How to Tell a Story: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Storytelling for Writers and Readers

· Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Gareth Richards
Audiobook
1 hr 49 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

An inviting and accessible new translation of Aristotle's complete Poetics—the first and best introduction to the art of writing and understanding stories



Aristotle's Poetics is the most important book ever written for writers and readers of stories—whether novels, short fiction, plays, screenplays, or nonfiction. Aristotle was the first to identify the keys to plot, character, audience perception, tragic pleasure, and dozens of other critical points of good storytelling. Despite being written more than 2,000 years ago, the Poetics remains essential reading for anyone who wants to learn how to write a captivating story—or understand how such stories work and achieve their psychological effects. Yet for all its influence, the Poetics is too little read because it comes down to us in a form that is often difficult to follow, and even the best translations are geared more to specialists than to general readers who simply want to grasp Aristotle's profound and practical insights. In How to Tell a Story, Philip Freeman presents the most accessible translation of the Poetics yet produced, making this indispensable book more engaging and useful than ever before.

About the author

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a Greek philosopher whose best-known works include Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, and Politics. Gareth Richards has been narrating audiobooks for over three years in addition to performing on stage in projects as varied from Shakespeare to sketch shows. Being a native British speaker, he is experienced in a number of different dialects from around the British Isles and Ireland. Philip Freeman is the author of more than twenty books on the ancient world, including the Cicero translations How to Be a Friend, How to Grow Old, and How to Run a Country. He holds the Fletcher Jones Chair as a Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University and lives in Malibu, California.

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