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St. Augustine's Press |
Although
Aristotles Poetics is the most frequently read of his works, philosophers
and political theorists have, for the most part, left analysis of the text
to literary critics and classicists. In this book Michael Davis argues convincingly
that in addition to teaching us something about poetry,
Poetics contains an understanding of the common structure of human action
and human thought that connects it to Aristotles other writings on
politics and morality. Davis demonstrates that the duality of Poetics reaches
out to the philosopher, writer, and political theorist and shows the importance
of the ideal in our imaginings of and goals for the future. How is Aristotles suggestion in the Poetics that human beings are distinguished by their imitative faculties related to his better known definition of man as a rational or political animal? In the course of a careful commentary on the Greek text, Michael Davis provides a highly original, thought-provoking answer. Catherine Zuckert, University of Notre Dame Michael Daviss study of Aristotles Poetics moves with great wit and subtlety from the stand-up comic to Oedipus, from politics to metaphor, from the commonplace to the profound. Revealing what is wonderful and strange in familiar notions of poetry and tragedy, and explaining what is baffling in Aristotles text, Davis provides an interpretation worthy of the Philosopher himself. Mary P. Nichols, Fordham University |
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Poetry of Philosophy: On Aristotles Poetics 203 pages, 6 x 9, paperback, intro., notes, bibliography, index ISBN: 1-890318-62-0 $19.00 (£13.00) |