Aristotle was a Greek philosopher around the time 350 BC. He wrote a selection titled Tragedy and the Emotions of Pity and Fear from his work titled Poetics. One of Aristotle concepts is based on imitation. The poet should make his plots and verses on his experiences to imitate real life actions. William Wordsworth was a late seventeenth, early eighteenth century poet. He wrote a selection titled from the preface to Lyrical Ballads. In this work, one of his main points for poems is to choose incidents and situations from common life.
Both Wordsworth and Aristotle have similar ideas about relating poems to imitate an action, and to evoke emotions to help understand the poetry better. Aristotle focuses this selection on tragedy. Aristotle says that Tragedy is a process of imitating action which has serious implications, is complete and possess magnitude (A World of Ideas, Lee A. Jacobus p. 684). Imitating tragedy makes the audience or reader relate themselves to what is happening. If the poet is to have a tragedy that is unrealistic than the audience will disapprove of it and will not believe it.
William Wordsworth also argues how poems should be imitated similar to real life. The principal object, then proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout, as far as possible, (Jacobus p. 718), If one chooses situations which people can relate to they are more apt to understand the poem and thus more likely to enjoy it. People relate to common life occurrences easier, making ones poetry easier to comprehend.
If one goes on making poems which people do not relate to then they are more likely to not understand and relate too. Wordsworth argues Humble and rustic life was generally chosen (Jacobus p. 718). He gives many reasons for this: it speaks a plainer language, people can understand this life better, feelings of greater simplicity, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated. If people can relate to the poem, they can remember it better, and also talk to others about it more.
Aristotle again argues that poets should write their plots to imitate actions in real life in paragraph 18. So from these considerations it is evident that the poet should be a maker of his plots more than his verses, insofar as he is a poet by virtue of his imitations and what he imitates in his actions (Jacobus p. 689). In this quote he is saying the poet should concentrate on making the plot more real. Its like movies presently; people would rather see a Saving Private Ryan which imitated real life in World War II pretty well, rather than some unrealistic war drama.
What makes a tragedy a good tragedy is how real it seems. If People can believe it and the plot seems real to them, they can relate to the tragedy and make it more plausible. Wordsworth also states that For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (Jacobus p. 719). These feelings or emotions should stimulate the human mind and evoke enlightenment. The powerful feelings in the poems are to keep interest in the readers. Aristotle also used tragedy to rouse emotions from his audience.
In his example of tragedy, he wants to evoke pity and fear from the audience. The audience can relate to the hero and his fate, sympathize what could happen to him as if it were them. The audience can share the same attitude as the hero; if he is in danger the audience worries, if he gets recognized the audience cheers. As Aristotle says Tragedy purges us of these emotions (Jacobus p. 682). A good poets objective is to bring out emotions from the reader or audience; it helps them to understand the meaning of the poem better.
Aristotle argues about fear and pity in a tragedy Since it is the pleasure derived from the pity and fear by means of imitation that the poet should seek to produce, it is clear that these qualities must be built into the constituent events. When an audience goes to watch a drama of a tragedy, it is important for them to be able to relate to them. A tragedy is supposed to evoke emotions, but if the poet writes something that does not seem real, than it will not initiate these emotions, thus inhibiting the true purpose of the tragedy.
Wordsworth argues how poets have the ability to conjure passions produced by real events (Jacobus p. 725). This exercises the readers minds to feel the passions themselves. When they read these pieces of writings it gives the reader power to express what he thinks. When they read a poem, which sparks a memory they can relate to, it brings them that same passion the poet brings in his work. Wordsworth argues My purpose was to imitate, and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men. When he wrote Lyrical Ballads he tried to imitate real life actions, to make it easier to understand his poems.
He did not try to put all these words in his works where common man can not understand; he tried to write so it causes interest in the common man. Other poets, write complicated words so that the common readers can not understand what the poet is trying to get across. He also argued that sometimes his poems were not understood, Wordsworth also argues how people fault him for not relating to common life, among other reasons, that he may not censure me for not having performed what I never attempted (Jacobus p. 721).
One of the arguments against Wordsworth writings was people could not understand or relate to some of his poems. They blamed him for what they could not comprehend, which could be a reason he initially received bad reviews for his writings. Aristotle also argues From what has been said it is also clear that the poets job is not to report what has happened but what is likely to happen (Jacobus p. 688). Not only should a tragedy be based on imitated actions, but should be predicted what best suites the plot. This is what differs the poet from a historian.
A historian also writes down actions from experiences, but it is the poets job to dictate a believable conclusion. Wordsworth also separates a poet from a historian, The Poet writes under one restriction only, namely the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human Being, (Jacobus p. 726). A historian write down what he sees how it happens, but a poet writes down imitations, but also writes for the people what they want to read. A poet writes to spark emotions and feelings, a historian writes to tell situations as they occur. To conclude Aristotle and Wordsworth have similar objectives and styles of writings.
They both felt that a good poem was to include imitated actions, and to spark emotions from the readers. Aristotle felt tragedy was an important aspect in a good poem, while Wordsworth wrote to defend the criticism of his first publication. Through Tragedy Aristotle tried to evoke fear and pity from the audience, using real actions to help bring out these emotions. Wordsworth tried to evoke powerful feelings through poetry that a common man could understand. Both Aristotle and Wordsworth do a good job explaining how a poem should be written.
