Principles & History of Literary Criticism – Chapter 2 (Continued), Lecture notes of English Literature

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(51). Relative Importance of Plot and Character in Tragedy Aristotle says that there are six parts of tragedy: muthos (plot), ethos (character), dianonia (thought), lexis (diction), melas (song), and opsis (spectacle). Of these six parts of tragedy plot holds the first place. By plot he understands the arrangement of incidents; it is the way in which action works itself. He defines tragedy in view of the importance of plot. He says, “tragedy is an imitation, not of man, but of action and of life.” Action which determines character is nothing but plot. In this way character is subordinate to plot. Aristotle also says,“The plot is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: character comes second.” This statement of Aristotle should be ‘understood in the sense that plot gives meaning, vitality and vigour to the play. In the words of Prof. Else, “For plot is the structure of the play, and around which the material parts are laid, just as the soul is the structure of a man.” Aristotle’s theory that plot is of supreme importance is based on the view that "Tragedy is an‘imitation not of human beings but of action. and life, of happiness and misery. Happiness and misery are realised in action; the goal of life is an action, not a quality. Men owe their qualities to their characters, but it isin their actions that they are happy or the reverse. And’ so the stage figures do not act in order to represent their characters; - they include their characters for the sake of their action.” Aristotle. goes té the extent of saying that “without action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without.characteer.” Aristotle explains it by saying that there can be tragedies which “fail in the rendering of character.” Furthermore “if you. string together a set speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point of diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however, deficient in these respects, yet has a_ plot and artistically con- structed incidents.” - Let us now consider’ Aristotle's meaning of the word — ‘character’ which is very much different’ from the traditional conception of ‘character’, By ‘character’ we understand a dramatic porsonage such as a Hamlet, a Macbeth, a Viola etc., but for . Aristotle character is a synthesis of ethos and dianoia. Ethos is the moral side of a man, while dlanoia represents the intellectual aspect of human being. Aristotle thinks that character is the bent or tendency or habit of mind which can be revealed only in what a dramatic personage says or does. In drama as in life, both the moral bent of a person and his thoughts reveal themselves in his speeches and _ in his actions, In this sense a chatacter means a character In action and action is nothing but plot. If a man knows what is good, but does not act up to his ideal, he cannot be called a man of good character, He can be called good only when he can practise virtue. This concept of Aristotle has been nicely ®xplained by Humphry House. He says, “Character is a bent, a tendency, a legacy of past acts, is not fully ‘actualized’ or ‘realized’. It is only fully realized when it is ‘in act’, as it is not, for instance, when we are asleep”. In the Pootics: Aristotle has clearly expressed this view : “All human happi- Ness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live Is a certain C Scanned with OKEN Scanner