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ARISTOTLE_STANDARDS
July 30 - October 9, 2018
From Section XXV: ARISTOTLE_POETICS
"... the standard of correctness is
not the same in poetry and politics,
any more than in poetry and any
other art."
Poetic license? But then, do we
hold politics to a higher standard?
Political license.
Further, in Section XXV:
"Within the art of poetry itself
there are two kinds of faults, those
which touch its essence, and those
which are accidental."
Core and perhipheral,
Significant and trivial... ?
"Accidental" seems like a strange
word to use here.
And more from
Section XXV:
"But if the failure is due
to a wrong choice if he has Back in the mid-80s, there was a Prof
represented a horse as Sinclair in the Stanford MatSci
throwing out both his off department, who gave a popular talk
legs at once ..." about Myubridge's work in the 1870s
using flash photography to study the
"... not to know that a hind motion of horse's legs-- this was a
has no horns is a less study funded by Leland Stanford
serious matter than to paint himself, to settle a bet he had going.
it inartistically."
Sinclair made the point
Aristotle is thus in sync that paintings before
with what I think of as this study was done
the Hollywood attitude: often showed horses legs
"Aww, they won't know the doing very peculiar,
difference." unbelievable things--
afterwards, when it was
understood what they
The general ignorance of really did, they all
the audience justifies any showed poses more true
amount of blatant fakery-- to life-- and true to
and artistic license our perception once we
covers for any amount of were all aware of how
imitation without fidelity horses move.
to reality.
There's a Rebecca Solnit
book about Muybridge,
DIEHARD "River of Shadows":
"If one wanted to find an
absolute beginning point,
a creation story, for
California's two greatest
transformations of the
world, these experiments
with horse and camera
would be it."
Continuing with Section XXV:
"To justify the irrational, we appeal
to what is commonly said to be."
Look, I know this is bullshit, but the
guys in the cheap seats love this guff.
"In addition to which, we urge
that the irrational sometimes does
not violate reason; just as 'it is It's back to Agathon,
probable that a thing may happen already quoted in
contrary to probability.'" Section XVIII (is
this the *only*
quotation used twice
"... there are five sources from in "The Poetics"?).
which critical objections are drawn."
o "impossible"
o "irrational"
o "morally hurtful"
o "contradictory"
o "contrary to artistic correctness"
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