A Comparative Study of Poetics of Aristotle and Ibn Sīnā Regarding the Nature of Poetry

The nature and definition of poetry has always attracted the attention of literary thinkers in the field of philosophy. Aristotle’s Poetics is one of the greatest works on the content and structural criticisms of poetry. Given his Greek culture, Aristotle believes that tragedy is an imitation of an action and a kind of dramatic art which results in catharsis. In Islamic tradition, the familiarity with Aristotle’s Poetics began from the third and fourth centuries (AH) through the related translations and abridged versions. During the same century, Fārābī and then Ibn Sīnā began analyzing and commenting on Poetics in order to explore Aristotle’s views in the realm of poetry. The most important abridgement of this treatise and commentary on it were made by Ibn Sīnā under the influence of Fārābī. In Ibn Sīnā’s treatise the concept of poetry is different from that in the field of conventional poetry. Imitation is the essence of poetry whereby imagination has an efficient presence. While trying to compare the nature of poetry in the Poetics section of Ibn Sīnā’s al-Shifā and Aristotle’s Poetics, this study aims to explain Ibn Sīnā’s view of poetry and his definition of poetry and its components and demonstrate the proximity between his standpoints in this regard with those of Aristotle. The authors have employed an analytic-descriptive and comparative approach to conduct this study.