How does Aristotle distinguish tragedy from comedy by character, plot and pleasure, and what does he say about giving audiences the ending they want?
In the Butcher translation, the difference between tragedy and comedy starts from the kind of people imitated: comedy represents men as worse, tragedy as better than in actual life (ch. 2); comedy is an imitation of a lower type whose fault is ugly but not painful (ch. 5). The best tragic plot (ch. 13) shows a single change from good fortune to bad through error, not vice, in a person like us, arousing pity and fear. Aristotle says the 'double' plot ending well for the good and badly for the bad is ranked highest only because of the weakness of the spectators, whose wishes poets follow, and that its pleasure is not the true tragic pleasure but belongs to comedy. Ch. 14: do not demand of tragedy every pleasure but only its proper one; spectacle that produces the monstrous rather than the terrible misses tragedy's purpose. Fyfe's translation says 'sentimentality of the audience', a different nuance.
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- [inference] In the Butcher translation, the difference between tragedy and comedy starts from the kind of people imitated: comedy represents men as worse, tragedy as better than in actual life (ch. 2); comedy is an imitation of a lower type whose fault is ugly but not painful (ch. 5). The best tragic plot (ch. 13) shows a single change from good fortune to bad through error, not vice, in a person like us, arousing pity and fear. Aristotle says the 'double' plot ending well for the good and badly for the bad is ranked highest only because of the weakness of the spectators, whose wishes poets follow, and that its pleasure is not the true tragic pleasure but belongs to comedy. Ch. 14: do not demand of tragedy every pleasure but only its proper one; spectacle that produces the monstrous rather than the terrible misses tragedy's purpose. Fyfe's translation says 'sentimentality of the audience', a different nuance. · locator: see curator disposition source
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| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
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| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |