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| « The plan, design, scheme or pattern of events in a play, poem or work of fiction; and, further, the organization of incident and character in such a way as to induce curiosity and suspense (//q.v.//) in the spectator or reader. In the space/time continuum of plot the continual question operates in three tenses : why did that happen? Why is this happening? What is going to happen next -- and why? (To which may be added: And -- is //anything// going to happen?) | « The plan, design, scheme or pattern of events in a play, poem or work of fiction; and, further, the organization of incident and character in such a way as to induce curiosity and suspense (//q.v.//) in the spectator or reader. In the space/time continuum of plot the continual question operates in three tenses : why did that happen? Why is this happening? What is going to happen next -- and why? (To which may be added: And -- is //anything// going to happen?) |
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| In //Poetics//, Aristotle includes plot as one of the six elements in tragedy (//q.v.//). For Aristotle it is the 'first principle' and 'the soul of a tragedy'. He calls plot 'the imitation of the action', as wll as the arrangement of the incidents. He required a plot to be 'whole' (that is, to have a beginning, a middle and an end) and that is should have unity, namely 'imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed'. | « In //Poetics//, Aristotle includes plot as one of the six elements in tragedy (//q.v.//). For Aristotle it is the 'first principle' and 'the soul of a tragedy'. He calls plot 'the imitation of the action', as wll as the arrangement of the incidents. He required a plot to be 'whole' (that is, to have a beginning, a middle and an end) and that is should have unity, namely 'imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed'. |
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| This is the ideal, well-knit plot wich Aristotle distinguished from the episodic plot in which the acts succeed one another 'without probable or necessary sequence', and which he thought was inferior. Aristotle also distinguished between simple and complex plots: in the simple the change of fortune occurs without peripeteia (//q.v.//) and without anagnorisis (//q.v.//), qhereas in the complex there is one or the other or both. Aristotle also emphasized the importance of plot as opposed to character. | « This is the ideal, well-knit plot wich Aristotle distinguished from the episodic plot in which the acts succeed one another 'without probable or necessary sequence', and which he thought was inferior. Aristotle also distinguished between simple and complex plots: in the simple the change of fortune occurs without peripeteia (//q.v.//) and without anagnorisis (//q.v.//), qhereas in the complex there is one or the other or both. Aristotle also emphasized the importance of plot as opposed to character. |
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| His view will be adequate for some Greek tragedy, some Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy and some French Classical tragedy, and elements of the application of Aristotle's theories can be found in many plays -- and novels. | « His view will be adequate for some Greek tragedy, some Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy and some French Classical tragedy, and elements of the application of Aristotle's theories can be found in many plays -- and novels. |
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| However, a plot has come to denote something much more flexible than envisaged by Aristotle. The decline of tragedy, the rise of comedy, the development of novel -- all have contributed to a much looser conception and many varied theories. | « However, a plot has come to denote something much more flexible than envisaged by Aristotle. The decline of tragedy, the rise of comedy, the development of novel -- all have contributed to a much looser conception and many varied theories. |
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| A more homely approach that Aristotle's os that of E. M. Forster. In //Aspects of the Novel// (1927) he provided a simple but very serviceable description of plot : 'We have definde a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. «The king died and the died,» is a story. «The king died and then the queen died of grief,» is a plot. The time-sequence is preservedm but the sense of causality overshadows it. Or again : «The queen died, non one knew why, until is was discovered that it was throught grief at the death of the king.» This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of hight development. It suspends the time-sequence, il moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow.' | « A more homely approach that Aristotle's os that of E. M. Forster. In //Aspects of the Novel// (1927) he provided a simple but very serviceable description of plot : 'We have definde a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. «The king died and the died,» is a story. «The king died and then the queen died of grief,» is a plot. The time-sequence is preservedm but the sense of causality overshadows it. Or again : «The queen died, non one knew why, until is was discovered that it was throught grief at the death of the king.» This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of hight development. It suspends the time-sequence, il moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow. |
