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99 reviews
July 15,2025
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Such a well-written beef with your teacher is truly remarkable.

It shows that you have put in a great deal of effort and thought into expressing your feelings and opinions.

However, it's important to remember that communication with teachers should be respectful and productive.

Rather than simply airing your grievances, try to approach the situation with an open mind and a willingness to listen to their perspective as well.

This way, you can have a more meaningful dialogue and work towards finding a solution that benefits both you and your teacher.

Also, consider the tone and language you use in your writing.

Avoid using offensive or disrespectful words, as this will only make the situation worse.

Instead, focus on being clear and concise in your arguments, and back them up with evidence and examples.

By doing so, you can make your point more effectively and increase the likelihood of a positive outcome.

Overall, while it's okay to have differences of opinion with your teacher, it's crucial to handle the situation in a mature and respectful manner.

This will not only help you to resolve the issue at hand, but also build a better relationship with your teacher in the long run.
July 15,2025
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Aristotle, the renowned philosopher, is seen jotting down notes for his work "Poetics." However, what is truly astonishing is the presence of totally random and irrelevant misogyny within those notes.

It is disheartening to discover such inappropriate and unjust views in the writings of a great thinker. One would expect a work on poetics to focus on the beauty, structure, and essence of literature and art. Instead, Aristotle seems to interject his own unfounded biases against women.

This misogyny not only detracts from the intellectual value of his work but also reflects the social attitudes of his time. It serves as a reminder that even the most brilliant minds can be influenced by the prejudices and limitations of their era.

Nevertheless, it is important to critically analyze and question such views, rather than simply accepting them as part of the historical record. By doing so, we can strive for a more inclusive and enlightened understanding of the world.
July 15,2025
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A “Poética” of Aristotle is regarded as the first theorization of poetic art and its genres, namely tragedy and epic. In this sense, it is an essential reading in literary studies and those of the performing arts. Here we find a set of precepts and rules to be followed to achieve a perfect work and appropriate to its purpose, from metrics, the parts of the work, the themes, etc.

However, the aspect that interests me most in this work is the philosophical side, namely the contribution it represents to an aesthetic theory, which develops around the fundamental concepts of poièsis, mimèsis, and katharsis.

Although Aristotle seems to pay more attention to the side of the rules, we can discern here a theory of poetic production, a production as technè, which implies a knowledge. The fundamental means through which this poièsis is expressed is mimèsis, that is, imitation.

In Aristotle, mimèsis appears valued as a natural means to achieve knowledge, in blatant contrast to the Platonic conception for whom the mimetic arts (among which almost all poetry) were pernicious, as they translated into illusory images, thus distancing men from reality and, therefore, from knowledge.

What Aristotle shows us here is that imitation is essential to the human being. It is by imitating that one learns, and that is why mimèsis is presented as a natural cause of knowledge. On the other hand, imitation causes pleasure, even when the things imitated are repulsive. And this is because imitating, in this sense, is to transpose the natural to art, is to perfect through art. Poetry is, in essence, a perfecting imitation of Nature.

This conception becomes clearer if we have in mind Aristotle's physical and metaphysical doctrines, especially the conception of Nature (physis) as a process of constant change, given the presence of an immanent principle of movement in all natural beings, which generates a dynamism, a permanent movement from generation to corruption.

Therefore, imitating Nature is not so much realistically imitating natural beings as rather imitating the process of Nature, that is, poetic poièsis is also movement. And it is here that the idea of katharsis intersects, which, although not developed by Aristotle in this text, appears as the main purpose of tragedy and can be seen as a purification of human passions due to the submission of the spirit to the emotions of fear (phobos) and compassion (eleos), caused by means of an error (hamartia). It is in this purifying transformation operated by tragedy that art reveals itself as an imitation that does not limit itself to copying but rather elevates.

This Gulbenkian edition features a direct translation from Greek enriched with numerous context notes and identifications of references made by Aristotle, many of them to works that have not come down to us. It also has a developed and erudite introduction by the eminent Hellenist Maria Helena da Rocha Pereira, which focuses mainly on the literary and philological side, although unfortunately, it leaves the philosophical side a little in the shadows.
July 15,2025
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Please provide the article that needs to be rewritten and expanded so that I can help you.
July 15,2025
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It is truly astounding, humbling, and semi-surreal to think that after so many years, the continuously strolling and pondering Greek philosopher, Aristotle, is still vital and relevant, hundreds of thousands of days after his passing.

