work Poetics, Greek philosopher Aristotle effectively creates the world's first critical book concerning the laws of literature. In French philosopher Jacques Derrida's 20th Century work, he attempts to nullify, or deconstruct, and type of literary structure. Aristotle, a student of Plato, clearly has Plato's arguments in mind when he takes up the question of imitation in his book on poetics. In his discussions of imitation, Aristotle continues the examination of literature's effect on the audience begun by Plato. Aristotle, a formalist critic, claims that the author gives the work its true meaning, and that meaning is never-changing. Derrida and his controversial deconstructionist philosophy, on the other hand, sees the words as giving other implications. In The Gift of Death and Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, he uses his contention that words can only refer to other words, and therefore nothing is original, as a vehicle for communicating other commentary. Essentially, both writers believe that imitation is the only constant in literature. However, Poetics is dedicated solely to the purpose of explaining this imitation, while The Gift of Death and Archive Fever use deconstructionism as a tool for extending other philosophies. .
Aristotle divides his relatively brief Poetics into twenty-six separate sections. His first section highlights the importance of judging a poem on how it is written, rather than what it is written about. He explains that a critic must.
" treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each, to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a .
good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of which a poem is .
composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within the same inquiry.
