This is a rambling exploration of Aristotle’s guide to understanding and writing drama (as applied to audio drama) that began as a set of personal notes on Artistotle’s little book “The Poetics”, but, as I wrote, turned into a one-sided imaginary address to other writers, who like myself, are interested in figuring out why script-writing professionals from David Mamet to Aaron Sorkin consider it such a masterful guide to the craft.
If you find it a bit preachy or pretentious, I can only apologize and say, yeah, that’s how most of my first drafts look. I’ve rushed to publish it simply to get some content out (with the full realization that, given how busy I am at the moment, any delay at all would result in it never seeing the light of day).
This is only the first part and deals with Aristotle’s introduction to his subject matter. Future articles will go further into depth regarding his theory of script-writing.
TLDR Version
Art is creative imitation. Art forms differ in terms of the medium, object, and manner of this imitation. A painting, for example, is quite different to a play. Unsurprisingly, audio drama is a unique art-form telling human stories (object) through sound, music, and speech (medium) in the form of recordings of scripted and acted play performances designed specifically for the ear (manner). A proper understanding of the unique elements of the form we choose to work in is essential to the successful creation of art.
Dramatic art has a long history that is still evolving, one we ignore (or over-emphasise) at our peril; a point that is as true of audio-drama as any other art-form.
The Poetics of Artistotle applied to Audio Drama (Part 1)
Background
Back in 330 BC Aristotle explained his “theory of Art” to his students in his Poetics. He did so, largely, to refute his great teacher, Plato, who felt that art, being but an imitation of life, had little value because it distorts the world and, being fiction, is a form of deceit – a view that the Puritans would have found themselves whole-heartedly in agreement with.
Aristotle, however, saw things differently. He saw the way art imitates life as essentially redeeming and justified.”
The Poetics” isn’t a particularly long or difficult read, but it does refer to some things (familiar enough once you see what they are) in language and terminology that differ in meaning and usage today. So a little background is in order.
According to Aristotle, art imitates life, and imitation is the key to learning. As children we learn by imitating those around us. Language is acquired as we imitate the sounds made by adults. Moral character is learned as we imitate and enact the behaviour of others. In fact, according to the Greeks, learning doesn’t take place fully until it is expressed in action. That is, the Greeks did not consider head-knowledge to be knowledge at all. In Greek culture knowledge had to be applied, practically, before it could be considered “truly” learned.
That said, experience did not have to be first hand for learning to occur. It was possible to share in the experience that made learning real by watching it (or perhaps, by listening to it – if we try to apply this idea to the realm of audio).
By imitation, Aristotle didn’t see the role of art as being to provide exact imitations of life from which the audience might learn, rather he saw art as a genuinely creative process in which the distortions of real life that art was capable of, could be harnessed, shaped, and directed for positive effect.
For the Greeks, art was NOT entertainment. Art, while entertaining, served another purpose entirely, and one that we do not easily comprehend in the modern world.Greece, in particular Athens, was a fairly brutal culture. While free (by ancient standards) and inclusive in its decision making (having a form of democracy) it was also a violent and conquering power. It held up cold (even ruthless) logic as the social ideal and viewed emotion (especially pity and compassion) as something to be put aside as dangerous and antithetical to the completion of one’s civic duty.
Once a year, during a festival, the people of Athens would gather to watch plays produced in a competition. These plays were intended to teach important civic values and the winner would be presented with a wreath in recognition of their service to the community. According to Aristotle, along with fulfilling this overtly preachy purpose, plays functioned also as a means of exciting and ridding the populace of unwanted emotions (such as pity and fear) that had no place in the fulfilment of civic duty. By allowing them to be experienced via proxy, the audience could safely vent these “unhealthy” emotions without allowing them to impact life in the real world.
While this made a kind of cruel sense in the Greek world, it’s certainly not the case that art is limited to, or even expected to perform, this function in the modern world. We often enjoy art for its own sake, as a form of expression and entertainment to be admired simply because it is there. Aristotle’s ideas regarding catharsis and purgation, therefore, have little to say to us today (being more or less nonsense), however many of his other ideas are particularly useful to the audio dramatist.
Of particular interest to the modern writer is Aristotle’s differentiation between tragedy and comedy. To understand Aristotle properly we must recognise that comedy meant much the same in his time as it does in our own (the depiction of the ridiculous and humorous), but that tragedy refers fundamentally to EVERYTHING else (ALL serious drama that is not intended to exaggerate for the sake of a laugh or that has as its primary object presenting the ridiculous or absurd).It’s my intention to work through Aristotle’s little pamphlet and draw out the insights he has found that have stood the test of time, hopefully discovering, in the process, why so many writers refer to “The Poetics” as a master work of instruction in the creation of stage drama and how those principles might be applied to the writing of audio drama.
