• The Lost Second Book of Aristotle’s Poetics
  • Author: Walter Watson
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press  
  • Publication Date: June 27, 2012
  • Print Length: 336 Pages
  • Product Description

Of all the writings on theory and aesthetics – ancient, medieval, or modern – the most important is indisputably Aristotle’s Poetics, the first philosophical treatise to propound a theory of literature. In the Poetics, Aristotle writes that he will speak of comedy, but there is no further mention of comedy. Aristotle writes also that he will address catharsis and an analysis of what is funny. But he does not actually address any of those ideas. The surviving Poetics is incomplete.

Until today. Here, Walter Watson offers a new interpretation of the lost second book of Aristotle’s Poetics. Based on Richard Janko’s philological reconstruction of the epitome, a summary first recovered in 1839 and hotly contested thereafter, Watson mounts a compelling philosophical argument that places the statements of this summary of the Aristotelian text in their true context. Watson renders lucid and complete explanations of Aristotle’s ideas about catharsis, and comedy, and a summary account of the different types of poetry, ideas that influenced not only Cicero’s theory of the ridiculous, but also Freud’s theory of jokes, humor, and the comic.

Finally, more than two millennia after it was first written, and after five hundred years of scrutiny, Aristotle’s Poetics is more complete than ever before. Here, at last, Aristotle’s lost second book is found again.

  • About the Author

Walter Watson is professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

  • Reviews

“Walter Watson brings a deep perspective steeped in Aristotle’s entire philosophy to the study of Aristotle’s view of comedy and laughter. He repeatedly shows new ways in which the much contested TractatusCoislinianus fits in with, and completes, Aristotle’s wider thought about literature, catharsis, and causation in general. Just as Herculaneum papyri are bringing us more knowledge of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, so this analysis makes the outlines of his Poetics II clearer than before.” Richard Janko, University of Michigan

“Here, Walter Watson makes the strongest possible claim, asserting that the TractatusCoislinianus is a true and reliable summary of the lost second book of the Poetics. Readers will be especially grateful for his illuminating notes on such central – and vexed – issues in Poetics I as catharsis and the ends of tragedy; and Watson uses Poetics II to shine a welcome light on final cause, spectacle, didacticism, and the different senses of poetry. Even if readers find something here and there to disbelieve, they are unlikely to find anything anywhere in this book that they do not admire.” James E. Ford, emeritus, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

“The Lost Second Book serves as a reliable guide to readers unfamiliar with Aristotle’s thought. . . . This book should appeal to Aristotle scholars and to those interested in aesthetics more generally. Recommended.” Choice

“Anyone interested in the first great work of literary theory will find The Lost Second Book of Aristotle’s Poetics accessible as well as valuable. Even anti-Aristotelians will appreciate the book, if only in finding new sources of thought in their disagreements.” Bryn Mawr Classical Review