亚里士多德《诗学》中诗与历史的关系

The Relation Between Poetry and History in Aristotle’s Poetics

诗与历史的关系是亚里士多德在《诗学》中的一个重要论题。亚氏认为,与历史相比,诗的特征在于表现可能的事、反映事物的普遍性、摹仿完整的行动、更富有哲学性。诗以可能性的事作为表现对象,这与古希腊人将诗与预言相联系的观念有关。在这种观念下,诗的对象被认为是可然或应然的现实。诗的对象的普遍性不是指称从个别中抽象出来的共相,而是超越具体时空因素限制的人类的可能行为。诗的哲学性特征则主要源于其对于因果关系的叙述。与只是描述事件的时间关系的历史不同,诗可以在超越经验的层面上陈述事件在逻辑层面的因果关系。

The relationship between poetry and history is an important theme discussed by Aristotle in Poetics.Compared with history,Aristotle believes that poetry is characterized by expressing possible things,reflecting the universality of things,imitating complete actions and being more philosophical.Poetry takes possibility as its object of expression,which is related to the ancient Greeks’idea of linking poetry with prophecy.In this sense,the object of poetry is regarded as the reality of possibility or necessity.The universality of the object of poetry does not refer to the common phase abstracted from the individual,but to the possible behavior of human beings beyond the limitation of specific space-time factors.The philosophical characteristics of poetry are mainly derived from its narration of causality.Unlike the history of only describing the time series of events,poetry can state the causal relationship between events at the logical level beyond the level of experience.