Before I do, however, I feel like I need to say one more thing. Aristotle comes across like a boring elderly professor, all “let’s define our terms” and “this thing can be broken into twenty-seven subcategories that we will discuss in detail”. Working through his book, short though it is, can be a little daunting as a result. I think it’s worth the effort, though, especially if we apply what we are learning as we go.So, without further ado…
POETICS BOOK I
Introduction
Aristotle starts by telling us his purpose, he intends to analyse the types and parts of storytelling (particularly the plot) that are on display in Athens. At this time, poetry was a performance art, one that told stories in the form of plays, songs, and narrative recitals – a subset of the fine arts that included music, painting, sculpture etc. Abstraction was not really something that the Greeks had a concept for – though they did use patterns on their pottery that were simply decoration.It also appears to be the case that written stories were only just emerging and presented a particular problem for Aristotle in deciding how to classify them.
The Medium Of Imitation
To help determine how he would classify the different kinds of arts, Aristotle settled on the unifying concept of imitation (that is, if it is art, it imitates life in some way) but that this imitation differs in manner, medium, and object (remember what I said about his being overly fond of definitions). For example a painting might represent real world things (like bowls of fruit and goblets of wine – the objects), using paint, color, light, and canvas (the medium), applied via brush strokes (the manner). A play might, likewise, represent people in argument (the objects), using language, movement, music (the medium), delivered by the acting out of the play on stage before an audience (the manner) with the aid of script, set, props, etc.
According to Aristotle, different forms of dramatic story-telling (treating of objects and manner in diverse ways) have a tendancy to be expressed in three specific media (movement, language, and music – singly and in combination).Aristotle wasn’t quite sure of how to classify the emerging art-form of textual narrative, but does deal with that category later). For now, he focuses on classifying the play. He suggests that plays involve language (of course), movement (rhythm) and harmony (song/music).
For our purposes, it is helpful to think about how an audio/radio play is to be categorised in general. I say “in general” because exceptions always exist.
So let’s engage in a little classification exercise with regard to our own focus of attention (the radio play). A radio play uses the following media; language (dialog and narration), sound effects, and music to communicate the story – with volume acting as a spotlight to direct our attention to what is most important. The manner of delivery is via an auditory, edited, recording (or live performance) of the (vocally) acted out events – enhanced with and supported by sound-effects and given emotional depth by music – and listened to by an audience that takes this input and constructs the story in their minds. The objects are the characters and their situations. Not all elements must be present in all cases, but enough must be present for the thing to be recognized as a play for the ears.
There is a lot here to unpack, and all of it impacts the final form that an audio-drama takes.An audio drama is not, strictly speaking, a full cast audio book. In this day and age, where discoverability is so significant, the suggestion that audio books, if they employ a full cast and sound-effects in the reading, are functionally identical to audio drama is plainly false. For those who produce the niche form that is audio drama, having audio-books invade their space and reduce and impede their chances of being found by actual audio-drama enthusiasts is a never-ending source of frustration.
An audio drama is not a book reading, neither is it a stage play. It has characteristics that are uniquely its own, though it does borrow or share elements with these other categories.An audio-drama is, firstly, a play for the ears. In it some characters, perhaps with the aid of a line or two of narration, act out a story in dialog. The action of the story is revealed through dialog and (limited) narration. It is illustrated with supporting sound effects and music may also accompany the story to support and enhance the emotional response of the audience.
It differs from the stage play in that none of the action is seen. It all takes places in the mind of the listener. It differs from a book reading in that the action is heard directly and constructed in the minds of the audience via character actors, without long sections of description. Short prompts in the form of narration or clues to setting are provided in the scene, but the heavy lifting of scene construction is left entirely up to the audience member. It is this reliance on the audience (without overt descriptive assistance) that separates the telling of stories from the audio-dramatization of the same.
Before concluding this discussion of the first part of Aristotle’s poetics, it is worth discussing poetic rhythm. Poem’s and plays were delivered, largely, in rhyme. It appears that plays grew out of choral songs in Greek society, rather than story-telling around the campfire. As a result, rhythm (or meter) is a significant element of Aristotle’s discussion and analysis. That English speech has a certain rhythm to it is beyond dispute. How a writer might use these rhythms to advance the story is a thing which will need some unpacking, later, however.
POETICS BOOK II
The Objects of Imitation
In this second part to Aristotle’s analysis he treats, briefly, of characters. According to Aristotle, drama is necessarily about characters. He refers to characters as “men in action”. But effectively, he means any characters with human traits. Whether gods or monsters, or oracles, (or anthropomorphised household objects in the Disney sense) characters in stories must, necessarily, be in action. They must want something and act to achieve it, even if what they want is to be left alone in order to do nothing.