To those who claim that social progress and technology have completely transformed the world, well, I am not so certain.

Time and again, it appears that all that we were, are, and will continue to be is exponentially less significant than we might assume.

And it remains a wonderful book for playwrights, poets, and writers to learn from, even in today's age.

Startling, yet also instructive, and at times perhaps even banal.

Such is the nature of human existence, and yes, even that of Aristotle.

We are all part of this complex tapestry of life, and Aristotle's ideas continue to weave their way through the fabric of our thoughts and understanding.

His wisdom and insights serve as a reminder that, despite the passage of time and the changes in the world around us, there are certain fundamental truths about human nature and the human condition that remain constant.

We would do well to study and learn from the great minds of the past, for they have much to teach us about ourselves and the world we inhabit.
July 15,2025
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He talks too much for saying nothing.

It seems that whenever he opens his mouth, a flood of words pours out, yet very little of substance is actually being conveyed.

He rambles on and on, going off on tangents and getting lost in a sea of his own words.

People around him often find themselves tuning out after a while, as they realize that there is no real point or message in his excessive chatter.

Maybe he is trying to fill the silence or gain attention, but in the end, his constant talking without saying anything of value only serves to annoy and frustrate those who have to listen to him.

It would be beneficial for him to learn to be more concise and to the point, so that his words can carry more weight and have a greater impact.

July 15,2025
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I have read it for the third time and it has seemed extraordinary to me.

I think that several readings are needed, both of the same work and of other classic texts, in order to delight in it.

It is a wonder.

Each time I read it, I discover new details and meanings that I had missed before.

The language is beautiful and the story is engaging.

I can't help but be drawn into the world that the author has created.

I highly recommend this work to anyone who loves literature and wants to experience the beauty of classic texts.

It is truly a masterpiece that will stand the test of time.

July 15,2025
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Poética is a relatively incipient literary criticism (obviously considering the year it was written and the few examples the author used, let's say in literary production up to that point) on poetic compositions. Fundamentally on Tragedy and the Epic.

It is a fundamentally theoretical summary in which concepts such as poetics, plot (understood as the argument), rhythm, meter, virtues and defects are explained, along with a long list of examples that I of course liked because in this way we have information about many Greek authors whom today we know almost nothing about, at least Aristotle names their works or some aspects.

Some aspects that I liked were the admiration he feels for Homer, whom he qualifies as the best of all, some historical notes on the theater, a comparison between the epic and history (he considers the epic better), the advice he gives on how to write tragedies and epics (which is why I decided to read this work), and a very concise review of the Iliad and the Odyssey, where he points out some negative characteristics that although I had thought of them, I didn't know that many Greeks also agreed.

Unfortunately, the length is not what it should be. Very probably this work is incomplete and in many cases there are doubts about some paragraphs. In addition, Aristotle's style, for the moment, is convoluted (and I don't think it's due to the translation since it's done by experts), perhaps in part the desire to communicate his work to all kinds of audiences makes it so. Likewise, the order of the ideas, although appropriate, is not developed deeply nor did it seem very didactic to me.
July 15,2025
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A man had the misfortune of seeing "Oedipus Rex" just once, and he was forever changed.

As he witnessed the tragic tale unfold on stage, the powerful emotions and the profound themes of fate, hubris, and self-discovery hit him like a tidal wave.

The story of Oedipus, who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother, was so gripping and heart-wrenching that it left an indelible mark on the man's soul.

He couldn't shake off the images and the ideas that had been presented to him.

The play made him question his own beliefs, his place in the world, and the role of fate in his life.

From that day forward, he carried the weight of "Oedipus Rex" with him, and it continued to influence his thoughts and actions.

He realized that sometimes, seeing something once can have a profound and lasting impact, and that the power of art and storytelling should never be underestimated.

July 15,2025
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Though strangely narrow in scope, mainly only dealing with tragedy and epic poetry, not comedy or other types of poetry, this short work is truly insightful.

It delves into the ancient view of poetry, asking questions we no longer pose and taking for granted things we now question.

The work commences by assuming that poetry must be in narrative form. In contrast, today's poetry has become so nebulous that the only requirement is lineation. Aristotle explicitly attacks this, stating that a biology textbook in verse is neither a poem nor poetic.

