Week Five

Aristotle's Poetics is brought to mind by Kate DeBolt's poem, mostly by the title ("Recognition Scene" -- I would cut the "The" because it is a recognition scene of a softsurreal sort rather than a poem about recognition scenes per se, tho it is a bit more ambiguous than "A Recognition Scene" would be).

I'm assuming you've read The Poetics -- there are many versions online -- hint, if you haven't, now's your chance:

At the Internet Classics Archive (ok, really frumpy html)
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html

At Perseus (great resource)

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0056

Aristotle's genres are Tragedy, Comedy, and the Epic, although the Comedy part is missing. It's that always the way?

There are some ideas in the poetics that are important to consider, especially given our rubric:

imitation/representation. what does it mean to imitate 1) nature, 2) another writer, 3) "reality"
beyond this, what does representation mean?

the classic book regarding this is Auerbach's MIMESIS. The classic scene is a recognition scene: Odysseus & Penelope.

interruption of another course poem, this one an ongoing project that Jeremy may share bits of, if he's happy with it. about writing an ars poetica. because, of course, THE POETICS is an ars poetica, albeit not written as poetry.

But I've several back burner things involving another group of ars poetica, perhaps more suited to Jeremy's task than Aristotle:

Philip Sidney, Defense of Poesie (i.e., what is it good for?)
at Project Gutenburg (great resource)
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1962

the much later Percy Bysshe Shelley's Defence of Poetry
at Bartleby, pretty good resource, block pop ups
http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html

George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie
prosody, style, diction/decorum
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16420

Thomas Love Peacock, The Four Ages of Poetry
http://www.thomaslovepeacock.net/FourAges.html