SOURCE: "Outside the Drama: The Limits of Tragedy in Aristotle's Poetics," in Essays on Aristotle's 'Poetics ', edited by Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 133-49.

In the following essay, Roberts contends that in discussing the natural limit of plot length, Aristotle conceived of some action as taking place "outside" of the drama's plot. Roberts analyzes what types of action might fall into this category and the methods by which events taking place outside of the play's action could be conveyed to the audience.

In Chapter 7 of the Poetics (1450b26-31). Aristotle notes that the action of which a play is an imitation must be whole, that is, must have a beginning, a middle, and an end; a beginning, he goes on to say, is that which does not follow naturally or necessarily from anything else, and an end is that from which nothing else follows. This...