Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters: Storytelling Secrets From the Greatest Mind in Western Civilization

I read these works for a graduate seminar on Aristotle.
Poetry appeals to human passions and emotions. Powerful beautiful language and metaphor really appeal to emotion. This idea really disturbed Plato, who takes on Homer in the Republic. Plato thought that early Greek poetry portrays a dark world; humans are checked by negative limits like death. Tragedy has in it a character of high status brought down through no fault of his own. Plato says this is unjust. Republic is about ethical life and justice. It starts with the premises that might makes right and then moves onto the idea much like modern religions that justice comes in the afterlife. Plato hates the idea that in tragedy bad things can happen to good people. He wanted to ban tragedy because he found it demoralizing.

Aristotle's Poetics is a defense against Plato's appeal to ban tragedy. Tragedy was very popular in Greek world so Aristotle asks can it be wrong to ban it? Yes, it is wrong thus he decides to study it. Plato says Poetry is not a technç because the poets are divinely inspired. Aristotle disagrees Poetics is a handbook for playwrights. Mimçsis= "representation or imitation." Plato uses it in speaking of painting, thus art is imitation. Another meaning is to mimic, like actors mimicking another person. Plato and Aristotle use it to mean psychological identification like how we get absorbed in a movie as if the action were real, eliciting emotions from us. We suspend reality for a while. Aristotle says this is natural in humans; we do this as children, we mimic. If imitation is important for humans then tragic poetry is worthwhile for Aristotle to study.


Definition of tragedy- "Through pity and fear it achieves purification from such feelings. This is a famous controversial line. Katharsis= "pity and fear" thus the purpose of tragedy is to purge katharsis. Katharsis can also mean purification or clean. There is a debate if it means clarification, through which we can come to understand katharsis. Aristotle thinks tragedy teaches us something about life. Tragedy is an elaboration on Aristotle's idea that good or virtuous people sometimes get unlucky and in the end, they get screwed. Tragedy shows this so we can learn to get by when life screws us. The whole point of tragedy is action over character. Action is the full story of the poem like the Iliad. Character is only part of the action.
Aristotle distinguishes between poetry and history. Poetry is concerned with universals, history is concerned with particulars.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

[4.5 stars]

The oft-stated maxim of dramatic storytelling, everyone who is anyone in screenwriting recites, is to read Aristotle's Poetics. The problem? The original work in Greek is not what one would call bedside reading; the English translations of the original are almost as bad.

So what is a budding screenwriter to do if, as suggested, he wanted to understand the underpinnings of drama without having to learn and understand ancient Greek and all the arcane references in the Poetics? Well, that budding screenwriter buys and reads the new book by Michael Tierno. It's small enough that it could be light reading; each of its 33 chapters are easily digestible, but be not fooled! It's filled with tremendous information that, if properly understood, will help a writer, any writer, tell a gripping story.

Some of the reasons I gave it a four-and-a-half star rating instead of the full five are the same as I would give the original Poetics: the language is staid and a little difficult to assimilate for the modern understanding. Tierno does a good job of interpretation, but even then, there are some hard bumps that will give the reader pause. Tierno also tries hard to tie all the chapters into a smooth narrative, but again, there are some bumps: I don't, for example, see why chapter 29 (The Non-Linear Soul of Quentin Tarantino) was added as it seems incongruous without useful information not already covered earlier.

The other star-reducing problem is the seeming out-of-context quotations from the Poetics that require close reading to see their appropriateness, although for the most part the author does a fine job of showing precisely that. It's just a slight impediment to the flow. Very slight.

That said, here's my recommendation to obtain the maximum benefit out of this book: read the Poetics first. After which, rely on Tierno to provide the necessary interpretation; a job, as I stated earlier that he does quite well.

In summary, this is a good book. With close reading, perhaps even re-reading, it is capable of energizing your stories in the way the original work by (as the tagline of the book says) The Greatest Mind in Western Civilization does. This book is definitely barely-hidden gold that is easy to pass over. That fact it's not too expensive or overly ponderous in tone only adds to the value. High recommendations.

Postscript: The book has the author's website on the back. As of the date of writing this review, it's just a placeholder. Perhaps if the author eventually gets around to putting something useful up, he'll receive the full five stars!

Having read the original "Poetics" several times, this rendition of the master is very welcome. It touches on the salient points and how it relates to screenwriting. Good use of examples. My only suggestion is that he could have given us a little more depth.

If you are (or want to be) a serious screenwriter, you probably already know names like Robert McKee, Syd Field, Linda Seger, David Trottier and even David Bordwell...

The good thing about Mr. Tierno's book is that it goes back to the one fundamental text who, 2300 years before the birth of Cinema, already thought about many of the things all other screenwriting authors still talk about - what do we do in order to achieve higher drama?

And it is surprising how fresh Aristotle still sounds today, according to Mr Tierno's reading. Even if we consider that the object of Aristotle's thought was not the Cinema, but the Classical Greek Theatre - or the mimetic form of representation.

In fact, there is nothing new about Aristotle (or Cinema, or narrative, or screenwriting) here besides the fact that Mr. Tierno does an accurate reading of the great greek thinker and explains many of his key concepts.

In a nutshell, this book is an excelent reminder of how important, necessary and universal, good drama can be. Also it is a great reminder that screenwriting is a natural heir of most of storytelling's past traditions.

It is also a proof that screenwriting is an art form by itself.

This book is useful for fiction writers as well as screenwriters. The author interprets Aristotle's ideas and suggestions and then renders them with examples into language applicable to modern drama. Many of Aristotle's original ideas are quoted and have timeless power. For example: "Beginners succeed earlier with Diction and Characters than with the construction of a story."

Tierno relates how the parts of a modern script evaluation (Log Line, Brief, Plot Summary, Comments, Idea, Story, Character, Dialogue, and Production Values) mirror Aristotle's examination of the same elements. I especially liked how the film "Gladiator" was used for the example of "the mistake in a hero's reasoning, leading to the hero's subsequent related misfortunes."

The short length makes the book a fast but powerful read.