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Epic poetry is one of the five forms of poetryAristotle examines in Poetics. Like tragedy, Aristotle argues that epic poetry is an imitation of admirable people, but he maintains that epic isn’t as highly-regarded as tragedy. Unlike tragedies, epic poems use only verse and are narrative in form, and epics also lack spectacle and lyric.
Tragedy vs. Epic Poetry. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Poetics, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Aristotle ’s Poetics, written around 335 B.C.E., is the oldest surviving work of literary theory, which is an area of study concerned primarily with the analysis of literature.
Aristotle turns his attention to epic poetry. While the mimesis of tragedy is in actions told in a dramatic form, the mimesis of epic poetry is in verse told in a narrative form. Aristotle notes that there are a number of similarities between tragedy and epic poetry. First, epic poetry must maintain the unity of plot.
Aristotle defines Poetry, the art of duplicating or representing life as a medium of imitation. Through imitation poet represents life either through action or character or emotion or through objects. Depending on the type of imitation the emerging product can be either an Epic poem or a Satire or music.
Aristotle divides the art of poetry into verse drama (comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play), lyric poetry, and epic. The genres all share the function of mimesis, or imitation of life, but differ in three ways that Aristotle describes: Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter, and melody.
In his work Poetics, Aristotle defines an epic as one of the forms of poetry, contrasted with lyric poetry and drama (in the form of tragedy and comedy). [12] Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a higher type. They differ in that Epic poetry admits but one kind of meter and is narrative in form.
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As Aristotle sees it, poetry emerged for two reasons -- 1) man's instinct to imitate things and 2) the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm. Once poetry emerged, it evolved in two directions. One group of poems imitated 'noble actions,' or the actions of good men. A second group of poets imitated 'the actions of meaner persons' in the form of satire.
