1. Aristotle Poetics Dramatic Elements Dramatic Unities

2. Let there be LIGHT

3. Six Elements  Plot  Characters  Thought, motivation  Verbal expression, script  Song composition music/choral  Visual adornment set/costume

4. Plot  Plot-a tragedy cannot exist without a plot; can exist without characters  The basic principle, the “heart and soul”, the structure of the events

5. Characters Characters defined by context; action Imitates the persons primarily for the sake of the action; clearly reveals the bent of man’s moral choice

6. Thought Motivation of characters; the ability to state the issues and appropriate points pertaining to a given topic; the passages in which they (characters) try to prove something is or is not so, or state some general principle.

7. verbal expression How do we get rid of the man? What do you mean? A Script: conveyance of thought through language

8. Song composition music/choral the greatest of the sensuous attractions (through language)

9. visual adornment Sets/costume which has strong emotional effect (least connected with the poetic art)

10. PLOTS Simple Plots: continuous without reversal Complex plots: reversal -recognition: a shift from ignorance to awareness -“peripety” what is being undertaken to the opposite Peripeteia- a reversal of fortune, for better or for worse, for the protagonist. Used to describe a character’s fall in Greek tragedy.

11. Aristotle’s Dramatic Unities There are two dramatic unities outlined in Poetics Scholars later interpreted Aristotle’s ideas and as rules and added the third.....

12. Unity of Time -  Aristotle noted that a play’s action usually occurs in one day (or a little more)

13. Unity of Action -  Aristotle argued that the plot should reveal clearly ordered actions and incidents moving towards the plot’s resolution

14. Unity of Place -  A play’s action should occur in a single locale.