Quotations from Aristotle's Poetics

8/8/24 14:53
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Plot



"The unity of plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having one man as its subject. An infinity of things befall that one man, some of which it is impossible to reduce to unity: and in like manner there are many actions of one man which cannot be made to form one action."

"The truth is that, just as in the other imitative arts, one imitation is always one thing, so in poetry the story, as an imitation of action, must represent one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdraw of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole."

"Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver importance than history, since its statements are of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars."( Read more... )
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Clarity: “That” and “which”

4/8/24 14:15
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“That” and “which” are often mixed up in writing because the difference between them is extremely easy to miss. But both pronouns communicate something specific about the ideas contained in a sentence, and they are not, in fact, interchangeable.


“That” introduces a clause that provides essential information about the main idea of a sentence.

I want the dog that has spots

This sentence tells the reader that the spots are essential. The dog must have spots, no other dog will do.


“Which” introduces a clause that provides non-essential information and must be separated from the remainder of the sentence with a comma.

I want the dog, which has spots

This sentence tells the reader that the dog is the main idea, and that the dog in question only happens to have spots. The “which” clause could be dropped without losing the essential meaning: “I want the dog."

The “which” clause must always take a comma because it interrupts the main idea of a sentence.
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Sentence Structuring: Parentheses, Dashes, Commas

21/7/24 17:06
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Different Meanings Conveyed



Parentheses, dashes, and commas all communicate an interrupting phrase. Many new writers may use them interchangeably, but each interrupting punctuation invokes a different meaning.

  • Parentheses


    • Using parentheses cues to the reader that the interruption is an aside, merely supplementary to the main point. When reading a sentence aloud that includes an interruption set off with parentheses, the reader may pause, or they might skip reading the aside altogether. The material inside parentheses is tangential or less important than all other information in the sentence.

    In formal writing, parentheses are avoided because

    1. Every word in formal writing should be important. Putting information in parentheses tempts the reader to skip the information

    2. If one is including text that isn't important, they could be wasting the reader's time.


    Consider leaving the sentence out altogether before using parentheses.

  • Dashes


    • Dashes are dramatic punctuation marks. They attract far more attention to the interrupting phrase than commas or parentheses. By using dashes to set off part of a sentence, the writer is signifying that is the most important information in the sentence. This information cannot be skimmed.

    Dashes should be used sparsely. Using too many will defeat the point of highlighting the information.

  • Commas


    • With commas, the reader can assume that the content is important to the writer's point, holding equal weight with the rest of the sentence.
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A short musing on Language Societies

27/6/24 17:09
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Spatiality - oral, local, the space of the village, constrained by sound of voice, shared culture and language; a hierarchical space of standing.

Literate - broader, more expansive, the space if the nation-state, law, democratic, de-centralised, the compartmentalised space of public and private. Language barriers are not maintained by spatial barriers, but by education barriers.

Electronic - 'the global village' the space of the ideological 'tribe,' the information multi-verse, echo chambers of ideologies, the undermining of transnational groups and nation states; the distrust of expertise, world as a spectacle. Language barriers are maintained by chosen slang and nuanced word / symbol meanings of the ideological tribe.
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Plato VS Aristotle on The Imitative Art of Poetry

24/6/24 17:59
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The Imitative Art of Poetry




Overview:
Plato mentored Aristotle, but their philosophies on art slightly diverge. Plato observes that the imitative arts have the greatest capacity to lie, and therefore all imitative art must be carefully measured. The greatest imitative arts are the closest to reality, and the truest depictions of what they imitate. According to Aristotle, though, the greatest art finishes what nature cannot finish, and perfects reality, thus reaching beyond nature into the good or the idea, which is more pure than the material physical. In both cases the ideal pre-exists the art.


Book X | The Republic | Plato

“All poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them.”

“There are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round—you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants and all other things of which we were just now speaking… and the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another—a creator of appearances, is he not?”

