Plot Unity : a unified plot is constructed around a single action and must present it as a unified whole

1. Plot Unity: a unified plot is constructed around a single action and must present it as a unified whole Not dependent merely on plot being about one man/person Each incident must be organic/critical to the plot itself What is unsatisfying about incidents that are not critical to a plot? Can you think of an example?

2. Poetic Truth Reflects the kind of things that could happen (rather than what actually happened) Must conform to what is probable or necessary Means that poetry is of more value and more worthy of serious attention than history

3. Why? • What makes poetry more worthy than history? • Its universality. • Is there really such a thing? Is anything universally true?

4. Historical Truth • Bound by particular facts • Does not necessarily reflect universal truth

5. Types of Plots: Episodic • Sequence of events is neither probable nor necessary; loses credibility • These plots do not stir pity and fear because they seem to happen by either by chance or to be merely mechanical.

6. Types of Plots: Simple • Single and continuous • Change of fortune comes without reversal or discovery

7. Types of Plots: Complex • Change in fortune comes because of reversal or discovery or both • Must develop out of the structure of the plot, be inevitable and probable

8. Reversal • A change in affairs from one state to its opposite (generally from good to bad) • Conforms to probability or necessity

9. Discovery • Change from ignorance to knowledge • Leads to love or hatred • May lead to good fortune or bad fortune • May accompany a reversal (e.g. the Messenger in Oedipus) • *The most effective ones develop pity and fear in the audience, hence the tragic effect.

10. Calamity • An action of a destructive or painful nature • E.g. death openly represented, excessive suffering, etc.