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| Such a description will suffice to cover a very large number of plots, especially those in which causality among episodes in explicit or implied. It will certainly cover an ernomous number of novels. On the ohter hand no theory or definition of plot can now cover adequately the variety of works by, say, Joyce, Bulgakov, Graham Greene, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Heinrich Böll, Michel Butor, William Burroughs, Robbe-Grillet and Len Deighon -- to take a handful of very different writers at randoml or, for that matter, Kafka, Arnold Bennett, Malcolm Lowry, Ivo Andric, Eric Ambler, Nabokov, Saul Bellow, Grass, Bykov, Claude Simon and V. S. Naipaul. » | « Such a description will suffice to cover a very large number of plots, especially those in which causality among episodes in explicit or implied. It will certainly cover an ernomous number of novels. On the ohter hand no theory or definition of plot can now cover adequately the variety of works by, say, Joyce, Bulgakov, Graham Greene, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Heinrich Böll, Michel Butor, William Burroughs, Robbe-Grillet and Len Deighon -- to take a handful of very different writers at randoml or, for that matter, Kafka, Arnold Bennett, Malcolm Lowry, Ivo Andric, Eric Ambler, Nabokov, Saul Bellow, Grass, Bykov, Claude Simon and V. S. Naipaul. » |
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| (J. A. Cuddon,//The Penguin Dictionary of Literary terms and Literary Theory//, London, Penguin Group, 1992 [1976], p. 720) | (J. A. Cuddon,//The Penguin Dictionary of Literary terms and Literary Theory//, London, Penguin Group, 1992 [1976], p. 720) |
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| «» | « On aurait pu croire que le terme est tombé en désuétude en même temps que cette esthétique théâtrale acharnée à distinguer l'action en tant qu'épure de l'intrigue ostensible, incarnée et compliquée. Il faut donc prendre acte de ces réactualisations récentes dont aucune ne s'en tient spécialement au théâtre. C'est, en dépit des apparents, le cas de P. Pavis qui s'efforce de radicaliser et de hiérarchiser, à l'aide de la sémiotique, l'opposition traditionnelle : l'action est le niveau des actants et l'intrigue celui des acteurs. Dans l'esprit de P. Ricoeur, la mise à contribution de la //Poétique// d'Aristote devait s'accompagner de nouvelles options terminologiques. Ainsi pour traduire //muthos//, recourt-il à //intrigue// plutôt qu'à //fable// (comme le veut la tradition) ou à //histoire// qu'il utilise par ailleurs dans son sens historiographique. Seul en effet //intrigue// (et surtout //mise en intrigue//) restituerait l'idée capitale d'agencement lisible dans //muthos// : "l'agencement des faits en système". Ou pour être encore plus précis : la mise en intrigue recèle un dynamisme intégrateur et elle transforme un "divers incidents" en une histoire une et complète. Et puis il y a le précédent anglais (//plot//) qui accrédite -- mieux semble-t-il que dans l'usage français -- la même idée. On peut, en termes de sémiotique, expliciter ce distinguo : l'histoire ressortit au contenu et l'intrigue plus précisément à la forme du //contenu// ; certains allant même jusqu'à laisser entendre que l'intrigue est aussi forme de l'//expression//, c'est-à-dire "discours racontant" (G. Prince, //A Grammar of Story//, 1973). À oublier ou à ignorer ces précisions (qu'autorise une logistique sophistiquée), on en revient à identifier l'intrigue à l'histoire. » |
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| (Gérard-Denis Farcy, Lexique de la critique, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1991, p. 25-27.) | (Gérard-Denis Farcy, //Lexique de la critique//, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1991, p. 59-60.) |
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| Edward, QUINN, //A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms//, New York, First Paperback edition, 2000. | Edward, QUINN, //A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms//, New York, First Paperback edition, 2000. |
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| ==Lectures== | ==Lectures== |
