In Part 1 we saw how screenplay writing is about thinking of actions in time. In Part 2 and Part 3 we looked at how Aristotle looks at such a construction in poetry and drama. In this part, we conclude our gaze on the ancient master.
Aristotle
Types of Plots:
The two basic essential aspects to the ‘actions’ of any ‘plot’ that imitates the actions of life are that they can be grouped as a ‘single unit’ of action and that they have to be ‘continuous’ in nature. In real life a personage might undergo numerous actions, and a poet could select one set among them to be incorporated into the plot. As explained in the previous parts of this article series, an entire movie can be made on just the journey that Gandhi undertook across India after he came back from South Africa or a complete plot can be made up using the events that happened on the last day of Gandhi’s life leading to his death that was a result of the shootout that Nathuram Godse had authored.
When Aristotle says that the actions of a plot should be ‘continuous’ in nature, he probably implies that the actions contained therein should have a ’cause and effect’ relationship between them – we have looked into this aspect in the previous parts of this article too. Adding to the understanding is the concept of a Latin phrase called ‘Propter Hoc’. ‘Proctor’ means ‘because’ and ‘Hoc’ is ‘this’. ‘Proctor Hoc’ would mean ‘because of this’. Event X has happened and therefore X has ‘necessarily’ caused event Y. It is because of event X that event Y has happened, it indicates a direct ’cause and effect’ chain between the two events. It was because Nathuram Godse was indoctrinated into the culture of hate by his ultra right wing peer group that Gandhi got killed.
But certain caution is advised while dealing with and interpreting such direct ’cause and effect’ between events. This is pertaining to the fallacy of arguing from a ‘temporal sequential relationship’ and assuming a ‘causal relationship’ between any two events. In Latin the phrase for it is ‘Post Hoc’. If Y has happened after X, it might sometimes be fallacious to assume that X is the cause for that, which might not be the case at all. Just because event Y follows event X in ‘time’, it does not mean that event X has caused event Y. There might be no logical relationship between the event that is happening and that which has just happened before. This concept is best used in detective movies where authors deliberately mislead the investigating authority in a crime scene. If at the time of a murder, if a history-sheeter is caught by the police in the vicinity of the murder, the audience generally believes that it is the history-sheeter who might ‘probably’ be involved in the murder. And then when later on in the movie, when the actual killer is revealed, the audience and the investigator realises the fallacy. Similarly, if a movie star is found hanging in his bedroom eight days after his girl friend had left him – it does not ‘necessarily’ mean that it is because of this break up that the star had killed himself.
These two aspects mentioned above are a given to any kind of plot; Aristotle concentrates on Tragedies one would guess that they would good for comedies and other forms too. Aristotle also mentions two types of ‘plots’ in a Tragedy, (and for our understanding in other forms too) – the ‘Simple plots’ and the ‘Complex plots’, based on the types of action that they naturally represent. ‘Simple Plots’ have actions that can be grouped into a ‘single unit’ and is ‘continuous’ but the ‘change of fortune’ that occurs in the ‘personage’ does not include ‘Peripety’ (reversal) or “discovery” (find unexpectedly). A ‘complex plot’ has an action that can be seen as a ‘single unit’ and is ‘continuous’, but a change in the ‘reversal of fortune’ of the ‘personage’ involves a ‘Peripety’ or “reversal” or both. These two elements – ‘Peripety’ and ‘discovery’ – should arise out of the structure of the plot itself so as to be the ‘consequence’, ‘necessary or probable’ of the antecedent (a thing that existed before) events.
‘Peripety’ or ‘Reversal’:
The Godfather
As per Aristotle, ‘peripety’ or ‘reversal” are two of the three parts of the plot. A ‘peripety’ is the change from one state of things in the plot to its opposite in the ‘probable’ or ‘necessary’ sequence of events. One of RK Narayan’s short stories ‘The Financial Expert’ was adapted into a film called ‘Banker Margaiyya’ by TS Nagabharana. The protagonist is a thriving small time money lender – a sharp and tough one at that. He has a wayward son who once eccentrically throws away all the account books, plunging down Margaiyya’s business and literally ‘causing’ his ‘reversal of fortunes’. The kind of unruly personality that the son is, it is quite ‘probable’ or ‘likely’ to be that he becomes the cause of the destruction of the accounts book, that could ‘necessarily’ put Margaiyya into a financial loss.
