Aristotle built upon questions raised by his teacher Plato about the nature and purpose of literature. He differentiated between the three main types of Greek poetry - epic, tragic, and lyric poetry. Aristotle focused his analysis on tragedy, believing it contained all the elements of epic as well as its own unique qualities. According to Aristotle, a tragedy is comprised of plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song, and features a tragic hero whose flawed judgment or hamartia leads to their downfall.

1. Aristotle
 Plato gave form to many of the main problems of
literary criticism.Aristotle, his student, gave many of
the best answers the questions raised by Plato. He is
primarily concerned to ask the questions ‘what exactly
is the piece of literature? What is its function and what
are its constituent parts? But his teacher Plato had
largely concerned only on one question ‘what is the
value of literature?.
 Aristotle begins by differentiating between the three
main kinds of poetry known to the ancient Greeks – the
epic , dramatic poetry ( tragic and comic ) and lyric
poetry.
 He difference between comedy and tragedy , in simple
terms the main difference between comedy and tragedy
is that the comedy is a humorous story with happy
ending that makes the audience laugh while tragedy is a
serious story with sad ending , it always deals with

2. extraordinary person who is led to downfall through his
own weakness.
 Aristotle has chosen to focus on tragedy rather than
epic ‘ because all the elements of epic are to be found in
tragedy, but not all the qualities of tragedy are to be
found in the epic . finally he concludes that tragedy is
the superior form.
 Aristotle goes on to consider what elements constitute
the form of a typical tragedy : plot, character, diction,
thought, spectacle, and song.
 A tragic hero is a literary character who makes a
judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her
own destruction. In reading Antigone, Medea and
Hamlet, look at the role of justice and/or
revenge and its influence on each character’s choices
when analyzing any “judgment error.