Monday, January 28, 2008

Aristotle-the greatest Greek Author

Aristotle was one of the greatest Greek Authors of the Classical age of Greek Literature. He was also a great philosopher and had the privilege of being the student of the great Greek Philosopher, Plato. Aristotle was born in 384 BC, in Stagira, in Northern Greece. After studying for 20 years at the academy opened by Plato, Aristotle went to Macedonia to teach King Philip's son, Alexander. After a span of few years, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up his own school at Lyceum.

Besides literature, Aristotle had expertise in almost all subjects that you could think of. The subjects that Aristotle had written on included, Physics, Metaphysics, logic, rhetoric, politics, ethics, government, biology and zoology.

Together with Socrates and Plato, Aristotle made Greek Philosophy, the founding stone of Western philosophy. Plato and Aristotle are credited with the founding of the most important Schools of Ancient Philosophy.

The greatest work of Aristotle, the philosopher was known as Organon. It is a collection of all the logical treatise that Aristotle had framed throughout his life. The main aim of these logical treatise of Aristotle was to form an universal method of reasoning, which would make it possible to learn everything about reality.



In his poetics, Aristotle gave an account of whatever he thought to be “poetry”. The term poetics, include lyric, epos and drama. In this book, Aristotle has tried to describe the various genres of what he calls “poetry”. In this book, tragedy takes the major share of space. Aristotle had used certain terms while describing poetry, in The Poetic, these are:

* Mimesis or 'imitation', 'representation'
* Katharsis or, variously, 'purgation', 'purification', 'clarification'
* Peripeteia or 'reversal'
* Anagnorisis or 'recognition'
* Hamartia or 'miscalculation' (understood in Romanticism as 'tragic flaw')
* Mythos or 'plot'
* Ethos or 'character'
* Dianoia or 'thought', 'theme'
* Lexis or 'diction', 'speech'
* Melos or 'melody'
* Opsis or 'spectacle'

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