Aimed at deepening our understanding of the Poetics, this collection places Aristotle's analysis of tragedy in its larger philosophical context. In these twenty-one essays, philosophers and classicists explore the corpus of Aristotle's work in order to link the Poetics to the rest of his views on psychology and on history, ethics, and politics. The essays address such topics as catharsis, pity and fear, pleasure, character and the unity of action, and the modality of dramatic action. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Elizabeth Belfiore, Rdiger Bittner, Mary Whitlock Blundell, Wayne Booth, Dorothea Frede, Cynthia Freeland, Leon Golden, Stephen Halliwell, Richard Janko, Aryeh Kosman, Jonathan Lear, Alexander Nehamas, Martha C. Nussbaum, Deborah Roberts, G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, Nancy Sherman, Jean-Pierre Vernant, Stephen A. White, and Paul Woodruff.