ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 considers Robortello’s conception of poetics. Poetics deals with fictitious things, which concern the past, the present and the future, and it approaches them by means of verisimilitude. Insofar as it negotiates the past, it is close to history, and insofar as it concerns the truth, it has a special relationship with rhetoric. The chapter explores the similarities and differences of these three language arts. The chapter focuses on the aim of poetics and on the two key instruments, that is imitation and catharsis.