“The tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth.”

“So, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider wether here also there may not be a similar illusion.”( Read more... )
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A short musing on Art II | Restructuring With a Focus on Novalis

2/6/24 22:29
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Novalis pioneered Romanticism by exploring what a novel was meant to accomplish, and how it accomplished it. According to Novalis "a novel must be poetry through and through." What he meant by this was that everything in the novel had unity, and each action and word pointed towards a final end or idea. "We feel the infinite, incomprehensible simultaneous sensations of a plurality in agreement."

Imagination which builds a narrative from memories becomes like a choir, or orchestra, where each word and style becomes a 'different instrument' in the grand tale. For this reason, an author has to abandon their biases and be willing to explore all types of people and opinions that play a part in the tale.

But Novalis also says that "the novel contains no definite result—it is not the image or fact of a proposition. It is the visible execution- the realization of an idea." The novel to Novalis does not necessarily make an argument or is fully realized by an argument. Instead, the novel exists to allow for the deepest exploration of a human idea, memory, or life situation without putting true reality in danger. The reader explores the depths of human desire, then closes the book and emerges into a life untouched by the consequences.

This depth, or realization of an idea, though, is narrow. Because all components of the novel reach for one distilled end, it creates a reality where life is unreal. "all colors are sharper there—fewer shades in between - the movements more lively - the outlines hence more striking." He calls this a fragmentary view of the world but means that the real world is more inspiring than the novel. The true poet is inspired infinitely by reality, consuming it and ordering it into his writing, and depicting reality in a true, though fragmented, way. In this way, "The true poet is all-knowing - he is a real world in miniature.”

He uses mathematics to demonstrate this in his essay, Monologue. In mathematics, the most beautiful equations and formulas are the most representative models of reality. In writing, like mathematics, the most beautiful and simple writings get closer to truth than the over complex ones. Even if a writer knows what the truth is, if they do not understand simple and beautiful writing, how to distill reality to one end, then they will fail to impart the truth to their readers.
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A short musing on Art

7/5/24 21:34
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Drawing is akin to creative writing. There are several ways which one can go about crafting the image. One is to draw the whole image simple, so that the essential idea is crafted. Then the task is to fragment the image, so that the truly important details are highly focused, while the weight of the lines becomes loose where the importance of the detail lessens. And last is the control of the idea, the layout of composition, and the artist's skill in exploring different unified tastes, or themes. This last one is the ability of the artist to shrink or magnify any aspect of the world in art that they please—each and every point of the art bends towards one, singular and primary goal. ( Read more... )
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Quotations from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death

15/4/24 12:06
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Other quotations:



Literary Critic Northrop Frye:
“the written word is far more powerful than simply a reminder: it re-creates the past in the present, and gives us, not the familiar remembered thing, but the glittering intensity of the summoned-up hallucination”

Henry David Thoreau on the Telegraph:
“we are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate… we are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”( Read more... )
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A short musing on becoming internet content :



14/4/24 12:48
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Producing video, art, or text on the internet is an odd experience because there isn’t anything tangibly being given to anyone. A blog isn’t the same as a printed book—which is consciously chosen by the reader, sought out and stored on a shelf or table. A book is a belonging. A blog post is not belonging to anyone. I have given nothing but raw data.

This principle runs through video, music, and art just the same. A Vinyl record is different from a car radio; a movie DVD is different from streaming. In its furthest form, the scrolling of mixed short media is nothing tangible to hold onto at all.( Read more... )
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A short musing on Unspoken Dialogue

3/4/24 20:54
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A:

Do you own a Cadillac?

B:

I wouldn’t own any American car.


Interpreted literally, Speaker B is refusing to answer Speaker A’s yes/no question. But Speaker A will probably understand the response more naturally, supplying a series of plausible inferences that would explain how her query might have prompted B’s retort. Speaker A’s interpretation might( Read more... )
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