SOURCE: "Character, Antecedents, and General Scope of Poetics," in The Poetics of Aristotle and Its Meaning and Influence, Cornell University Press, 1923, pp. 3-14.

In this brief overview, Cooper reviews such textual issues as the date of composition of Poetics and the possible sources on which Aristotle drew to write the treatise. Cooper also discusses the structure, function, and goal of poetry as analyzed by Aristotle.

The Poetics of Aristotle is brief, at first sight hard and dry, and yet one of the most illuminating and influential books ever produced by the sober human mind. After twenty-two centuries it remains the most stimulating and helpful of all analytical works dealing with poetry—and poetry is the most vital and lasting achievement of man. This pregnant treatise, dating from some time before the year 323 B. C., is indeed short and condensed. Castelvetro's famous 'exposition' of it (Vienna, 1570) fills 768 pages, and...