia. Episodic plots fail when there is no anagnorisis. Both peripeteia and anagnorisis should arise naturally out of the plot.
	Tragic mimesis should evoke pity and fear. Pity toward someone who has suffered undeserved misfortune, fear when we realize it is someone like ourselves. Though pity and fear are painful in real life, in tragedy they are integrated into a structure whose goal is the intellectual pleasure produced by mimesis. Hamartia is a tragic mistake or flaw. In the past it was often discussed as a moral flaw. Now many argue that it is an intellectual mistake that cannot subvert the dignity of someone "like us" (i.e. for whom we feel pity and fear).
	Katharsis has been interpreted in 3 Ways 1> Medical. Katharsis as a homeopathic purgation. This interpretation is based on Aristotle's use of the term in the Politics. 2> Moral Purification. Katharsis as a way of experiencing pity and fear virtuously (i.e. in moderation). This interpretation is based on the Nicomachean Ethics. 3> Cognitive. Katharsis as a pleasure taken from the learning and inference that mimesis occasions. This interpretation based on the Poetics. Taken in this light, katharsis is akin to "clarification."
	For Aristotle, all forms of mimesis, including tragic and comic mimesis, have as their goal the evocation of intellectual pleasure. In the Rhetoric Aristotle states that the direct opposite of pity is righteous indignation (nemesan or nemesis), which is a feeling of pain at undeserved good fortune just as pity is a feeling of pain at undeserved misfortune.
	See Also The Ancient World Web The Voice of the Shuttle Classical Theory Section