Plot Structure: From Aristotle to the Cambridge Ritualists

Abstract

The classical tradition offers a number of pointers regarding the structure of the plot, but none of these cohere in a way that anticipates the more intricate discussions of the early twentieth century. Their importance consists chiefly in the direction that they offered later theorists. In The Poetics, for example, Aristotle puts forward three major postulates regarding plot structure. Each of these postulates can be reconciled with his wider contention that a plot needs to have sufficient amplitude to allow a probable or necessary succession of particular actions to produce a significant change in the fortune of the main character, although only with a certain difficulty.¹ Perhaps the most famous of Aristotle’s statements is also the one that presents the gravest challenge. In discussing the nature of a tragedy as being a mimesis of a whole action, Aristotle suggests:

A whole is that which has a beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow necessarily from something else, but after which a further event or process naturally occurs. An end, by contrast, is that which itself naturally occurs, whether necessarily or usually, after a preceding event, but need not be followed by anything else. A middle is that which both follows a preceding event and has further consequences. Wellconstructed plots, therefore, should neither begin nor end at an arbitrary point, but should make use of the patterns stated.²