Aristotle, somewhat naively, asserts that the actions in poetry are either good or bad, depending on the characters. Modern and Postmodern literary approaches rightfully critique this oversimplification in premodern characterization. However, he makes an interesting distinction: some artists depict people better than they are, some worse, and some as they are. It's important to note that the latter two have always been present in art.

He remarks on people's interest in realistic depictions of repulsive things like corpses and beasts, attributing this to a desire for learning, not a psychological aspect.

He traces the origins of poetry from improvisational "free verse" with a musical nature that later solidified into official forms. He notes that there were no recorded satirists before Homer, either due to a narrow definition or its non-existence.

The sentence "Sophocles added a third actor, and scenery" caught my attention, implying there were only two actors and no scenery before. Strange indeed.

He delineates differences between Epic and Tragic poetry, with Tragedy confined to around a day and Epic having no time limit. Tragedy brings about Catharsis through evoking deep emotions in the audience, achieved by the actions themselves, not the characterization. He favors the plot over the characters, focusing on timeless, universal plots with stock characters, which is at odds with contemporary individualism.

He uses an example from painting to prioritize form over details and the whole over the minutia. This is relevant today as contemporary art struggles with an identity crisis. He refutes the contemporary dogma of incomprehensibility, asserting that beauty requires order and proportion.

He distinguishes between poets and historians, with poets writing what might happen based on human nature, while historians record the past. This brings up the idea of a beautiful lie in art.

Aristotle tempers his elitism by allowing poets to invent plotlines but with limits, emphasizing continuity and causal relationships. He also warns against certain plotlines in tragedy and argues for a flaw causing the tragedy, as seen in Shakespeare's plays. He presciently states that poems should evoke a physical and emotional response even when read, not just enacted.

One of the funniest parts was his comment about inconsistent characters needing to be constantly inconsistent. He was elitist about Homer and Hexameter but didn't explain much. He interestingly points out how Homer taught us to deceive.

Ultimately, I found this short work, despite its narrowness and Aristotle's self-assured approach, very enjoyable and thought-provoking, especially the "truth inside a lie" paradox of art.

[ADDITIONS ON SECOND READING]

I find it fascinating how "poetry" in Aristotle's context was intertwined with other art forms, unlike today's anemic poetry. I also learned that Aristotle's claim that art must be imitative is based on his epistemology of learning through imitation. His qualification of good art via "harmony" echoes Tagore's.

Regarding his distinction between poetry and history, I like his praise of poetry as more philosophical and higher, expressing the universal. He makes similar remarks about the plastic arts. I also enjoy his point about verbs functioning along the axis of time.

Aristotle argues for diversity in large works but downplays egotism in art. Additionally, fiction has an advantage over theater as it allows for the imagination of things that might seem ridiculous on stage. Finally, he points out that people who nitpick historical inaccuracies in movies miss the point, as the purpose of movies is to entertain, not provide historical information.
July 15,2025
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Aristotle's Poetics is extremely interesting. In it, we can read teachings for constructing works, whether tragedies or comedies. There are several of his counsels for creating a text and, although ancient, they nevertheless remain valid. Aristotle provides valuable insights into the elements that make up a successful literary work. He discusses the importance of plot, character, language, and thought. By following his guidelines, writers can create engaging and impactful works. His ideas have influenced countless generations of writers and continue to be relevant today. Whether you are a budding writer or an established author, studying Aristotle's Poetics can provide you with a deeper understanding of the art of writing and help you to improve your own works.

July 15,2025
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This is an absolutely stunning work that is bound to bestow great pleasure upon anyone with a passion for literature. It is widely and generally recognized as the very starting point of literary criticism.

For conservatives like myself, it holds a special significance as it is also seen as the end-point. We have discovered that the great masterpieces of literature adhere closely to Aristotle's prescriptions. On the other hand, those works that deviate from his guidelines are, to a greater or lesser extent, decadent.

I wholeheartedly agree with the editor's assertion that it is truly astonishing to realize that Aristotle's magnificent thesis was founded upon less than a dozen authors. Primarily, it was based on a mere foursome consisting of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus. This fact serves to further emphasize the remarkable insights and influence that Aristotle had on the world of literature, despite the relatively small sample size of authors he considered.
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