A ‘discovery’ is a change from ‘ignorance to knowledge’ in a personage. In Aristotelian world a personage who is considered as a ‘good’ one, it is a change into ‘love’ and in a personage who is considered as ‘evil’, it is a change into ‘hate’. In ‘The Financial Expert’ / ‘Banker Margaiyya’, the central character holds the opinion that if one has money everything follows. He gets a shock of his life when his hard to control wayward troublesome son asks for a share of his property, under the undesirable influence of a pivotal character, with whom Margaiyya has had a fight. The pivotal character causes a run on his bank in the end, causing Margaiyya’s wealth to be reduced to all but nil – paving way for a ‘realisation’ that there is only that much that money can do, it does not build relationships – love and a sense of belonging does.
In the 1972 movie ‘Godfather’ directed by Francis Copolla, the character of Michael Corleone played by actor Al Pacino is perceived as a ‘good’ personage who wants to live a normal life sans any crime, illegality, violence and gory that is essentially associated with his mafia family. The ‘discovery’ of the real threat of losing many of his dear ones after the death of his mafia don father, gets him to ‘hate’ the other mafia families that are opposed to his. This ‘discovery’ leads to a ‘periperty’ (reversal of situation) where Michael Corleone orders the killings of many of his family’s enemies to regain control of the illegal empire that he inherits. The finest form of ‘discovery’ is one that is associated by ‘peripety’, opines Aristotle.
All tragedy involves a ‘change of fortune’ for the personages. In a ‘simple’ plot this is gradual; in a ‘complex’ plot it happens suddenly. In some of the greatest tragedies, says Aristotle, this is the result of actions that produce the opposite effect. Aristotle further distinguishes that a ‘discovery’may also happen in relation to ‘inanimate’ and ‘trivial’ objects. In Manmohan Desai’s 1977 film ‘Amar Akbar Antony’, the ‘discovery’ for the long lost son, a police officer named Amar, happens when he goes to his forgotten childhood house chasing a criminal who actually is his father. Once in the vicinity of the house, he gets flashes of remembrance from his childhood, the prominent among them being a gun that he himself had hid inside the ground besides a plant. As he digs the spot, he finds the gun – the criminal father who also knows about the gun recognizes Amar as his son, the ‘discovery’ aided by an inanimate object. Amar’s hatred for the criminal turns to ‘family ‘love’. From this point, the two of them join hands to fight another common enemy. It is also possible to ‘discover’ whether someone has done something or not, through an object, like a clue accidently left behind at the crime spot by the criminal which is then spotted by the investigator and the audience.
Amar Akbar Antony
But the ‘discovery’ which is most essentially part of the ‘plot’ and of the ‘action’ is of the kind described above – that is a change to ‘love’ and ‘hate’ in personages marked as ‘good’ and ‘evil’ respectively, done in a sequence of ’cause and effect’ and such a ‘discovery’ and ‘reversal of fortune’ will involve either ‘pity’ or ‘fear’; actions of that nature being what Tragedy is assumed to represent; and it will also serve to bring about the happy or unhappy ending.
Now since the ‘discovery’ is somebody’s discovery, in some scenes one character is only ‘discovered’ to the other, the identity of the other being obvious. In the play ‘Abhijnana Shakuntalam’ written by Kalidasa (probably 4 CE), thanks to a curse by a hot tempered sage, King Dushanta does not recognize his lady love Shakuntala with whom he had once spent romantic times and to whom he had gifted his royal ring. It is obvious to everyone that Shakuntala is King Dushyanta’s lady love, but not to the king himself. At other times, both ‘personages’ can recognise each other. The ‘Uttara Kanda’ portion of Indian epic ‘Ramayana’ which many scholars have opined is written at a date later than Valmiki – the original author of the epic – has Rama’s sons Lav and Kush growing up in a forest, not knowing about their father. Adhering to his so called royal obligatory duties, King Rama on the other hand had banished his pregnant wife Sita into the forests, where she begets the twins Lav and Kush. Both parties are unaware of the relationship they have with the other, the plot of ‘Uttara Kanda’ by the end of it makes them ‘discover’ each other.
