

Poetics by Aristotle - rglover
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt

======
temuze
I think that it's great that this is on the front page of HN. There are a
couple of great things we can learn from classics like this. For example,
let's talk about how art can provoke some kind of emotion.

Specifically, Aristotle discusses tragedy and explains why it can be one of
the best mediums in art in creating strong emotional connections with the main
character. To do this, he says that the main character must be:

\- Good: because if a bad thing happens to a bad person, the audience wouldn't
care.

\- Believable: because it would disrupt one's ability to empathize with the
character if they had some unrealistic/rare flaw.

The audience needs to believe that they could have made the same decisions as
the character. If you look at most classical Greek tragedies, this is true
(given Oedipus's information (or lack thereof), would allow many people to
make Oedipus's mistakes). It takes a masterful author to be able to predict
and understand people's emotions like this on the scale of an entire audience.

I think making a product requires a similar amount of empathy. You need to ask
yourself who your audience is. How many customers really need that feature?
What are they primarily using your product for? etc.

------
qohen
Some context, from the intro section of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetics_%28Aristotle%29> :

Aristotle's Poetics (Greek: Περὶ ποιητικῆς, c. 335 BCE) is the earliest-
surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise
to focus on literary theory. In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he
calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this
context includes drama—comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric
poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He examines its "first principles"
and identifies its genres and basic elements. His analysis of tragedy
constitutes the core of the discussion. Although Aristotle's Poetics is
universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, Marvin Carlson
explains, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent
opinions."

The work was lost to the Western world and often misrepresented for a long
time. It was available through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance only
through a Latin translation of an Arabic version written by Averroes.

------
swordswinger12
I'm reading a 2300-year-old philosophical treatise on the Internet. I am
seriously tickled by that.

