Poetics
Ratings22
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings22
Average rating3.7
A founding text of European aestheticism and literary criticism, Poetics underpins our moden understanding of imaginative writing. Anthony Kenny's new translation is accompanied by associated material from Plato, Sir Philip Sidney, P. B. Shelley, and Dorothy L. Sayers and a wide-ranging introduction.
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As this is Aristotle, one of the classics, supposedly the greatest of all perspectives on literary criticism, I was expecting to be blown away. My reaction instead was mostly indifference. There were a few interesting nuggets, but it was otherwise unappealing. In fact, his breakdown of what makes good poetry, specifically tragedy, read to me as formulaic and very limiting. Perhaps I would need to actually study the classics and philosophy as a whole to get a better grasp on this, but this didn't exactly whet my appetite for such study.
