Aristotle's Poetics in the 4-6 grade fiction unit

The man himself-- a bust of the man himself, rather.

Aristotle's Poetics, written 350 B.C.E., is the earliest surviving work on dramatic theory, but it's also a very accessible guide for Peregrine's 4-6 graders to learn to think about storytelling and about how to create their own original narratives.

Early in this semester, in relation to our major theme of human community and survival, we posed the question: Is storytelling essential to human survival? After all, we see narratives in all human civilizations, right along with food, shelter, fuel, etc. So, is our instinct to create narratives (or poetry, as Aristotle has it) as innate as these other biological necessities?

In Poetics, Aristotle says:

Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. 

(His other cause is human's affection for rhythm and harmony-- we also see music in human societies across the board.)

A couple things: On the first day of this unit, I asked the class if they liked to read and write stories and, if so, why. Many simply said, "It's fun!" It is fun to read and make up stories, and this isn't lost on our man Aristotle: "...no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated." The other important thing is, narrative is in fact part of our nature as humans, according to Aristotle. Clearly, we can't make the case that telling and writing stories is a biological necessity... but we can ask: Is there a difference between something that is a part of human nature and something we need to survive? As one student pointed out in our discussion: What are we eating, building shelters, and making fires for, if not to play music and share stories with each other? It's a great question!

So, we have been asking some enormous questions about narrative, but we also get practical advice from Poetics about plot construction, character, and style. We will continue to work with Poetics for the next few weeks, as our fiction unit progresses. As I say, it is a very readable, slim book and is even available online for free here .

I'm aware that this may be the first time that the kids have studied literature and their own writing "through the lens" of some philosopher, and I've been cautioning them about thinking that anyone-- even "The Big A," as we sometimes call him-- is The Final Word on reading and writing stories. We study him to clarify our own thoughts on the material.

"Aristotle was just a guy who had some good ideas," I tell them. "Any of you could probably have taken him in an arm wrestling contest."

--Chris