Aristotle's Theory of Poetic Imitation
Plato was the first to use the word “imitation” in
relation with poetry, but Aristotle breathed into it a new definite meaning. So
poetic imitation is no longer considered mimicry, but is regarded as an act of
imaginative creation by which the poet, drawing his material from the
phenomenal world, makes something new out of it.
In Aristotle's view, principle of imitation
unites poetry with other fine arts and is the common basis of all the fine
arts. It thus differentiates the fine arts from the other category of arts.
While Plato equated poetry with painting, Aristotle equates it with music. It
is no longer a servile depiction of the appearance of things, but it becomes a
representation of the passions and emotions of men which are also imitated by
music. Thus Aristotle by his theory enlarged the scope of imitation. The poet
imitates not the surface of things but the reality embedded within.
The medium of the poet and the painter are
different. One imitates through form and colour, and the other through
language, rhythm and harmony. The musician imitates through rhythm and harmony.
Thus, poetry is more akin to music. Further, the manner of a poet may be purely
narrative, as in the Epic, or depiction through action, as in drama. Even
dramatic poetry is differentiated into tragedy and comedy accordingly as it
imitates man as better or worse.
Aristotle says that the objects of poetic
imitation are “men in action”. The poet represents men as
worse than they are. He can represent men better than in real life based on
material supplied by history and legend rather than by any living figure. The
poet selects and orders his material and recreates reality. He brings order out
of Chaos. The irrational or accidental is removed and attention is focused on
the lasting and the significant. Thus he gives a truth of an ideal kind. His
mind is not tied to reality: “It is not the function of the poet to
relate what has happened but what may happen – according to the laws of
probability or necessity.”
History tells us what actually happened; poetry
what may happen. Poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.
In this way, he exhibits the superiority of poetry over history. The poet freed
from the tyranny of facts, takes a larger or general view of things, represents
the universal in the particular and so shares the philosopher’s quest for
ultimate truth. He thus equates poetry with philosophy and shows that both are
means to a higher truth. By the word ‘universal’ Aristotle
signifies: “How a person of a certain nature or type will, on a
particular occasion, speak or act, according to the law of probability or
necessity.”
The poet constantly rises from the particular to
the general. He studies the particular and devises principles of general
application. He exceeds the limits of life without violating the essential laws
of human nature.
Elsewhere Aristotle says, “Art imitates
Nature”. By ‘Nature’ he does not mean the outer world of
created things but “the creative force, the productive principle of the
universe.” Art reproduce mainly an inward process, a physical energy
working outwards, deeds, incidents, situation, being included under it so far
as these spring from an inward, act of will, or draw some activity of thought
or feeling. He renders men, “as they ought to be”.
The poet imitates the creative process of
nature, but the objects are “men in action”. Now the ‘action’ may
be ‘external’ or ‘internal’. It may be the action
within the soul caused by all that befalls a man. Thus, he brings human
experiences, emotions and passions within the scope of poetic imitation.
According to Aristotle's theory, moral qualities, characteristics, the
permanent temper of the mind, the temporary emotions and feelings, are all
action and so objects of poetic imitation.
Poetry may imitate men as better or worse than
they are in real life or imitate as they really are. Tragedy and epic represent
men on a heroic scale, better than they are, and comedy represents men of a
lower type, worse than they are. Aristotle does not discuss the third
possibility. It means that poetry does not aim at photographic realism. In this
connection R. A. Scott-James points out that: “Aristotle knew nothing
of the “realistic” or “fleshy” school of fiction – the school of Zola or of
Gissing.” Abercrombie, in contrast, defends Aristotle for not
discussing the third variant. He says: “It is just possible to imagine
life exactly as it is, but the exciting thing is to imagine life as it might
be, and it is then that imagination becomes an impulse capable of inspiring
poetry.”
Aristotle by his theory of imitation answers the
charge of Plato that poetry is an imitation of “shadow of shadows”, thrice
removed from truth, and that the poet beguiles us with lies. Plato condemned
poetry that in the very nature of things poets have no idea of truth. The
phenomenal world is not the reality but a copy of the reality in the mind of
the Supreme. The poet imitates the objects and phenomena of the world, which
are shadowy and unreal. Poetry is, therefore, “the mother of lies”.
Aristotle, on the contrary, tells us that art
imitates not the mere shows of things, but the ‘ideal reality’ embodied
in very object of the world. The process of nature is a ‘creative process’;
everywhere in ‘nature there is a ceaseless and upward progress’ in everything,
and the poet imitates this upward movement of nature. Art reproduces the
original not as it is, but as it appears to the senses. Art moves in a world of
images, and reproduces the external, according to the idea or image in his
mind. Thus the poet does not copy the external world, but creates according to
his ‘idea’ of it. Thus even an ugly object well-imitated
becomes a source of pleasure. We are told in “The Poetics”: “Objects
which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when
reproduced with minute fidelity; such as the forms of the most ignoble animals
and dead bodies.”
The real and the ideal from Aristotle's point of
view are not opposites; the ideal is the real, shorn of chance and accident, a
purified form of reality. And it is this higher ‘reality’ which is
the object of poetic imitation. Idealization is achieved by divesting the real
of all that is accidental, transient and particular. Poetry thus imitates the
ideal and the universal; it is an “idealized representation of
character, emotion, action – under forms manifest in sense.” Poetic
truth, therefore, is higher than historical truth. Poetry is more
philosophical, more conducive to understanding than Philosophy itself.
Thus Aristotle successfully and finally refuted the charge of Plato and provided a defence of poetry which has ever since been used by lovers of poetry in justification of their Muse. He breathed new life and soul into the concept of poetic imitation and showed that it is, in reality, a creative process.
