Aristotle on Plays and Speeches

From the Poetics, translated by Kenneth MacLeish

Dancers use rhythm alone without melody, employing rhythmic movement to imitate what people are like (ethos), what happens to them (pathos) and what they do (praxis).  (p. 3)

The third element is suffering (pathos): that is, a painful or fatal incident, such as death onstage, maiming or extreme torment (p. 16)

Character reveals the moral status of people making deliberate choices about courses of  action where none are obvious (for if no choice is to be made, no character is required). (p. 11)

Character will be displayed if the dialogue or actions of the play show choice, and if the choice is good the character will be good. (p. 20)

Actors in their performance imitate specific qualities of character and reason , those crucial factors in the success or failure of all human action. (p. 10)

Just as in life moral qualities make us who we are but what we do determines the nature of our existence, so in play the characters’ actions are all--important, and their moral qualities are reflected in those action. (p. 10)

Plays imitate action first, character second and reason third. By reason I mean the ability to express the range of options in each situation and to choose the most appropriate (p 11)

Beauty itself consists of substance and arrangement. A tiny creature, which we would see so briefly that our senses would have no time to take it fully in, would not have beauty, any more than an enormous creature--say, 1000km long--which we could never see at a single moment and could therefore never take in as a single entity. And just as living things should have substance but still be comprehensible, so too with the plot of a tragedy; it must be substantial but easily comprehended. (p. 12)

The plot must imitate a single, unified and complete sequence of action. Its incidents must be organized in such a way that if any is removed or has its position changed, the whole is dislocated and disjointed.  (p. 13)

Providing a story is comprehensible, it can be as long as its substance and quality demand. (p. 12)

The plot should be organized in such a way that even if you never see the play, but only hear an account of what happens in it, you will feel a shudder of terror and pity: this happens, for example, with the story of Oedipus. Producing the effect  by performance means is less artistic and involves outside help.  (p 18)

When working on plot and dialogue, authors should bear three things in mind. 

1. They should visualize the action throughout. Only by imagining events as clearly as if they were present in person can they following the logic of what is happening and avoid incongruity. 
2. So far as possible, they should act out what they are writing, even down to the characters’ movements and gestures. 
3. Plays, whether on pre-existing or original stories, should be first sketched in general outline, then fleshed out in detail. (p. 24-25)

I recommend using in your play all the elements that make a good tragedy, or as many as possible. There have been writers outstanding at each of the elements, and if you concentrate on just one element critics will condemn you unfairly for falling short of the finest in the field. (p. 26) 

From the Rhetoric, translated by George Kennedy

Of the persuasion provided through speech there are three species: for some are in the character [ethos] of the speaker, and some in disposing the listener in some way [pathos], and some in the argument itself [logos]. 

There is persuasion through character whenever the speech is spoken in such a way as to make the speaker worthy of credence; for  we believe fair-minded people to a greater extent and more quickly than we do others on all subject in general and completely so in cases where there is not exact knowledge but room for doubt. And this should result from the speech, not from a previous opinion that the speaker is a certain kind of person; for it is not the case as some of the technical writers propose in their treatment of the art, that fair-mindedness on the part of the speaker makes no contribution to persuasiveness; rather, character is almost, so to speak, the controlling factor in persuasion. 

There is persuasion through the hearers when they are led to feel emotion [pathos] by the speech; for we do not give the same judgment when grieved and rejoicing or when being friendly and hostile. To this and only this we said contemporary technical writers try to give their attention. 

Persuasion occurs through the arguments [logos] when we show the truth or the apparent truth from whatever is persuasive in each case. (pg. 37-38)

Persuasion not only comes from logical demonstration but from speech that reveals character (for we believe the speaker through his being a certain kind of person, and this is the case if he seems to be good or well disposed to us or both). (p. 77)

There are three reasons why speakers themselves are persuasive; for there are three things we trust other than logical demonstrations. These are practical wisdom and virtue and good will; for speakers make mistakes in what they say or advise through failure to exhibit either all or one of these; for either through lack of practical sense they do no form opinions rightly; or though forming opinions rightly they do not say what they think because of a bad character; or they are prudent and fair-minded but lack good will, so that it is possible for people not to give the best advice although they know what it is. These are all the possibilities.  (pg. 120-121)

Since conferring benefits is pleasurable, it is also a for people to set their neighbors right and to supply their wants. SInce to learn and to admire is pleasurable, other things also are necessarily pleasurable, such as, for example, a work of imitation, as in painting and sculpture and poetry and anything that is well imitated, even if the object of imitation is not in itself pleasant; for the pleasure of art does not consist in the object portrayed; rather there is a pleasurable reasoning process in the mind of the spectator that “this” is “that,” so one learns what is involved in artistic representation. (p. 96)

There are two parts to a speech; for it is necessary first to state the subject and then to demonstrate it. Currently writers on rhetoric make ridiculous divisions. (p. 258)

It is unclear if you do not first set forth what you are talking about when you are going to throw in much in the middle. (p. 233)

The tragedians make the subject of the play clear--if not right away as Euripides does, at least somewhere in the prologue, as Sophocles does too. (p 262)