Aristotle's Poetics and the Art of Fiction

ἐποποιία is an important species discussed in the Poetics, of which the corresponding expressions are full of change and abstrusity. In the Poetics 1447a28-b2, there is a notorious sentence which has been regarded by a large part of the book's commentaries as difficult to protrude, so much so that many commentators took the word ἐποποιία as redundant and deleted it indiscreetly. But considering its coherence with other parts of the work, it should absolutely be preserved. Under the light of some examples of reading the Poetics, the esoteric technique in this sentence could be revealed, the obscurity of ἐποποιία's meaning could be clarified and ἐποποιία as a name could be justified. Furthermore, once the relationship between the word, its meaning and its reality was established, the mentioned statement could be interpreted accordingly and even deeper aspects of its theory could be exposed. So to show that by the ἐποποιία Aristotle's theoretical intention aimed at what we today call narrative literature, so the ἐποποιία even could include the literary form such as novel, and in some important aspects it would show many characteristics of novel as a mature form of narrative literature.