The past few semesters, I have used Aristotle more and more in the playwriting classroom. His writing, I believe, has a place even with beginners. After all, it is difficult to talk about theatre in the Western world without mentioning this great thinker. Western drama shows a great reliance—some might say, too great—on this ancient Greek.
The Poetics, thankfully, is a short book. But it’s also very obtuse. I ask the students to approach it “scripturally.” By comparing the Poetics to holy writ, I suggest that it deserves constant study and re-reading. Also, much can be skimmed—for example, discussions of specific Greek word choice or authors no longer extant. These sections can be treated like the genealogies and census reports in the Hebrew scriptures—skimmed over without worry. This comparison works extremely well in Bible Belt Arkansas, where I teach, though it would likely work elsewhere.
The Poetics is filled with valuable lessons. I usually focus on one Aristotelian insight in particular: his six dramatic elements, I find, are especially useful for teaching different dramatic approaches. Aristotle divided drama into six components, often translated as Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Song, and Spectacle. While Aristotle prioritizes Plot above all else, he sees these elements as necessary cogs in the mechanics of scriptwriting. I use the elements, not to suggest commonalities among plays, but rather to show how different authors use different approaches. Continue reading “Teaching with Aristotle’s Poetics”