The New Concept of Imagination

Imagination has been thought of as the most distinguishing aspect that differentiates the artist from the common man and even lifting him to the standard of the gods. It is that aspect which pictures him as a highly imaginative man who has an inventive mind and a complete mastery over his own created work of art. In fact, the artist is imaginative only in the way he rearranges and re-plots his artistic elements and devices. This idea is thoroughly illustrated by Aristotle through focusing on the plot and on the Poetics of Probability. The plot for Aristotle is the life and soul of tragedy. It has to be there simply because there can be no tragedy without it. That is, if a drama has all its artistic components with the plot missing, it is going to be dispossessed of the very aspect which makes it dramatic. In addition, this idea of plotting is about the arrangement and the re-composition of events. That is why Aristotle is completely against the idea that the artist is a maker of verse. He emphasizes that the artist is rather a plot maker. This means that the text is already familiar, and all that the artist does is only rearranging the artistic elements found in the source he resorts. The well-known story of Antony and Cleopatra, for instance, is registered in the books of history to which Shakespeare resorts in order to produce his Antony and Cleopatra. However, the plot in both stories is essentially different. Certainly, Shakespeare makes use of the flexibility of his artistic issues mainly the plot- and the result is a totally different tragedy which has its own world and its own credibility. Little wonder, the main feature that Shakespeare shares with all the artists is that he never goes for the mysterious and the over fictional. What he does is that he rearranges and re-plots the events of the story so as to produce a work swarming with art.

Therefore, the idea of re-plotting, which is central in Aristotles criticism, is the very essence of art and is the only means with which the artist can be described as imaginative. The other important issue that Aristotle focuses on is his Poetics of Probability. This means the combination and the arrangement of manner, subject, style and all the other elements that make up a work of art. To illustrate, different combinations of these elements result in different kinds of work of art. The flexibility of these elements enables the artist to have a variety of literary works, all of which are based on the same artistic issues. Consequently, one can have both a tragedy and a comedy simply by trying to orchestrate the same artistic elements differently. The artist in this case can be described as a composer who arranges the same notes in different ways so that he produces different types of tunes. In other words, he is skillful only in arranging his elements of art in many ways. Whether a plot maker or a composer, the artist is not a super imaginative man who creates and invents super things. This quality of imagination can be attributed to him only when it is taken to mean re-plotting and rewriting.