In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama - comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play - as well as lyric poetry and epic poetry). They are similar in the fact that they are all imitations but different in the three ways that Aristotle describes: 1. Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter and melody. 2. Difference of goodness in the characters. 3. Difference in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or acting it out. In examining its "first principles," Aristotle finds two: 1) imitation and 2) genres and other concepts by which that of truth is applied/revealed in the poesis. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions."

Poetry And Poetics Are Integrally Related. The Former Is An Art Based On Emotions, Whereas The Latter Is A Science Evaluating Poetry. So Long Their Common Mode Of Treatment Has Been To Excite In The Mind The Emotions Appropriate To The Subject-Matter. But Science And Art Are Not Identical. The Former Uses The Discursive Mode; And The Latter The Presentational Mode. While Science Is Truth, The Art Is Adjectively True , I.E. It Does Not Conflict With The Truth.The Book Critique Of Poetics Is An Extremely Bold And Far Reaching Attempt At A Comprehensive Theory Of Poetry. It Starts With A Sound-Sense Continuum And Ends With Quantum Poetics. The Path Of Evolution Is Marked By The Poetic Process, The Flow Of Rasa, The Flight Of Pegasus, The Dance Of Resonons, The Doctrine Of Suggestion, Rx For Rhetoric, The Logic Of Signs And Symbols, The Poetic Imagery, The Miracle Of Communication, The Concept Of Criticism, Style And Stylistics, The Law Of Inspiration And Catharsis, The Limits Of Art, The Philosophy Of Beauty, East And West In Poetics, And The Theory Of Literature. And This Has Been Treated In A Global Perspective, Which Harmonizes Both East And West In Poetics. A Balance Has Also Been Struck Between The Two Approaches To The Study Of Literature Extrinsic And Intrinsic. The Former Is Characterized By Psychology-Society And Other Arts Whereas The Latter By Style And Stylistics, Image And Metaphor, Rhetoric And Suggestion, Beauty And The Like. A New Theory Of Literature Has Been Derived From These. This Is Born In A Continuum Of Sound And Sense, Of Space And Time. It Provides An Organ Of Evaluating The Past, Present And Future Works Of Literature. In This Context Quantum Poetics Marks The End Of The Evolutionary Process.

Aristotle's Poetics has held the attention of scholars and authors through the ages, and Averroes has long been known as "the commentator" on Aristotle. His Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics is important because of its striking content. Here, an author steeped in Aristotle's thought and highly familiar with an entirely different poetical tradition shows in careful detail what is commendable about Greek poetics and commendable as well as blameworthy about Arabic poetics.

In this, his last significant work, an admired French philosopher provides extraordinary meditations on the relations between the imagining consciousness and the world, positing the notion of reverie as its most dynamic point of reference. In his earlier book, The Poetics of Space, Bachelard considered several kinds of "praiseworthy space" conducive to the flow of poetic imagery. In Poetics of Reverie he considers the absolute origins of that imagery: language, sexuality, childhood, the Cartesian ego, and the universe. Approaching the psychology of wonder from the phenomenological viewpoint, Bachelard demonstrates the aurgentative potential of all that awareness. Thus he distinguishes what is merely a phenomenon of relaxation from the kind of reverie which "poetry puts on the right track, the track of expanding consciousness"

The works collected in this volume have profoundly shaped the history of criticism in the Western world: they created much of the terminology still in use today and formulated enduring questions about the nature and function of literature. In Ion, Plato examines the god-like power of poets to evoke feelings such as pleasure or fear, yet he went on to attack this manipulation of emotions and banished poets from his ideal Republic. Aristotle defends the value of art in his Poetics, and his analysis of tragedy has influenced generations of critics from the Renaissance onwards. In the Art of Poetry, Horace promotes a style of poetic craftsmanship rooted in wisdom, ethical insight and decorum, while Longinus' On the Sublime explores the nature of inspiration in poetry and prose.