Abstract
Inspired by Aristotle’s basic intellectual approach, character theory was long focused on the nature of character identity. In Aristotle’s Poetics, it is possible to identify three distinct theories of character: the first is the mimesis theory of character; the second is the theory of character levels; the third is the theory of character as theatrical mask.
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Notes
Richard Janko, Aristotle on Comedy: Towards a Reconstruction of Poetics II. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984, 7 XII: “The characters of comedy are the buffoonish, the ironical and the boasters” (p. 39).
George E. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971, p. 237.
Ben Jonson, “Every Man Out of His Humour.” In Character Writing of the Seventeenth Century. Ed. Henry Morley. London, 1891. Project Gutenberg. Web.
Angelo Ingegneri, “From Mimetic Poetry and the Manner of Representing Sceneic Fables.” In Sources of Dramatic Theory 1. Plato to Congreve. Ed. Michael J. Sidnell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 170.
William Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002, p. 18. Google Books. Smith is quoted in Robert Ackerman, The Myth and Ritual School: J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists. New York and London: Routledge, 1991, p. 44.
Francis Macdonald Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy. Ed. Theodor H. Gaster. New York: Anchor Books, 1961, p. 115.
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© 2015 Terence Murphy
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Murphy, T.P. (2015). Character Theory: From Aristotle to the Cambridge Ritualists. In: The Fairytale and Plot Structure. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137547088_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137547088_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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