Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics serves as a guidebook to living a relatively moral life. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle placed an emphasis on friendship—what it is, it's different types, and its requirements—within two books. Aristotle then...

Both Plato’s Symposium and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics introduce provocative ideas about love and friendship and how best to attain them. They make it clear that, without love and friendship, life would be a miserable existence. Each figure in...

To be a great leader, one must first understand the people that they are leading. Human nature is complex. It is crucial for a leader to understand what the people desire and how they act in order to lead them. However, the elaborate complexities...

In his literary theory treatise Poetics, Philosopher Aristotle explains that a successful tragedy must have characters who are improved-upon versions of their real-life subjects, making good, moral choices and appearing appropriate, lifelike, and...

In The Poetics, Aristotle asserts that literature is a function of human nature's instinct to imitate. This implies that as humans, we are constantly driven to imitate, to create. By labeling this creative impulse an "instinct," one is to believe...

Considered by many as the greatest of classic Greek tragedies, Oedipus the King ("Oedipus Tyrannus") by Sophocles (495?--406 B.C.E) is set in the remoteness of ancient Greece and has come down to us in the form of a tragic myth allegedly inspired...

According to Aristotle in his book Poetics, the cathartic effects of a tragedy are its purpose, which is mediated through its form. An examination of Shakespeare's King Lear in relation to the Aristotelian elements of tragedy - focusing on his...

Aristotle’s passage Poetics (350 BC) was written the century after the composition of Sophocles Oedipus the King (428 BC). Despite their chronological separation, the two texts relate in incisive ways. In particular, Aristotle used Oedipus as the...

What does it mean to be human? We are “decision-making creatures capable of overruling [their] own instincts.” It naturally follows that those tools which enable humans to exhibit these unique characteristics are the most essential to human...

Considered the precursor of Western dramatic criticism, Aristotle’s notes on The Poetics arms modern readers with the language by which tragedy is evaluated and judged. In this essay I will examine how Aristotle’s classical vision of tragedy...

As A.E. Haigh notes, Aristotle treats Aeschylus with complete indifference in the Poetics. Throughout his writings, the standards of dramatic writing are supplied by Sophocles and Euripides. He fully recognizes Aeschylus’ role in the introduction...

Aristotle breaks down the plot of the tragedy into three parts, reversal, recognition and catharsis. Shakespeare includes all three components of plot in his play,Henry IV Part I. He establishes a tragic hero, Harry Percy, and allows him to rise...

Considered to be blueprint for the mechanics of tragedy, Aristotle’s Poetics revolves around the assumption that great works of tragedy must include a generous number of mimetic elements, or elements which readily imitate human life. In addition,...

Tennessee Williams’s paradoxical nature as an individual can be seen at many different points throughout his life. Described as “enigmatic” by both his contemporaries and biographers, the prolific playwright seems to have translated this quality...

An extremely specific author, Tennessee Williams is known for his elaborate and in-depth descriptions of sets, costumes, sound, and general staging, often appearing to have the last detail written out in his seemingly endless supply of stage...

UA cursory glance over some of Tennessee Williams’s most celebrated plays reveals a consistent conformity to Aristotle’s rules of tragedy as outlined in Poetics. Plays such as The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire showcase full plots,...

Aristotle, in his 335 BCE work of dramatic theory, Poetics, wrote several observations on the nature of ancient Greek theatre and poetry, and also gave his opinions about the qualities he thought theatre and poetry ought to have. Poetics was...

Aristotle contends that the good man is dissimilar to the good citizen in ways he goes a great length to illustrate. He distinguishes the two for the purpose of facilitating his later arguments concerning the appropriate allocation of sovereignty...

Note: The copy of Politics used for this paper is not the standard copy. I have tried to be as specific about passages as possible.

Aristotle and Machiavelli both extol the judgement of the masses on political affairs. Aristotle states that the...

What is the best regime? Building from his discussion of happiness, virtue, and the good life in Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle answers this question elaborately in his later text, The Politics. In his elaboration, Aristotle investigates numerous...

Aristotle notes two political communities that are âlessâ? than the polis: the household and the village. Of these two communities, the household receives far more discussion and is the foundation of much of Aristotleâs political theory. The...

Many of Aristotle's views have stemmed from those of Plato. However, in Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, Aristotle criticizes four main arguments in Plato's Republic. They are: the way in which women and children should be held in common, the...

Not all are equal in Plato's Republic or Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Politics. Plato and Aristotle argue that people possess a certain natural ability that determines their role in society. The fundamental character of one's soul, in part,...

In both Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, happiness is a state of stability and harmony that is present both within the individual and in his relations with other people. Furthermore, both philosophers emphasize...