Moon’s Day, April 1: Aristotle, Poetics
EQ: Why do we accept the impossible in art – and why do guitarists make faces?
· Welcome! Gather paper, pen/pencil, wits, Plato’s Cave work!
· Discussion: Plato’s Cave
· Freewrites: Zaps in Space and Guitar Heroes
· Read/Write/Talk: Aristotle, Poetics
ELACC12RL-RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis
ELACC12RL-RI2: Analyze two or more themes or central ideas of text
ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop
ELACC12RL4-RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text
ELACC12RL5: Analyze an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text
ELACC12RL6: Distinguish what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant
ELACC12RI6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text
ELACC12RI8: Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal texts of World Literature
ELACC12RL-RI9: Analyze for theme, purpose rhetoric, and how texts treat similar themes or topics
ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently.
ELACC12W1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts
ELACC12W2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas
ELACC12W4: Produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience
ELACC12W9: Draw evidence from literary
Opening Freewrites (50 words each)
· We’re going to watch a film clip. As we do, write – what IMPOSSIBLILITY is going on in this clip – and why do we prefer it to what would “really” happen?
· Why do guitar heroes make faces like this when playing really easy solos?
Excerpts from Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
From Aristotle, Poetics, tr. S. H. Butcher. Mineola, NY: Dover Thrift Editions, 1997
Universal truths describe how a person of a certain nature will, on a specific occasion, speak or act, according to the laws of probability or necessity. This is the aim of poetry [fiction]. History tells us what actually happened; poetry what may happen. Poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular. For this reason, poetic truth is a higher truth than historic truth.
The poet, freed from the tyranny of facts, takes a larger or general view of things, represents the universal in the particular and so shares the philosopher’s quest for ultimate truth.
This standard of correctness is not the same in poetry and history. In poetry, the impossible may be justified by reference to artistic requirements, or to higher reality, or to received opinion. It may be impossible that there would be “real” men who look like the “perfect” men great artists have painted; but again, the impossible is the higher thing; for the ideal type must surpass the reality.
With respect to the requirements of art, a probable impossibility is to be preferred to the thing improbable and yet possible.
Artists seem to think that audiences are too dull to understand their art unless something of their own is thrown in. So, for instance, bad flute players indulge in restless movements; they twist and twirl, even if the music is easy to play.
Turn In Today:
· Freewrite: Star Wars and Probable Impossibility (“With respect to the requirements of art, a probable impossibility is to be preferred to the thing improbable and yet possible”)
o Quotation from Aristotle, Poetics with 100 words’ reflection = Journal Entry
· Freewrite: Guitar Faces and “restless movements” (“Artists seem to think that audiences are too dull to understand their art unless something of their own is thrown in. So, for instance, bad flute players indulge in restless movements; they twist and twirl, even if the music is easy to play.”)
o Quotation from Aristotle, Poetics with 100 words’ reflection = Journal Entry