Kind of a tough slog.

good footnotes ( )

To tell the truth this book was hard slogging the whole way through, for thimbleful of wisdom I received not really worth it. But now l've read Aristotle. ( )

I don't read a lot of philosophy, but I do like to have a background in influential writers, and when you start reading back in early history, a lot of the writing that is preserved was philosophy. I was assigned to read Aristotle as an undergraduate, and only read the Rhetoric portion, so I decided to return to it, after all these years, and review the Rhetorics and finally read the Poetics.

Aristotle is admittedly a strong influence on western thinking. It was interesting to read through these essays and see how many theories were formed here. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was a fun read, because it is quite dry, and I just don't have that philosophical bend in my mind. The introduction supposes that these could have been notes, rather than essays, meant as the basis of oral lectures rather than stand-alone written work, and that supposition makes a lot of sense to me. The ideas were very dense and factual, a lot of exposition but not a lot of personal connection at all. Rather like reading an encyclopedia, there was a lot of useful information but not the most engaging style of delivery.

The section on rhetoric details various techniques of presenting arguments, focused on three types of oratorical formats: the ceremonial speech, the judicial speech, and the political speech. Aristotle begins broad and then narrows in to specifics. For instance, he starts one section by addressing the need to establish character, by manipulating emotions relating to the speaker and the audience, and then focuses on individual emotions and how they can be induced or reduced. He spends time looking at style of delivery and the types of arguments to be used. A lot of the points he makes are still valid today, which speaks strongly for his ideas. Even though some of his thought is clearly outdated, other arguments have stood the test of time and are still incorporated in public presentations in this day. I haven't made a study of what his contemporaries were writing or discussing on the same topic, but it seems that Aristotle was either proposing new ideas, or formulating them in concise definitions and categories for the first time.

I enjoyed the section on poetics more, probably because I am much more interested in literary analysis than public presentations. In this part of the series, Aristotle examines the components that contribute to the three poetic forms: epic, tragic, and comedic. Even though this is a limited view by today's standards (and to be fair, there was less variety in the type of fiction presented in his day), still many of his points hold valid, such as observations on character empathy or appropriate themes based on format. Even when his critique does not hold ground for more modern forms of poetry, it still was interesting to read one of the earliest forms of literary criticism, and to see a historical perspective on how poetry and writing has evolved.

I would have gained a lot more understanding and synthesis from this work if I had read it in connection with others, maybe a class or conferences, where I could process his ideas more deeply. As it was, I found it mostly interesting in a historical sense, trying to see how these ideas have played out to the present day, what has been preserved and what has been discarded as no longer true or never was (and sometimes is even offensive). I'm glad that I've read it, but it doesn't leave me eager to read more in the same vein. ( )

Edition: // Descr: xxii, 289 p. 18.5 cm. // Series: The Modern Library of the World's Best Books Call No. { 884 A4 5 } Rhetoric Translated by W. Rhys Roberts Poetics Translated by Ingram Bywater Introduction by Friedrich Solmsen Contains Index. // //