The Poetics

Aristotle

Jan 2010 · Agora Publications · Narrated by Albert A. Anderson

About this audiobook

Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definition and analysis of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed: "poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history." Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since. The essence of poetry lies in its ability to transcend the particulars of everyday experience and articulate universals, not merely what has happened but what might happen and what ought to happen.

About the author

Albert Anderson, Ph.D., is professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Babson College in Massachusetts, where he held an endowed chair as Murata Professor of Ethics from 1995 to 2003. He has also held tenured tenured faculty appointments in philosophy at Clark University in Massachusetts and Albion College in Michigan and full-time positions at Bates College in Maine and Rhode Island School of Design. He was a founding member of the International Society for Universal Dialogue and served as its president from 1996-2001.