It’s worth noting that in audio-drama, as in any form of drama, characters in action are crucial. No behaviour should ever be unmotivated and no driving motivation should be left un-acted upon. This is one of the keys to making our characters authentic and relatable.
It is also the case that a character’s motivation must be known to the audience (even if it is only known through sub-text). A character who acts in a senseless or unmotivated manner will always lack authenticity, as will a character who fails to act on, or acts contrary to, a driving (or significant) motivation that is known to the audience. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the titular character’s dithering inaction is authentic because we understand it to be motivated by a desire to avoid confrontation and discomfort.
In typically Aristotelian fashion, Aristotle seeks to describe and categorise the things he is studying. In this case, characters (“men in action”) fall into three groups; those who are better (more noble and/or morally “good”) than we are, those who are as we are (having both strengths and weaknesses), and those who are worse (more foolish and/or morally “bad”) than we are. As usual, this is more a spectrum than a distinct set of classes without overlap. At the outer edges lie the caricatures (the “Dudley Do-rights” and the moustache twirling villains) but as we move a little towards the center, heroes begin to demonstrate flaws and villains begin to demonstrate redeeming features, while in the middle our “heroes” and “villains” may be all but indistinguishable, having “strengths” and “weaknesses” in equal measure. While tragedy and comedy (as Aristotle understood them) can draw on any of these types, he tended to see comedy as drawing primarily upon characters who are worse than we are, and serious drama (tragedy) as drawing on characters who are the same or better than we are.
This focus on the moral nature of characters is a little surprising to the modern thinker, but makes sense in the context of Ancient Greek society and its insistence that plays serve a civic purpose.
For the audio dramatist, the division is somewhat arbitrary. Exaggerated and foolish characters lend themselves to comedy, true, but the ability of an audience to relate to and identify with characters increases the further towards the middle of the spectrum characters are placed. Perfectly good, or capable characters (the dreaded “Mary Sue”) are the bane of engaging story-telling. Likewise, the unambiguously evil, or incapable character comes across as a caricature and leaves the audience unconvinced and unmoved by the action of the story.
Of more importance is the principle that characters must be in action (even if that action is a motivated desire to do nothing) and that characters must act according to motivations that the audience can recognize and relate to – the only, possible, exception to this would be where a character is sufficiently alien that we wish to emphasise its “unfathomable and alien nature” as lying beyond human understanding. Even here, however, great caution needs to be exercised, or the character becomes farcical. Better to give an alien being an understandable motivation (for example hunger) and bend it a little, than to present something too off the wall (such as a desire to merge with the color blue, or a tendency to lick people’s ankles every 17th of June).
POETICS BOOK III
The Manner of Imitation
Book, play, song, poem, (and today film, television, and audio-drama) are all means of delivering these imitations of life that we understand to be stories. Aristotle points out that books are different to plays. In a prose work, the author chooses who’s voice to address the reader with (his own, perhaps, or that of one of his characters). In a play numerous voices are employed and the action is made visual. In a radio drama, the voices are numerous and the action is made audible. Unlike the stage play (in which each performance is a varied and unique experience, even if performed night after night) the radio play is usually recorded and can be experienced over and over. The emphasis on rendering the action of the play through sound requires some unique understandings that do not necessarily apply as completely to other forms of art.
In film and on stage for example, the action, generally, occurs in front of the audience and the sounds support this. Any sounds are explicable. They are provided to add verisimilitude (realism) but require little explanation because we can generally see what the sound applies to.
In audio drama, however, sound is, while occasionally self-explanatory, typically quite ambiguous. The crackle of cellophane can be “read” by the audience as a crackling fire, a foot stepping on dry twigs, rain falling, or a sweet-wrapper being opened, to list just a few possibilities.
The more ambiguous nature of sound as compared with sight (and also as compared with the long narrative descriptions of a novel) makes clarity harder to achieve. And a lack of clarity breaks the immersion that is so central to the effectiveness of audio-drama.
I’ve written elsewhere in detail about immersion, sound, music, dialog, casting, and narration. If you’re interested in these matters (and they do, after all, contribute to a proper understanding of the elements that make audio-drama a distinct form of Imitation in the Aristotelian sense) the following articles may be of use…
- The Deaf Writer’s Guide to Sound and Silence in Audio Drama
- In Defense of (limited) Narration
- How to increase engagement in Audio Drama by Writing Less
- Tips for Keeping Your Audio Drama From Being Forgotten – Memory and Audience Focus
- How to Decide on the Optimal Cast size for your Scripts.
PART IV
A Short History of Drama
This has turned into a longer discussion than I originally intended, but I do want to have a quick look at Aristotle’s discussion of the history and origin of story-telling in the Greek context before we complete Part 1.
