ARISTOTLE:
TRAGEDY is a REPRESENTATION of a COMPLETE ACTION, which has MAGNITUDE, by people ACTING, and not by narration, accomplishing by means of PITY and TERROR the CATHARSIS of such emotions.
Since TRAGEDY is a representation of an action and is enacted by people acting, these people are NECESSARILY OF A CERTAIN SORT according to their CHARACTER and their REASONING. For it is because of these that we say that actions are of a certain sort.
WITHOUT ACTION a TRAGEDY cannot exist, but WITHOUT CHARACTERS IT MAY.
SAMUEL JOHNSON:
Almost all the FICTIONS OF THE LAST AGE will VANISH, if you DEPRIVE them of a HERMIT and a WOOD, a BATTLE and a SHIPWRECK.
WHY this wild strain of imagination FOUND RECEPTION SO LONG in polite and learned ages, it is not easy to conceive; but we cannot wonder that, while READERS could be procured, the AUTHORS were willing to continue it: for when a man had by practice gained some fluency of LANGUAGE, he had no further care than to RETIRE TO HIS CLOSET, LET LOOSE his invention, and HEAT HIS MIND with incredibilities; a book was thus produced WITHOUT fear of criticism, without the toil of study, without knowledge of nature, or acquaintance with LIFE.
The task of our PRESENT writers is very DIFFERENT; it requires, together with that learning which is to be gained from books, that EXPERIENCE which can never be attained by solitary diligence, but must arise from general converse, and ACCURATE OBSERVATION of the LIVING world.
Team Johnson, fearing the disaster suffered by Hume against Plato, picks the strategy of brevity, but really, what chance does Johnson, even with the clever, “Hermit and a Wood, a Battle and a Shipwreck,” have against the banner Aristotle, massing with its “COMPLETE ACTION” and its “CATHARSIS?”
Johnson (b 1709) demonstrates how early the ‘self-consciously-modern’ virus dragged down Letters; this Lament has been around a long, long time: previous ages lacked “accuracy,” “experience” and “real, observed life,” etc. We don’t believe a word of it.
WINNER: ARISTOTLE
