and how he explains the art of poetic creation, and to show specifically ways in which his approach is applicable to the contemporary culture.
Corbett observes that Aristotle views rhetoric, like ethics, as one of the practical arts,2 which is to say that rhetoric is something that has application to real life beyond the merely theoretical. Its reality is tangible inasmuch as it may affect outcomes and experience, but it is intangible inasmuch as it involves intellectual or "noumenal" activity. Poetics, on the other hand, is a "productive art" (vii), which is to say that its reality involves an otherness, or a palpable transformation from imagination to observable, "phenomenal" element. The two disciplines, however, do intersect in philosophical terms. Rhetoric, to the degree it is concerned with the fate of the human community, involves real world action as well as discussion about contingent action, whereas poetics involves the working out of contingent action in a way that provides insight into the nature of real world actions.
Contingent action controls the definition of both rhetoric and poetic imitation for Aristotle. "Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion," says Aristotle.3 The fact that the discipline is circumscribed not by the specific act of persuasion but by the faculty of observing one or more persuasive attributes legitimates it as philosophy rather than craft. Thus rhetoric may contain technique, and as Aristotle develops his argument, rhetoric may be seen, broadly, as a technique for coping with the universe. Further, rhetoric may be embedded into the development of other arts, including, as we shall see, poetic creation. But rhetoric is not technique merely; rather, rhetoric involves intellectual faculties that may include implementation of various rhetorical skills, which in turn may be employed in the service of persuasion.
The p...