And finally, the third aspect that Aristotle briefly describes in a tragic plot after ‘peripety’ and ‘discovery’ is ‘calamity’ / ‘suffering’. A ‘calamity’ is a destructive or painful occurrence, such as a death on the stage, acute suffering, wounding and so on, as that is what evokes the ‘tragic’ emotions of ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ in the audience and purging it for them. It has to have a sad ending, as is the case in William Shakespeare’s 16th century play ‘Romeo Juliet’ – the lovers have to die by the end of the plot. Similarly in the Mehaboob Khan’s 1957 movie ‘Mother India’, where the concerned and loving mother has to kill her ‘evil’ son – there could not be a more sadder action than that.
In a comedy, I could describe this aspect of the plot could be described as ‘good fortune’ or ‘happiness’. In the 1979 made Hrishikesh Mukerjee comedy film ‘Golmaal’, also referred to in the earlier parts of this piece, the protagonist has to undergo a series of clumsy embarrassing actions in which he lies about himself to his lover’s strict and traditional father in order to build a relationship with his daughter. The point of ‘discovery’ for the girl’s father comes when he sees through the lies of the protagonist, his future son in law. From a position of being in ‘admiration’ of him – falsely at that, he changes to a ‘reversal’ of being ‘angrily hateful’ of him. It so happens that the father of the girl – being the caring, loving and concerned person that he is towards his daughter, does not push the envelope too much that could have in any way led to any sort of tragic end to the plot. Instead, he is made to see through his irrational patriarchal behavior that could possibly cause harm to his daughter and he relents. Thus, the two lovers are united in the end. For the bumbling hero, the ‘peripety’ or the change from one state of thing to the other was from ‘comic despair’ to ‘happiness’. With no emotions of ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ to be purged in the plot, it therefore stands out as a comedy.
Golmaal
As per Aristotle, ‘discovery’ is least artistic when it is used via means of a ‘sign’ or a ‘mark’. Signs could be congenital (traits / deformity by birth) and some might have occurred after birth like marks on the bodies like scars or external token like a necklace. A classic often repeated example in Indian mainstream films would be a lost and found story of a mother and a son getting solved when the mother sees a mole on the right hand of the son, a mark that her son had at birth. ‘discovery’ can made directly by the poet when he mouths the words through the personage. This too is un-artistic, says Aristotle. The closest one can think of it in a screenplay are ‘discoveries’ exposed by a voice over or by a narrator. And then, there are ‘discovery’ made through memory – from a man’s consciousness being after being awakened by something seen or heard, like the example given earlier from the film ‘Amar Akbar Antony’. There is also ‘discovery’ through reasoning – the speech that Mark Antony gives in the play Julius Caesar to provoke a revolt against injustice. ‘Discoveries’ can also be made from bad reasoning from the other side. But Aristotle says the best of discoveries come from the incidents themselves, when the great ‘surprise’ comes from a ‘probable’ incident.
Things to be avoided in a tragic plot:
Zero Dark Thirty
Aristotle further looks at answering the following two questions that he poses for himself and for others. What has the poet to aim at and avoid in the construction of a ‘tragic’ plot? What are the condition on which the ‘tragic’ effect would itself depend upon? Aristotle first makes an assumption that the finest form of Tragedy would have a ‘simple’ plot and not a ‘complex’ one and that plot should imitate actions arousing ‘pity’ and ‘fear’, which that is the distinctive function of this kind of imitation. In all probability as implied by the explanation that follows next, by ‘simple plot’ Aristotle means the one that has one ‘denouement’ and a complex Plot, more than one.
Having set the parameters, Aristotle’s advice is to avoid the following kinds of plots. A ‘good’ man must not be made to pass from ‘happiness’ to ‘misery’, as such transition is not ‘fear’ inspiring or ‘piteous’, but only ‘odious’ (repulsive) to us. However clumsy he might have been, we would not like a good man like the one that the protagonist in the Hindi film ‘Golmal’ is, to end up in ‘misery’ for the reason that he cannot unite with his lady love. A ‘bad’ man’s transition from ‘misery’ to ‘happiness’ is the most untragic as it does not evoke ‘pity’ or ‘fear’ – one of the requisites of tragedy. In the 2012 American thriller movie ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ directed by Kathryn Bigelow, special military officers hunt out terrorist Osama Bin Laden, shoot him and dump his body into the sea. It is an act that does not invoke a sense of ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ in us, instead we feel relieved that it has happened.
