CriticaLink | Aristotle: Poetics | Terms

epic

Exemplified throughout the Poetics by the works of Homer, the epic is a poetic genre that uses narrative to convey its plot to the audience. The meter proper to the epic is the hexameter. The epic poet, Aristotle observes, can either speak in his or her own words, or take on the voices of characters in order to advance the unfolding of the plot.

• Aeschylus
• Aristophanes
• Euripides
• Sophocles

• anagnorisis
• catharsis
• character
• comedy
• complex plot
• complication
• denouement
• deus ex machina
• diction
• Dionysus
• dithyrambic poetry
• drama
• epic
• fear
• genre
• hamartia
• hexameter
• iambic
• medium
• mimesis
• mode
• narrative
• nomic poetry
• object
• pathos
• peripeteia
• phallic songs
• pity
• plot
• poetry
• simple plot
• song
• spectacle
• telos
• thought
• tragedy
• trope
• unities