What I’ve Been Reading
The Poetics, Aristotle
This was the selected text for one of the online reading groups I am a part of. I confess myself sorely lacking in familiarity with Aristotle, something that’s been on my mind for a while now. When I saw this was the upcoming reading, I realized it would be the perfect opportunity to become more acquainted with his works. As another member of the group commented, it was a refreshing piece to read in contrast to all the chaos and anger of society recently. Even from reading only a few pages, I was struck by the orderliness and preciseness of Aristotle’s writing. It did indeed feel comforting and reassuring. Here is someone who is attempting to make sense of the world, rather than being overwhelmed by the chaos.
Aristotle on Imitation
At the beginning of Part IV of this section, Aristotle says,
First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.
He goes on to place immense importance on the role of imitation in art. At first I struggled with this but came to realize the word “imitation” has very different connotations than what we often think of today. What I’ve noticed in my readings over the last few years is that older writers were less concerned about originality and imitation than we are today. We declare a work to be “derivative,” and in this way condemn it to be an utter failure. We look for that which is ground-breaking or “fresh.” Constantly searching for the newest approach and judging artists on their originality. After reading this excerpt from Aristotle, my theory is that the further back you go in history, the less that originality matters. At some point after the Medieval era there was a gradual shift towards being original, until we reached our current position. It seems that everything in the Medieval era was just a reworking or reinterpretation of something else. And this is not a negative observation. Just because their literary works were based on something else did not take away from their artistic value. Most of Shakespeare’s plays were based on older works, from Roman plays to Scottish legends. Benjamin Franklin created a method for copying the writings of others without actually plagiarizing them. He realized the importance of studying the ideas and styles of great authors, and how else to do this but through deliberate copying? I’ve thought about this question of originality in art quite a bit and so was very interested to see it addressed by Aristotle. At some point I’d like to pick this up and follow the thread more thoroughly throughout the history.
Aristotle on the Elements of Tragedy
In this section he lays the groundwork for how we think about drama and narrative for the next two millennia:
Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song. Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation [Song and Diction], one the manner [Spectacle], and three the objects of imitation [Plot, Character, and Thought].
I included in brackets the corresponding parts because Aristotle leaves this a bit of a puzzle for the reader. To determine what parts constitute the medium, manner, and objects, one must read through the surrounding sections and use a little deduction. At the time of our reading group, we determined that Aristotle was ordering these in rank of importance (Plot being most important to Song as least important). However, we were struck by the strangeness of Diction being placed before Thought. Thought and Character are defined as the causes for action:
Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of character and thought; for it is by these that we qualify actions themselves, and these—thought and character—are the two natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions again all success or failure depends.
So the ordering of Diction, which is the arrangement of words, before Thought seemed odd. But when you continue reading, Aristotle devotes a paragraph to further definition of each part. And there he states that Thought is third (after Plot and Character), whereas Diction is fourth. This seems to make more sense based on how he defines each of these parts. Diction is given very little attention, while Plot, Character, and Thought are important enough to go into more detail. So now my question has evolved into, why is the ordering of the parts in the list different from their actual ranking? And while in the reading group there was some talk about how the list was ranked in order of importance, I can’t seem to find that in the text right now. Why would Aristotle not rank them consistently in the listing and in the following paragraphs? Is there some other reason why he would list them in this order here?
However, aside from this more obscure point, I really appreciated Aristotle’s observations on Plot and Character. In particular, he emphasizes the importance of Plot over all other parts of a narrative.
But most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.
He points out artists who had descriptive characterization, but where there was no action. You can have all the other elements of narrative, you can have beautiful diction and detailed characters, but still fail to present a compelling story. As Aristotle says,
The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed my brief reading of Aristotle and it has inspired me to spend more time exploring his writings.
Medical Skepticism and the Vaccine Debate
This is the most nuanced article I’ve read about the whole issue of vaccines. I grew up firmly in the camp of “vaccines are poison and simply a form of governmental control over unsuspecting populations,” but I’ve done a lot of thinking and research on the topic as an adult. It has been interesting to see something that seemed fairly minor a few years ago suddenly in the mainstream. Before COVID-19 it seems like everyone was worried about the return of measles and similar diseases due to the decrease in childhood vaccinations. I wonder what the public response will be when a vaccine is released for COVID-19. If there were large groups of people skeptical enough to skip a vaccine that had been in circulation for decades, how eager will they be to try out a brand new vaccine? What frustrates me about this issue is how the pro-vaxxers seem unable to understand any level of skepticism towards these medical treatments. I certainly admit the value in many medical advancements and am not denying evidence that at least some vaccines have contributed enormously to overall health. But it also seems reasonable to have at least a level of skepticism. There have been enough tragedies in the medical field, such as the original polio vaccine, to require some thoughtfulness. Not to mention the overall approach of modern healthcare, such as the tendency to overdiagnose and overprescribe. These are not crazy or irrational concerns. But neither does it mean we should abolish modern medicine completely. Anyways…this article formulates this perspective from a much more scientific and thought-provoking angle. I found it to be communicating the concerns and questions I didn’t even realize I had.
What I’ve Been Doing
I finally got all of my seedlings and plants moved outside for the summer. It has been really fun to watch everything grow and flourish. I am looking forward to seeing how they continue to grow. This year I am experimenting with sweet potatoes and hoping I’ll be able to eat the fruit of my own harvest this fall. This is all I am attempting for vegetables, everything else has been flowers and herbs. I am trying to set up some perennial herb gardens so I don’t have to grow everything from seed each year. The same with flowers, I am focusing on setting up perennials that will keep filling in the gardens. I am really excited about these poppies I started from seed and just moved outside. I love poppies and am really hoping to have some beautiful flowers next year.
What I’ve Been Thinking About
This past week I stumbled across some writings about the attachment styles theory. While I had seen this phrase before, it had never really caught my attention. But it happened to show up again at a very appropriate time for me. Digging into research on attachment styles was really helpful for me to work through some issues that had been coming up for me. It provided a useful framework for a better understanding of myself and those around me. But it just made me realize how time is such a critical aspect of our journey. Reading a particular article a year ago would have given me very little help or insight. But reading the same article last week was exactly what I needed to see.
