poetics

thumb|Leonardo Bruni's translation of Aristotle's Poetics Poetics is the study or theory of poetry, specifically the study or theory of device, structure, form, type, and effect with regards to poetry, though usage of the term can also refer to literature broadly. Poetics is distinguished from hermeneutics by its focus on the synthesis of non-semantic elements in a text rather than its semantic interpretation. Most literary criticism combines poetics and hermeneutics in a single analysis; however, one or the other may predominate given the text and the aims of the one doing the reading.

==History of Poetics== ===Western Poetics=== Generally speaking, poetics in the Western tradition emerged out of Ancient Greece. Fragments of Homer and Hesiod represent the earliest Western treatments of poetic theory, followed later by the work of the lyricist Pindar. The term poetics derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός poietikos "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" and "productive". It stems, not surprisingly, from the word for poetry, "poiesis" (ποίησις) meaning "the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before." Ποίησις itself derives from the Doric word "poiéō" (ποιέω) which translates, simply, as "to make." Poetics, then, poses the question how texts (and possibly other artifacts) are made, or should be made, i.e., it can be pursued in descriptive or normative fashion. In the Western tradition, descriptive and normative poetics can and often have been combined.