I didn't understand this class until I read Aristotle's Poetics. It showed me what to be aware of when looking for beauty/aesthetics in Comedy and Tragedy.
He talks about the differences of the arts with respect to the medium of imitation. Here he looks at how art can imitate by language alone. This looks as to the work is done on prose or verse, and different meters or a consistant one. Another art is through color and form. This could be how the words are set up and the color of the words.
He also goes into the proper plot, setting, characters, and so on. He defines the the plot as an orderly arrangement of parts and on the magnitude. The beauty is in how the poet presents the plot, characters, climax, and so on. The structure plays a part in making beauty.
Action also plays a part in the beauty. Usually the action should take place between friends or enemies or indifferent to one another. The poet is looking to excite a particular feeling depending on the genre. Tragedy wants to excite pity for a character, but they need the right action to achieve this effect.
With characters, if the poet portrayes them as good, then there moral should be good and vise versa. The poet must becareful of class status. A chrarcter's moral aspect shouldn't clash with his/her class.
Once a person has an idea of what creates beauty in a poem, it is easy to understand the aesthetics of a poem. Knowing how a poem should be set up, and constitutes beauty, opens up one eyes to the other aesthetic options.
Posted by Rachel Howard at February 10, 2004 07:42 PM