Introduction
Aristotle
Aristotle was born in 384 B.C.E. at the Greek colony of Stagirus, on the coast of Thrace. His father was a court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia. At age seventeen, Aristotle went to Athens, where he joined the Academy and studied under Plato. Eventually he began giving his own lectures at the Academy. When Plato died in 347, Plato's nephew took over the school, and Aristotle left Athens. Eventually he was asked by Philip of Macedonia to tutor his thirteen-year-old son, Alexander.
When Philip died, Alexander took the throne, and Aristotle returned to Athens, where he started his own school, the Lyceum. When Alexander died suddenly in 323, Aristotle fled Athens and died the following year.
Poetics
In Poetics (c.350), Aristotle tries to explain poetry in terms of its first principles, and by classifying it into its different genres. The most famous part is Aristotle's examination of Tragedy in Chapter Six.
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