If an extremely ‘bad’ man moves from ‘happiness’ into ‘misery’, there sure might be some feelings evoked in us, but they would probably not essentially be of ‘pity’ or ‘fear’ – the two requisites of tragedy. ‘Pity’, as per Aristotle, is triggered by ‘undeserved misfortune’ and ‘fear’ because the ‘misfortune’ is happening to a personage who are by ‘quality’ like ourselves or are better than us. So there will be nothing ‘piteous’ or ‘fear-inspiring’ in the situation where an ‘evil’ person, who is naturally perceived as below us in ‘quality’, falls from ‘happiness’ to ‘misery’. That it had to happen is a given. The wayward son in Mehaboob Khan ‘Mother India’ must have had a reason for the way he behaves, but he has caused extreme harm to the society. His death would not invoke either ‘pity’ or ‘fear’ in us. The ‘pity’ actually is for the mother who has to make a choice to kill her own wayward son so that others are relived.
Then there are the intermediate kind of personage – a man not predominantly ‘virtuous’ and whose ‘misfortune’ is brought upon him not by ‘vice’ and ‘depravity’ (wickedness) but by some error of judgment. He might be one of those personages who are in high station, good fortune and from good families. Aristotle at this point goes on to define a perfect tragic plot – A perfect plot for a tragedy must have ‘single’ and not ‘double issue’; the change in hero’s ‘fortunes’ must not be from ‘misery’ to ‘happiness’ but from ‘happiness’ to ‘misery’. The cause of this ‘change of fortune’ might not be due to any grave ‘depravity’ but by an ‘error of judgment’ on his part. The man (agent or the sufferer) himself must be either ‘intermediate kind of personage’ (a man not predominantly virtuous and just) or better than that but not worse.
Devdas
Bengali language writer of the early 20th century Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas is a perfect example of such a personage. He comes from a good family, he is not predominantly virtuous, neither he is ‘evil’, the wickedness of which would ‘naturally’ cause his misfortune. It is an error of judgment in his love affairs that causes his downfall. He could be just like you and me, and thus his condition causes ‘pity’ and maybe ‘fear’ because his ‘virtue’ matches ours, if not is more. And when Devdas dies in the unhappy ending, the ‘tragic’ nature of the plot is complete.
The second in the hierarchy of plots for Aristotle are those that have ‘double actions’ or ‘double denouements’ – what he calls ‘complex plots’. Here there are opposite issues for the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’. He gives the classic example of Homer’s epic ‘Odyssey’ where there are two plots – so to say – one, that chronicles the journey of the heroic figure Odysseus who makes his long journey back to his home and the other involving suitors of his wife Penelope who think that Odysseus is dead and who want to marry Penelope. The two plot meets in the end where aided by his son Telemachus, Odysseus kills all the suitor and regains his thrown. There is a ‘happy’ denouement for the ‘good’ and a ‘sad’ one for the bad. But the pleasure for the audience is not that of a ‘tragedy’ as no ‘pity’ and ‘fear’ is aroused in us. Aristotle also opines that such a ‘double plots’ could work well in a ‘comedy’ were the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ personages don’t slay each other, but becomes friends by the end of the plot.
What causes the tragic effect – ‘pity’ and ‘fear’?
Macbeth
The ‘Tragic pleasure’ of ‘fear’ and ‘pity’ might be evoked by the ‘spectacle’ (anything that is presented before the audience onstage costumes, scenery, the gestures of the actors, the sound of the music and the resonance of the actors’ voices.) But best is it, says Aristotle, when they are aroused by the ‘incidents’ in the play. The ‘plot’ should be in such a way that even without seeing the incident, the audience who merely hears an account of them – without any ‘spectacle’ – shall be filled with ‘horror’ or ‘pity’. The ‘spectacle’ is less artistic and requires extraneous aid. As mentioned elsewhere in this series of writing, Aristotle has his biases – if I may say so. It would seem that his aversion for the costume, appearance, settings etc evident here. We as screenwriters have a lot to learn from Aristotle in terms of ‘plot’ and ‘character’ – but we should also admit that we would do so immersed in the ‘spectacle’, as Aristotle means it and not meant in the usual meaning applied to it that refers to the grandeur of things.
