Poetics

It is about high time I gave the work of a philosopher so eminent as Aristotle its due by writing a marginal commentary about it. I employed Aristotle's Poetics in my post on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as you may recall, in which I compared Barty Crouch, Sr., to a tragic protagonist, as defined by Aristotle in Poetics.

Since drama and theatre have long been interests of mine (although it has been too long since I pursued them in any active role), I have had some experience with the Poetics, and of course I read it through last year - for the first time, mind you - and used it (skilfully, I hope) in my literary criticism of The Goblet of Fire.

Thus I would like to write a marginal commentary on one of Aristotle's most famous, not to mention one of his shortest, works, the Poetics, in which he writes about the nature and purpose of drama, and of the elements of tragedy.

The edition I am using is the translation made for Penguin Classics by Malcolm Heath, published in 1996. The references for citation will be page number (from the Penguin Classics edition) and the convention of referring to the Bekker numbers. Here we go:

The Four Pages: Trouble in the Bible

Update: Well, I'd hoped to finish this stuff last week for Sunday, but writing the actual sermon kinda had to take priority, for obvious reasons. Based on the reactions I got after preaching, with some in-depth discussion with the folks, I can say that Wilson's method of four pages works. I should send that guy a card.

Anyway, the first of the four figurative pages is, according to Wilson, 'trouble in the Bible'.

Tragedy in the Goblet of Fire

If J. K. Rowling had written Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a tragedy, the protagonist would not be Harry Potter, but Barty Crouch, Sr.

Now, upon investigation, the story of Barty Crouch, Sr., does not follow the Aristotelean definition of tragedy; still, I think there is no question that Crouch is a tragic figure, at least if tragedy is loosely understood.

I want to explore the tragic story of the Crouch family because upon further reading of and reflection upon The Goblet of Fire I believe that it is this story that drives the plot. It is in many ways one of the most important elements of the book, and the degenerate form which it took in the film was a weakness. Barty Crouch, Sr., became a timid old fart; and Barty Crouch, Jr., a cardboard nutjob with a tic. One of the most enjoyable aspects of The Goblet of Fire (the book, I mean) is the discovery of the wider wizarding world, to which Harry has been (despite his importance as the Boy Who Lived) a peripheral figure, and which has a life and energy of its own apart from Harry and Hogwarts. The story of the Crouches is part of that world.

Dumbledore's epitaph on Barty Crouch, Jr. is applicable in part to his father: 'see what that man chose to make of his life! [p, 615]' We shall see how essential the tragedy of Barty Crouch, Sr., is to the plot of The Goblet of Fire, how the Crouch family dynamics and relationships implied or discussed in the book imitate, in however fantastic a way, those of ordinary families, and what lesson, if lesson there is, we can take from the example of the Crouches.