Aristotle's Poetics expounded the relationship between literature and life for the first time. He carried forward the traditional "representative theory" of ancient Greece, and believed that the real world was the blueprint of literature and art, and literature and art imitated the real world. But he also thinks that imitation is not passive plagiarism, but through observation and understanding, it reflects something of universal significance in reality. In the ninth chapter of Poetics, it is very important to compare poetry with history. "The poet's duty is not to describe what has happened, but to describe what may happen, that is, what is possible according to the law of possibility or inevitability.

Poetics has incisive arguments and profound contents, forming the earliest existing high-quality and relatively complete exposition on poetry in the west and a monograph on how to write and comment on poetry, which still has guiding and reference significance for western literary criticism.

Poetry is true, it is regular and universal, so Plato's statement that "poetry does not show truth" cannot be established; Secondly, the truth of poetry is different from the truth of history, the truth of art is different from the truth of life, poetry is fiction, and the inevitability of things is revealed in fiction, so the truth of poetry or art can be higher than the truth of life; Thirdly, poetry can express universality and inevitability through individual characters with "names" and form the view that "generality and particularity are unified". Recognizing that poetry must conform to the laws of possibility and inevitability and express the internal relations of things, Aristotle particularly emphasized that works must be an organic whole. From this point of view, he believes that both epic and tragedy should focus on actions or plots, rather than characters, because it is easier to show the inevitability of events by focusing on plots. The plot should be unified, and a work should have only one main plot, which develops from the beginning to the apex and then turns to the inevitable ending. Aristotle focused on tragedy in Poetics. He believes that tragedy means seriousness, not sadness. He believes that "according to our definition, tragedy is an imitation of a complete action with a certain length." The so-called' integrity' means that things have a head, a body and a tail. The so-called' head' refers to those who do not necessarily inherit other things, but naturally cause other things to happen; The so-called' tail', on the contrary, refers to what is naturally inherited according to inevitable laws or practices, and there is nothing else to follow; The so-called' body' refers to the connection between the past and the future. Therefore, a well-structured layout cannot start and end casually, but must follow the way mentioned here. " In Chapters 7 to 22 of Poetics, Aristotle analyzed in detail the six elements that must be considered in general drama works: plot (action), characters, thoughts, language, performance and singing. As the most important thing, he especially discussed the plot and personality, pointing out that "if someone can show some kind of' personality', it will win." Although a tragedy is not good at using these elements, as long as there is a layout, that is, a good plot, it will certainly have a more tragic effect. ..... So, the plot is the basis of tragedy, and there is a tragic soul. ""the purpose of tragic art is to organize the plot (that is, the layout), and the purpose is the most important of all things. " In order to achieve this goal, Aristotle also discussed the writing method, emphasizing that "tragedy can make people soul-stirring, mainly relying on' sharp turn' and' discovery', which are part of the plot. "Related to the arrangement of the plot, Aristotle also emphasized the unity of action and pointed out that the time of tragedy should not last indefinitely." A complete action, the events inside should be closely organized, once any part is moved or deleted, it will be out of touch with the loose whole. If a part is dispensable and does not cause significant differences, it is not an organic part of the whole. "Aristotle's concept of organic whole was later extended by classicists to the famous" three unifications "in tragic creation.

Generally speaking, Aristotle's view of literature and art is materialistic and basically conforms to the realistic view of creation. His poetics laid the foundation of western literary theory and had a far-reaching influence for more than two thousand years. In American film and television education, "Poetics" is also one of the required books for students, because some classic literary and artistic creation theories summarized by Aristotle still have a certain guiding role in today's artistic practice.