When a tragic deed is done by an ‘enemy’ to another ‘enemy’ or to people who are ‘indifferent’ to each other, it does not evoke ‘pity’ or ‘fear’ – except in the actual pain of the sufferer. On the other hand, if it is done between ‘friends’ or ‘relatives’, then it invokes ‘fear’ and ‘pity’ – such as a murder that happens between ‘friends’ or ‘relatives’. Even in this option there is the right way to do it, proposes Aristotle. In Shakespeare’s play ‘Macbeth’, King Duncan is murdered by one of his won trusted general, Macbeth. The deed of ‘horror’ might have been done ‘knowingly’ and ‘consciously’ or it might be done in ‘ignorance’, but it is ‘discovered’ later. One could also be ‘meditating’ to cause ‘harm’ to the other, in ‘ignorance’ to the relationship but draws back with the knowledge of it. So, the deed can be done or not be done, or can be done knowingly or not knowingly. But a personage who is in full knowledge of the relationship, but leaves the deed undone – it is odious (unpleasant, repulsive) and through the absence of suffering, untragic. A better situation than that, however says Aristotle, is for the deed to be done in ‘ignorance’, and the relationship ‘discovered’ afterwards, since there is nothing ‘odious’ in it, and the ‘discovery’ will serve to ‘astound’ or shock us.
Character
The second most important part of a tragic play is ‘character’. It deals with certain ‘qualities’ of a ‘personage’ that guides his or her actions, and thus will decide if he or she will succeed or fail in the plot. Aristotle gives us four points to aim at, with regards to ‘character’. Firstly, the personages will have to be ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’. What the personage ‘says’ or ‘does’ should reveal a certain moral purpose. Such ‘goodness’ is possible in every type of character – even an woman or slave, one is inferior and other is a wholly worthless being, says Aristotle betraying the myopic biases of his times. Probably what he is arguing for are shades of grey. Secondly, he says character should be ‘appropriate’. Being ‘appropriate’ is being suitable and proper in the circumstances. A personage might be ‘manly’ or ‘clever’, but such ‘qualities’ are not appropriate in a woman character, is the bigoted example that Aristotle gives. It is things like these that date Aristotle, but giving a quality to the personage that is ‘appropriate’ to circumstances is always ideal. Thirdly, ‘character’ should be made ‘real’, which is distinct from being ‘good’ and ‘appropriate’. And finally, character should be ‘consistent’ and same throughout. If inconsistency is a part of the character, he should be ‘consistently inconsistent’.
The right thing in the character, just as in the incidents of the play, is to always venture after the ‘necessary’ and the ‘probable’, so that whenever such and such a ‘personage’ says or does such an such a thing, it shall be the ‘probable outcome’ of his ‘character’; and whenever an ‘incident’ follows on that it shall be either the ‘necessary’ or probable’ consequences of it. So, there is a direct relationship between ‘character’ and the ’cause and effect’ factor in a plot – implies Aristotle.
With regards to character Aristotle gives an analogy. Since tragedy is the imitation of personages better than the ordinary man, he says that the poet should strive to follow the example of good portrait-painter who would reproduce the distinctive features of a man, and at the same time without losing the likeness, make him handsomer than he is. A poet in a similar manner, in portraying men quick or slow to anger or with similar infirmities (weakness) of ‘character’, must know how to represent them as such and at the same time as good persons.
Aristotle’s tips for plot construction.
The Founder
- While working on the plot the poet should imagine the scene before his eyes, seeing everything with the vividness of an eye witness. With such a detached view it can be decided what is appropriate (suitable or compatible – a rich lady owning and driving a fancy costly car) and would be least likely to over look incongruities (inconsistencies – like a rich lady owning a second hand run down car).
- The poet should even act his story out with the very gestures of his personages. He or she would then feel the emotions of the personage and therefore would be very convincing. Screenwriters should be flattered by Aristotle’s opinion that a poet – their ancient ancestor – has a special gift to guess or infer the required ‘mood’ in the action or have a ‘touch of madness’ to experience the ’emotions’ in them.
- The poet should first simplify the plot and reduce it to a ‘universal form’, before proceeding to name the characters and lengthen the plot out by the insertion of ‘appropriate’ episodes or ‘accessory incidents’. That which is least relevant / not directly linked to the plot are ‘episodes’. This applies to stories that already exists as imitations or in events in real life; as well as new inventions. The ‘episodes’ or ‘accessory incidents’ should be short in plays and in an epic poem they lengthen out. Putting it in an ‘universal form’, the plot of the 2016 American movie ‘The Founder’ directed by John Lee Hancock is that a hard working salesman follows his passion to successfully set up a chain of unique restaurants across America after unethically buying the said business from the people who had in the first place invented the idea. Everything else in the movie like his divorce and re-marriage are ‘episodes’.
