ABSTRACT
This essay offers an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of the birth of tragedy (Poetics 1448b18–1449a15) as a mimêsis of poetic praxis. The workings of this passage emerge more clearly when read in connection with ring composition in Homeric speeches, and further unfold through a comparison with the Shield of Achilles and with an ode from Euripides’s Heracles. Aristotle appears to draw upon a traditional pattern enacting cyclical rebirth or revitalization. It is suggested that his puzzling insistence on “one complete action” in plot is bound up with moment-to-moment performance. The poetics of Aristotle’s account suggest a pedagogy of mim�sis.
