I thought Aristotle explained all this in the Poetics, and his
explanation was revived by the New Critics, and so far as I can see is
still valid. Poetry is a mimesis of a praxis. Narrative is part of
the mimesis, not part of the praxis, so what we call the narrative is
not what really happens in the work.
The praxis of the Iliad, for instance, is the process of a man
learning to accept that there's no justice for him because he's human.
The narrative of "the anger of Achilles" is part of the mimesis which
is the expressive vehicle of that praxis; if it were what the Iliad is
about, what happens in it, then the Iliad wouldn't mean what it does.
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Jon Corelis http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis
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