- Every tragedy has two parts to it – a ‘Complication’ and a ‘Denouement’. The incidents before the opening scene, and often those within the beginning of the play, form the ‘Complication’; and the rest the ‘Denouement’. ‘Complication’ is how an issue on hand builds up and ‘denouement’ is how it gets solved. Earlier in the write up while dealing with the wholeness of a plot I had mentioned that how some scholars and practitioners refer to Aristotle as the progenitor of the three-act structure because he uses the terms – beginning, middle and end. Well, in this section he can be seen talking of a ‘two act’ structure, if it can be called so! Aristotle’s formula is simple – ‘Complication’ is all actions that start from the beginning of the plot to the point just before the change in the hero’s fortunes and ‘denouement’ is all from the beginning of such a change to the end of the plot. Using this understanding, it can be said that in the Hindi language movie called ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ made in 2015 by Kabir Khan, all those actions in the ‘plot’ where the protagonist is just about to sneak into Pakistan, in order to search and handover the little lost girl, where his fortune would change would be the ‘complication’ and the portion where he comes back to India after all hardships, the ‘denouement’.
- There are four distinct constituents of Tragedy. The first is the ‘complex’ Tragedy, which is all of ‘peripety’ and ‘discovery’ (not referring to double denouement plots) – the genesis of which is the Plot; second, the Tragedy of suffering, e.g. the story of Ixions in Greek Mythology where the protagonist had to undergo a series of sufferings for the act of killing his father-in-law; third, the Tragedy of character, like the ambition of Macbeth that becomes his tragedy. The fourth constituent is that of ‘Spectacle’, exemplified in The Phorcides, in Prometheus, and in all plays with the scene laid in the nether (lying or believed to lie beneath the earth’s surface) world.
- One should also not write a tragedy on an epic body of incidents (i.e. one with a plurality of plots and stories in it), by attempting to dramatize, for instance, the entire story of the epic poem Iliad.
- The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and take a share in the action.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan
Diction and Thought
We now come to the next two essential elements of the ‘plot’, ‘thought’ and ‘diction’. The ‘Thought’ of the personages is shown in their language—in efforts to prove or disprove things, to arouse emotion (pity, fear, anger, and the like), or to maximize or minimize things. The mental process must also be on the same lines as their actions which means whenever it is wished to arouse ‘pity’ or ‘horror’, they should look for ‘importance’ or ‘probability’. The only difference is that the impression has to be made without explanation in actions; whereas with the spoken word it has to be produced by the speaker through his language.
‘Diction’, is the turns given to the language when spoken; e.g. the difference between command and prayer, simple statement and threat, question and answer, and so forth. Diction is the style of articulation in speaking or singing, it includes the choice and use of words, phrases and sentences in speech or writing. Diction viewed as a whole is made up of the Letter (or ultimate element),the Syllable, the Conjunction, the Article, the Noun, the Verb, the Case, and the Speech. Aristotle gives a very detailed account of all these matters, discussing these is beyond the purview of this write up.
Aristotle is of the opinion that an elaborate ‘diction’ is required only in places where there is no action, and when no ‘character’ or ‘thought’ to be revealed. Where there is ‘character’ or ‘thought’, on the other hand, an over-ornate ‘diction’ tends to obscure them.
Epic Poetry and Drama:
For those of us who are grappling with the epic form in cinema, it would be worthwhile to have a peep into Aristotle’s parallel between the ‘epic poetry’ and ‘tragic drama’. Aristotle describes (epic) poetry as a form that ‘merely narrates’, or imitates by means of ‘versified language’ (without action). It has many things common with the ‘tragic drama’ as far as the construction of it goes – like possibility to see the events as a ‘single action’, it should be one that is a ‘complete and whole’ in itself with a beginning, middle and end; and it has to have a certain ‘magnitude’, enough such that that its pleasure can be comprehended. Besides this, ‘Epic poetry’ like the tragic drama could be either ‘simple’ or ‘complex’, a story of ‘character’ or one of ‘suffering’. Apart from ‘song and spectacle’, its parts too must be the same; and also, it requires ‘peripeties’, ‘discoveries’, and scenes of ‘suffering’ just like Tragedy. Lastly, the ‘thought and Diction’.
