Why does Aristotle regard tragedy as a better form of art than epic ? 

Ans . Aristotle contribution in the history of Western literary criticism has been summed up in the phrase, " Father of Criticism ‘. His Poetics (the art of Poetry) is the first landmark in the history of literary criticism and has been described as the Bible of criticism. The Poetics is an esoteric (unpublished) work and has come to us in fragments assembled from commentaries, arguments and legend. And, as Scott - James put it, “It is not easy to disentangle Aristotle from the commentaries, arguments and legend that have grown out of him through the ages. One epoch after another has fallen under his pervasive influence. He was the acknowledged master during the centuries of Greek and Roman culture; he imposed rules of reasoning on the schoolmen of the Middle Ages; and after, as if he had not already enslaved the world enough, he conquered a new Empire and became lawgiver and absolute monarch to the poets and critics. It is only in our own undeferential age that the glamour of divine right has fallen from him . “He has been regarded ' lawgiver ' through the ages because of the prescriptive nature of the text of Poetics. 

In his Poetics, Aristotle has prescribed rules, on the nature of poetry, kinds of poetry, epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, and so on. He has offered inductive generalizations in aphoristic style and these can be expanded and developed into treatises. Written in the severest of styles, devoid of all literary grace, it forms a treasury of ideas of lasting value, the full significance of which it has taken centuries to understand. Let us notice how in the span of one sentence he has said all that can be said on tragedy : " Tragedy then , is an imitation of an action that is serious , complete , and of a certain magnitude ; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament , several kinds of being found in separate parts of play , in the form of action , not of narrative ; through pity and fear affecting the proper purgation of these emotions . " The prescriptive nature of the text of Poetics can be seen in the short, crispy but meaningful rules prescribed by Aristotle on various topics. Aristotle's P s Poetics is a small and fragmentary work with many gaps and limitations and its treatment of poetry is neither comprehensive nor systematic, yet till the middle of 18th century in Europe this fragmentary work was regarded as the Bible of the literary criticism and the words of Aristotle as the gospel truth.

 This and MOR work was subjected to elaborate analysis and interpretation and many canons of criticism and of aminiai important critical code were evolved out of it. The impact of Aristotle's Poetics upon the historical literary criticism was profound and permanent and Aristotle, therefore, has rightly been called the father of literary criticism. Aristotle, unlike his teacher, has immense respect for the tragic poet. He elevates the art of tragedy to level higher than the epic. To those familiar with the commonly established hierarchy of poets in the classical times, his view was a modification of the existing order in which the position of Homer and Hesiod was at the top and the status of the epic as the fountain head of inspired wisdom was unparalleled. But Aristotle argued his case very logically to redefine a total art and tragedy as the most sublime of its genres. We shall emphasize the contribution of Aristotle in revealing tragic performance, and thus theatre, as a total art that consists not merely of dialogue, characters and plot, but of no less importance, the elements of spectacle, music and dance. In fact, one of the reasons why he regarded tragedy as superior to the epic was that tragedy had these elements. " ... because it has all the epic elements it may even use the epic meter with music and spectacular ( visual ) effects as important accessories and these produce the most vivid of pleasures " ( Poetics XXVI : 4 ) . Theatre it has often been said that the extant text of the Poetics is incomplete. The portions on comedy and presumably on satyrikon are missing. Assuming the kind of thoroughness with which Aristotle wrote, very likely there were other portions of the tract. But what does survive still is an overall view of art with which the Poetics opens. That should leave us in no doubt that in terms of mimetic representation and theatrical practice whatever is said about tragedy applies to comedy and satyrikon as well. In fact, poetry, painting, music and drama of all kinds are all non - utilitarian arts using mimesis through different media .The Poetics of Aristotle opens with the statement that mimesis is a valuable method for artistic representation. He then goes on to define that rhythm, language, and harmony are the basic channels through which artistic imitation is made possible. After stating that epic poetry , tragedy , comedy , dithyrambic poetry , flute or lyre playing are all ' modes of mimesis , Aristotle states that mimesis in different art forms is achieved differently , and that the object and manner of mimesis is different in each case ( Poetics I ; 2-4 ) . Having established that language , rhythm and harmony shall be the medium of mimesis for dramatic forms , he then postulates that these media are manifested as the six elements of tragedy , namely , myth or plot , ethos or the characters , dianoia or argument , lexis or diction , melopoiia or music and finally opsis or the visual spectacle . Broadly speaking, these six elements are found in all other forms such as the comedy and the satyr.