Poetics (Dover Thrift Editions: Philosophy)

He is not Carl Reiner, but is over 2000 years old and he understands storytelling (and hence screenwriting). His name is Aristotle and he is from Athens. Or Sparta, or some such place. The writing is a bit dated as you might expect for a time 2000+ years ol, which makes his pop culture references hard to grasp. But the concepts are current and, "dead on balls accurate" as Mona Lisa Vito Gambini might say.I hate Kindle books, but this one was the right price (probably due to copyright having expired >1950 years ago).

This is still, after 2500 years, the most definitive pattern for telling a story that an audience will enjoy. Every movie, play or novel that you’ve been moved by? The template is here. Short read. Highly recommended.

I was over thirty years of thinking what Shakespear meant by To Be or Not To Be. I guess I was not very culture minded, but between page 1 and 20 I got the answer to I was looking for over decennia.I am a writer, and since a few years I've switched towards writing for movies screens. English is not my mother language, so that's my excuss for bad spelling or grammar. Anyhow, the reasson why I gave four stars, is because of the sticky way of my reading in the content of the book.As I wrote above, English is not my mother tongue, and so I had made a long reading through this book.But as for me, it helps to give my character a better mantaince on the pages of my script: Poetics define the nature of morale in a character by the way way he is found to be in a place, dnd not where he says he shall be...The old To be or not to be line is finaly adapted in my way of thinking. More than I could describe what it is worth to know where Shakespear is comming from, I hope that my review lift a tip of the veil, if you are still in doubt to be purchasing or not to be purchasing...

I was surprised at how readable this was. Artistotle's world was very different that ours is today. He talks of poetry and drama, which we think of as separate, as being the same thing. And of the addition of a second player in that drama as being an innovation. But his talk of the use of spectacle in poetry/drama made me think of the sometimes tiresome CGI spectacles in our modern movie dramas. His observations applied equally to his time and to our most current entertainment.He was the first to write down many of the principles of plot and character that sometimes seem so obvious as to not need mentioning. And then he'll use that obvious observation to provide an insight that might not otherwise be quite so clear.Some parts are just as relevant now as they ever were. Some parts are fascinating from an historical perspective, and made me wish I were more familiar with his chosen exemplars, like Aeschylus, Homer, and Euripides. Some parts are just cool, like his dissertation on metaphors, and how to construct them. And Some parts are more wholely of his time than ours.Readable, for the most part, and anyone who professes a love of writing should read this.

Anybody interested in Classical History would like to read something like this.Aristotle explain many things very well and this is no exception...Poetry, after all, is the base for philosophy, history and even religion...This is a good book to start getting aquinted with Homer, Euripides, Sophocles Aschyles, Aristotle etceteraPeople who laid the foundations for Western Civilisation...It is an interesting read...

Overall this is a good book but this edition has some i.e and e.g. misplacement (change errors) that are not meant and instead break the end of one word and the beginning of another. For instance the text in the book says 'tragi.e.fect' which should have been 'tragic effect'. It takes a minute to pull out the real words when you see one of these. Please correct this in future editions.

It helped with preparing stories for friends in my tabletop role playing group. I will likely use this from time to time as reference material when I have questions on topics. It sparked some ideas on how to make some things more interesting for my friends.

A good guide on how to write a story. Forget all this rising action/climax/falling action nonsense. Instead have a unity of action, a noble character or protagonist with a human failing. Have him make a tragic error (hamartia) which will lead to a peripeteia or reversal of fortune... good luck to bad luck. Let the plot become complicated with unforeseen consequences which will lead to disaster in which the main character suffers the most as a consequence of his foolish actions. Let the story finish with him understanding that he is the author of his own downfall (anagnorisis). Let the reader go away with a sense of pathos for the protagonist. Read Sophocles's Antigone and you will see this perfectly.

A nice print of a classic at a nice price.

Very nice layout of the book. It looks bigger than it actually is. Would recommend it for literary scholars or students.Delivery was prompt; nice packaging.

Screenwriter classic. Can't really rate such a text as it is one of the foundations to be read whether enjoyed or not

As the shortest book I've got on my literature student bookshelf, this Dover Thrift Edition Poetics is the cheapest, and most flimsy, but completely worthwhile book.There's no introduction to the book, just a note about when it was written (circa 330BC) and about Aristotle himself, taking up less than a page. The remaining 60 pages are left to Aristotle.It's not difficult to read, which was my initial concern. Another review says this translation is simplified, but I would say it's not over simplified- you still need to understand general poetic terms like 'anapaests or trochaic tetrameters' (p22) so don't feel like you need to look for a more academic, archaic, hard to read version.The content is so short, it's like an essay on how to spot the strengths and weaknesses in plays, and it's not generalised, it's specific- 'Tragedy endeavours, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun' (p9), which in playwriting books I've read, it takes a whole chapter to say 'you're best off writing a play set within one day, it works better'.I'm just on my second reading, marking out the important parts I'll need to refer to in future. The paper is cheap and my ink pen goes straight through the paper, pencil doesn't show up well, so am using sticky paper to make notes. It's only short, and it's cheap, and I'd recommend you buy a cheap version rather than paying a lot of money for an introduction that's not needed, because it's not difficult to read.

This book might be the Bible for screenwriters but if you haven't gone through the ancient plays from Aristotle's time, chances are you'll never fully understand the context of most of the chapters.