Aristotle on Plot

I once said a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Aristotle agrees. (The translation is from A New Aristotle Reader, J. L. Ackrill, ed.)

By ‘whole’ I mean ‘with a beginning, a middle, and an end’. By ‘beginning’ [in this context] I mean ‘that which is not necessarily the consequent of something else, but has some state or happening naturally consequent on it’, by ‘end’ ‘a state that is the necessary or usual consequent of something else, but has itself no such consequent’, by ‘middle’ ‘that which is consequent and has consequents’. Well-ordered plots, then, will exhibit these characteristics, and will not begin or end just anywhere.

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