Among the most influential books in Western civilization, the Poetics is really a treatise on fine art. It offers seminal ideas on the nature of drama, tragedy, poetry, music and more, including such
Best translation of one of the most influential books in all history. Greek and English on facing pages, plus Butcher's famed 300-page exposition and interpretation of Aristotle's ideas.
Aristotle divided poetry into Tragic, Comic & Epic genres. Poetics focuses on tragedy. A work on comedy may have been lost. The Tractatus coislinianus may be an outline of lectures on the subject.
It is no exaggeration to say that all Western literary criticism flows from Aristotle. In the Poetics he focuses mainly on drama, especially tragedy, and introduces ideas that are still being debated
