Aristotle & Derrida: Disparity
In his 4th Century B.C. work Poetics, Greek philosopher Aristotle effectively creates the world’s first critical book concerning the laws of literature. In French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s 20th Century work, he attempts to nullify, or deconstruct, and type of literary structure. Aristotle, a student of Plato, clearly has Plato's arguments in mind when he takes up the question of imitation in his book on poetics. In his discussions of imitation, Aristotle continues the examination of literature's effect on the audience begun by Plato. Aristotle, a formalist critic, claims that the author gives the work its true meaning, and that meaning is never-changing. Derrida and his controversial deconstructionist philosophy, on the other hand, sees the words as giving other implications. In The Gift of Death and Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, he uses his contention that words can only refer to other words, and therefore nothing is original, as a vehicle for communicating other commentary. Essentially, both writers believe that imitation is the only constant in literature. However, Poetics is dedicated solely to the purpose of explaining this imitation, while The Gift of Death and Archive Fever use deconstructionism as a
single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas difference; though at first the same freedom was admitted in Tragedy as of characters of a higher type. They differ in that Epic poetry admits but Section Seven delineates the structural requirements of Tragedy. Aristotle insists that a good plot must obey the principles of a “beginning, a middle, and an end.” A beginning cannot depend on previous action, an end must follow something, but can have nothing follow it, and a middle follows something and is followed by something. A good plot must obey these principles. A tragedy’s beauty increases as its length (magnitude) increases, provided that the whole is understandable and within the bounds of a reader’s limited memory. The action is dependent on change, and therefore the plot must, through chance or necessity, change bad fortune to good, or good to bad. Aristotle expands on his idea of what a plot should be in Section Seventeen. In Aristotle's opinion, a brilliant piece of work depends upon its plot formation. Inconsistencies in plot spell disaster; however, the writer can avoid such mishaps by taking a step back from the scene, and becoming a spectator. A poet must take into consideration the spectrum of emotions, so the readers (audience) can connect with the poem. When writing a story or drama, Aristotle strongly feels the author's first priority is to create a general outline. After completing the outline, the author merely needs to fill in the details. The general outline forms the plot, thus tiny details are not a requirement for greatness. In his closing
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Approximate Word count = 1134
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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