Thoughts on Aristotle's "Poetics"

The way words can conjure a world and convey thoughts from one brain to another’s seems like true magic, yet a magic that has a science behind it nonetheless.

“Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and thought imitation learns his earliest lessons…. Next, there is the instinct for ‘harmony’ and rhythm, metres being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry.”

One of the earliest books about the science of writing happens to be one of the best I’ve read thus far. Aristotle’s Poetics is not simply about poetry—genres of Ancient Greece were not divided in the same ways as they are in modern times—but also talks about storytelling, comedy, plot structure, character development, diction and word choice, evoking emotion in the reader, Style, logic, and verisimilitude. (Verisimilitude is one of my favorite words learned in college lit classes, referring to a story being “true to life” or realistic.)

Reviewing Hans Brinker (or, The Silver Skates) by Mary Mapes Dodge

Winter Landscape with Skaters on a Frozen Lake by Dutch painter Anthonie Beerstraten

Mary Mapes Dodge’s classic, Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates is one of the (many) books I remember my mom reading to my brother and I when she home-schooled us. From that original reading I remembered the main character, Hans Brinker, his sister, the skating race with a prize of the silver skates, that they lived in Holland, and that his father had been brain damaged from a fall off the dykes and was the only one who knew where their money had been hidden, thus causing them to live in abject poverty for a long time.

I remembered liking the book, and so decided to re-read it this winter, as the atmosphere is appropriately frigid for reading a story centered around an ice-skating contest.

Except, much to my surprise upon re-reading, the contest—and the silver skates themselves—figure very little into the plot.

My local library got new carpet...

...and it looks like Joanna Gaines got a hold of it.

Yep, definitely getting a

Not that that's a bad thing. Only I do suspect that children will be playing Hot Lava by jumping from brown tile to brown tile on it.  That's my prediction from past personal experience, anyway.