CriticaLink | Aristotle: Poetics | Terms

narrative

Aristotle discusses narrative as the mode of imitation of the epic, which is conveyed to the audience by a single storyteller or rhapsode, in contrast to the tragedy, in which the story is dramatized by the speech of actors and a chorus. The poet who constructs a narrative can speak either in his or her own voice or assume the voices of different characters.

• Aeschylus
• Aristophanes
• Euripides
• Sophocles

• anagnorisis
• catharsis
• character
• comedy
• complex plot
• complication
• denouement
• deus ex machina
• diction
• Dionysus
• dithyrambic poetry
• drama
• epic
• fear
• genre
• hamartia
• hexameter
• iambic
• medium
• mimesis
• mode
• narrative
• nomic poetry
• object
• pathos
• peripeteia
• phallic songs
• pity
• plot
• poetry
• simple plot
• song
• spectacle
• telos
• thought
• tragedy
• trope
• unities