In Aristotle's Poetics XVIII (Butcher's translation), what are the two parts of a tragedy, where does each begin and end, and what may lie outside the action?
In Butcher's rendering Aristotle says every tragedy has two parts. The Complication runs from the beginning of the action to the part that marks the turning-point to good or bad fortune; the Unravelling (also called Denouement by Butcher) runs from the beginning of the change to the end. The Complication may include incidents outside the performed action (the Lynceus example uses 'the incidents presupposed in the drama'), while the Unravelling is 'the rest'. The text does not say which part owns the turning-point beat itself and gives no proportions.
In Butcher's rendering Aristotle says every tragedy has two parts. The Complication runs from the beginning of the action to the part that marks the turning-point to good or bad fortune; the Unravelling (also called Denouement by Butcher) runs from the beginning of the change to the end. The Complication may include incidents outside the performed action (the Lynceus example uses 'the incidents presupposed in the drama'), while the Unravelling is 'the rest'. The text does not say which part owns the turning-point beat itself and gives no proportions.
Curator qualifications: Definitions do not say which part owns the turning-point beat; an outline check must state its convention.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1974/pg1974.txt",
"note": "XVIII"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] In Butcher's rendering Aristotle says every tragedy has two parts. The Complication runs from the beginning of the action to the part that marks the turning-point to good or bad fortune; the Unravelling (also called Denouement by Butcher) runs from the beginning of the change to the end. The Complication may include incidents outside the performed action (the Lynceus example uses 'the incidents presupposed in the drama'), while the Unravelling is 'the rest'. The text does not say which part owns the turning-point beat itself and gives no proportions. · locator: XVIII source
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