As noted previously, for Aristotle, art is a form of imitation. He places the origin of the impulse to imitate, unsurprisingly, in human nature. Children, especially, learn through the imitation of things in the wider world (particularly their parents), and adults likewise do the same, though not with the same alacrity or delight necessarily. Aristotle points out that imitations of things delight us and give us pleasure. We see a particularly beautiful painting, or hear a particularly exemplary song, and we take pleasure in it. Even things which are frightening to experience in reality – war or spiders – can be enjoyed if experienced as a representation (a painting or picture or story).
Also as noted in the introduction, Aristotle saw plays as an outgrowth of song, which in turn grew out of fireside story telling. It’s long been known that pre-literate societies (which the Greeks were well in advance of) used rhythm and rhyme as a way of aiding the memory in the learning and transmitting of stories. In Europe, fairy and folk tales were passed down in pre-literate societies using patterns of language, etc. to aid in their remembering. Songs are remembered far longer and with more accuracy than any teacher’s lecture ever delivered.
As he explains it, the history of dramatic story telling is one in which the telling of stories became a matter of religious ritual, song and dance, performed by a group. At some point (Aristotle attributes the innovation to Aeschylus) actors began stepping out of this chorus to deliver lines. While at another (this time attributed to Sophocles) backdrops and props began to be used. The rhymes themselves began to be delivered in different rhythms (originally delivered in trochaic tetrameter – a rhythm suited to dance – but shifting to the iambic – a rhythm more closely approximating speech).
For millennia, verse was the primary means of delivering dialog in a play. Shakespeare used Iambic Pentameter for his noble characters (though the non-nobles spoke in a much more normal fashion). In deference to the Greek use of masks and archetypes, characters were often simplified caricatures, though throughout human history, uniquely human characters were being drawn by playwrights. The modern era of realistic dialog and characters was an innovation brought to us, not that long ago, by Henrik Ibsen and others of the “realist” school.
Aristotle had the good sense, born out by history, to understand that the dramatic form of his day was not necessarily the final “true” form that it would assume.
Those of us involved in the writing and production of audio drama need, likewise, to be wary of adopting a “one true way” attitude to the art. Audio drama is a unique art-form, different from a book and a film, but audio-drama is NOT a complete and proscribed art-form. It will continue to evolve and change, develop and adapt. There will be many expressions of audio-drama and this diversity is both to be expected and to be welcomed. Innovation is one of the signs that an art-form is alive.
A second lesson to be learned here is that Audio drama has a history and we fail to pay attention to that history at our cost. Many audio-dramatists look at the work done in the past with haughty disapproval. Often this is based on ignorance (an egotistical disregard for the past borne of the erroneous belief that we have, in the present, already surpassed it). In other cases, it is more realistic, having been born of exposure to the large amount of sub-standard material that was produced in the factory-like heyday of Old-Time-Radio. The result is that many new entrants in the audio-drama arena waste a lot of time recreating past errors, reinventing already established techniques, and stumbling over problems for which ready solutions already exist (and have existed for a long time).
Our attention to the past must be selective (we need to look at and learn from the masters of the form such as Arch Oboler, the team behind Gunsmoke, Carlton Morse, Norman Corwin, and many others) while also being critical (recognizing the importance of modern pacing, the failures and lazy excesses of the factory-like production system etc.).
Further, we need to be wary of any pre-conceived ideas about how the industry works (or should work). It’s not uncommon for folks to assume that work-for-hire, Hollywood, business models and conventions are the only ones available to those who want to work in the audio-drama space. This is, of course, not the case, as any examination of the history of the art-form will tell you. Investment money may attempt to tie up all manner of rights and one-sided-obligations in exchange for funding, but those rules are not written in stone and a couple of kids with a microphone can still attract the kind of audiences and revenue that the so-called “big-boys” can only dream of.Here are a couple of articles I have written on the importance of Audio drama’s history…
- The History of Commercial Radio – Audio Drama for Schools Lesson 02
- Read Scripts to Improve Your Writing
I will close with one last point. Something in the constitution of human beings, something deep within our psychology, predisposes us to enjoy and seek out stories. As well as getting an understanding of the past and present, it is essential for the writer of audio-drama to understand the nature of human psychology and work in cooperation with it to produce stories that most effectively produce delight. Earlier, I listed some articles I have written that discuss the unique way in which audio-drama interacts with the human mind. When we fight or ignore these features of human psychology (much as occurs when we ignore the lessons of the past and present) we fail to achieve the heights of which we and our art-form are capable. Perhaps this is the fundamental reason why a critical examination of a 2000 year old philosopher is worth our time, even today.
Next time, in Part 2, I will begin looking at Aristotle’s understanding the types of drama and the importance of plot.
Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2021 .
