In his Poetics Aristotle states that Muthos comes first in tragedy and is all important. Without it there is no tragedy. Discuss his claim in relation to one or two plays studied this term.

In his Poetics Aristotle puts the Muthos before anything else. Muthos is the plot/storyline of a play. You should be able to follow the line of the plot throughout the text. If one element of the text can be removed then it fails as a tragedy. Tragedy must have a beginning, middle and an end, not necessarily in that order but scenes must relate to each other and be ‘unified'. We see this in Marina Carr's Portia Coughlin. The end is in the middle of the play but the plot is still unified. In his Poetics Aristotle states that there are three main functions of Muthos, peripeteia (reversal) and anagonorisis (recognition or discovery). Periperteia is the point in which ‘the circumstances change to their direct opposite' and should be ‘inevitable or plausible.' It is the pivotal moment when......

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Title: Muthos
Approximate Word Count: 1658
Approximate Pages: 7 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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