Imitative arts can be differentiated through three aspects: their media, the objects they represent, and the manner of representation. Language arts can be represented using rhythm, song, and meter. Men can be represented as better than they are, as in tragedy, and worse than they are, as in comedy, or just the same as us. They can be imitated through narration or dramatization and acting.
Poetry arises because imitation is natural to us. We learn through such, as bystanders to situations.
All elements from epics can be found in tragedies, but not all elements of tragedies can be found in epics.
Tragedy is a representation “not of people, but of action and life, of happiness and unhappiness — and happiness and unhappiness are bound up with action”. Thus, plot is the core element of a tragedy. Tragedies must evoke emotions of pity and fear that bring about catharsis. Properties of tragedies include plot, character, thought, diction, and song.
A plot must have a beginning, middle, and end and must possess unity. Elements that make to no difference are irrelevant to the plot; their inclusion disrupts the effect of wholeness.
The difference [between poetry and history] is that the one tells of what has happened, the other of the kinds of things that might happen. For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history; for poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars.
Thus, Universals are the foundation of literary wisdom.
Simple action is single and continuous, while complex action involves reversal, recognition, or both. Reversals are when things change from one state of affairs to the opposite, while recognitions are when identities are revealed. The third element in tragic plots is suffering.
The best tragedies tell the story of men who does not stand out for virtue or justice, but does not fall in to misery due to vice and depravity, but rather some error.
There are four types of tragedy: complex tragedy, tragedy of suffering, tragedy of character, and spectacular tragedy.
Diction should be elaborate in neutral sections where neither character nor thought is in question. A poet should use great care in choosing his words.
When writing, a poet should embody the emotions portrayed for better effect.
A probable impossibility is preferred over an improbable possibility. Passages may be censured if they are impossible, irrational, immoral, inconsistent, or technically at fault.
Tragedy may be a better medium than epic poetry because it achieves its means more easily.