There is, however, a difference in the ‘epic poetry’ as compared with the ‘tragic drama’, in its ‘metre’ and its ‘length’. I won’t be talking about the metrical aspects, but it would be worthwhile contemplating a bit on the issue of ‘length’. In ‘epic poetry’ the ‘length’ limit must be such that it must be possible for the ‘beginning and end’ of the work to be grasped and comprehended in ‘one view’ and about as long as the series of tragedies offered for ‘one physical hearing’. In a play, the imitation of an action that has many parts going on simultaneously is not an ideal thing to have, one just has to limit the plot to the part that is enacted on stage by the actors.
The narrative form in the ‘epic poetry’ makes it possible for one to describe verbally in verse a number of simultaneous incidents happening in many places and times; and if relevant to the subject they would increase the length of the poem. Therefore the ‘Epic poem’ has a certain grandeur (not to be confused with ‘spectacle’), and also variety of seemingly divergent interests as amplified by diverse episodes. ‘Tragedy’ most times requires the ‘marvelous’ or that which causes ‘wonder’ and or which is ‘extraordinary’. When things are ‘improbable’, that tends to cause the ‘marvelous’ feeling. The ‘Epic form’ has more scope for the ‘improbable’ and the ‘marvelous’, mainly because the ‘agents’ are not visible in it – and that the ‘marvelous’ is just being narrated and the audience can imagine anything of it.
Odysseus and Penelope
Aristotle hails ancient poet Homer for skillfully framing lies in the right way by the use of ‘paralogism’. ‘Paragloism’ is an illogical or fallacious reasoning, as mentioned in the earlier parts of this writings. To reinforce it again, event A happens and as a consequent of that event ‘B’ happens. Whenever, event A happens and as a consequent of that event B happens, people then tend to believe that if ‘B’ has happened, then ‘A’ also has happened. It might sound convincing, but that might not always be true. The convincing lie is that if event A is untrue and event B is necessarily or it might ‘probably’ or ‘necessarily’ happen if event A was true, then if you place event B after event A, our mind would convincingly believe that event A could also be true.
Aristotle gives the example of the bath sequence of Homer’s epic ‘Odyssey’. Odysseus makes a ten year long journey back home after a war, only to find that his lamenting wife Penelope is pestered by suitors who think that he is dead. He disguises himself in rags as a stranger from a far off island to know the reality and finds himself in his own house talking to Penelope. He lies that he knew of Odysseus when he stayed with him in his island some twenty years back. Penelope asks for some evidence to really know if the person whom she is speaking really knew her husband. Odysseus, in graphic details describes the kind of dress that Odysseus wore when he came to the island and tells her the features of his aides. It was indeed Penelope who had given the dress to Odysseus when he set out from home to fight a war, so she believes that the person has spoken the truth. She then orders her aides to welcome him as her house guest and give him a bath. Aristotle says, just because we know the truth of the consequent, we are in our own minds led on to the erroneous inference of the truth of the antecedent.
There is a lot to pick up from Aristotle, notwithstanding his positioning with regards to women and slaves. Also, today’s screenplay writers do not necessarily have to believe that the protagonist has to be necessarily virtuous or the antagonist, riddled with evil natured vices. Although he does mentions of it in the passing, there are a whole lot of shades of grey in matters of ‘actions’ that stem from ‘character, ‘thought’ and ‘diction’. This write up is more a revisit to Aristotelian principles in dramatic writing, a craft modern day screen writers heavily indulge in. I’ll end the write up by quoting some more tips from the grand ancient man for the screenwriter. Aristotle says that a critic could find the following five faults with the work of imitation that ‘tragedy’ is, and I would add that which the poet should be conscious of. One should guard oneself against the ‘impossible’, the ‘improbable’, the ‘corrupting’, the ‘contradictory’ and the work being not ‘technically correct’.
In the coming articles I intend to look at what is it in store for the modern screenplay writer in Baratha’s ‘Natya Shastra’. I confess that this would be a time consuming and daunting task, as we all know that the ancient Indian treatise on theater is a bulkier text matching the intensity of Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’.
End of Part 4
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