Aristotle's Poetics [Paperback]

In this sustained interpretation, Stephen Halliwell demonstrates thatPoetics, despite its laconic brevity, contains a coherent statement of mimetic art in general. He assesses this theory against a background of earlier Greek views on poetry and art, particularly Plato's; and he goes further than many previous authors in setting Aristotle's ideas in the wider context of his philosophical system. The core of the book is an appraisal of Aristotle's view of tragic drama, in which Professor Halliwell contends that at the heart ofPoeticslies the philosophical urge to work out a secularized understanding of Greek tragedy.

An analysis of Aristotle's Poetics , this work attempts a sustained interpretation of the text, contending that it states a challenging theory of poetic art. It hints at a theory of mimetic art, and represents Aristotle's philosophical urge to work out a secularized understanding of Greek tragedy.

Stephen Halliwellis Professor of Greek at the University of St Andrews, UK. He is the author ofThe Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary(1987) also published by Bloomsbury, andGreek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity(2008).

Here is the essential guide for the student of the brief and puzzling Poetics, whether reading the Poetics on its own account as an Aristotelian treatise, or as the earliest work on those problems, about tragedy especially, that are still discussed in literary theory.' British Book News

A splendid work of scholarship and analysis ... in Halliwell's book, the Poetics has acquired a brilliant new interpretation Times Literary Supplement

Stephen Halliwell's Aristotle's Poetics is, quite simply, the best book available on that difficult work. With a rare combination of literary subtlety and philosophical insight, Halliwell demonstrates convincingly that the Poetics must be read in the context of Aristotle's ethical and social thouglC+