Tragedy is the imitation of action arousing pity and fear, and is meant to effect the catharsis of those same emotions
Aristotle concludes Poetics with a discussion on which, if either, is superior: epic or tragic mimesis
Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he and his school had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop
Transmission 

More than 2300 years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived
He contributed to almost every field of human knowledge then in existence, and he was the founder of many new fields
According to the philosopher Bryan Magee, "it is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did"
As a result, Kukkonen argues, any analysis of reality today "will almost certainly carry Aristotelian overtones
evidence of an exceptionally forceful mind." Jonathan Barnes wrote that "an account of Aristotle's intellectual afterlife would be little less than a history of European thought"
What follows is an overview of the transmission and influence of his texts and ideas into the modern era
His successor, Theophrastus 

Aristotle's pupil and successor, Theophrastus, wrote the History of Plants, a pioneering work in botany
Some of his technical terms remain in use, such as carpel from carpos, fruit, and pericarp, from pericarpion, seed chamber
Theophrastus was much less concerned with formal causes than Aristotle was, instead pragmatically describing how plants functioned
Later Greek philosophy 

The immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school
Aristotle's students included Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, Demetrius of Phalerum, Eudemos of Rhodes, Harpalus, Hephaestion, Mnason of Phocis, Nicomachus, and Theophrastus
Aristotle's influence over Alexander the Great is seen in the latter's bringing with him on his expedition a host of zoologists, botanists, and researchers
He had also learned a great deal about Persian customs and traditions from his teacher
Though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly
It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again found
The first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation
Herophilus also distinguished between veins and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not
The first Greek Christians to comment extensively on Aristotle were Philoponus, Elias, and David in the sixth century, and Stephen of Alexandria in the early seventh century
John Philoponus stands out for having attempted a fundamental critique of Aristotle's views on the eternity of the world, movement, and other elements of Aristotelian thought
Philoponus questioned Aristotle's teaching of physics, noting its flaws and introducing the theory of impetus to explain his observations
After a hiatus of several centuries, formal commentary by Eustratius and Michael of Ephesus reappeared in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, apparently sponsored by Anna Comnena
Medieval Islamic world 

Aristotle was one of the most revered Western thinkers in early Islamic theology
Most of the still extant works of Aristotle, as well as a number of the original Greek commentaries, were translated into Arabic and studied by Muslim philosophers, scientists and scholars
Averroes, Avicenna and Alpharabius, who wrote on Aristotle in great depth, also influenced Thomas Aquinas and other Western Christian scholastic philosophers
Alkindus greatly admired Aristotle's philosophy, and Averroes spoke of Aristotle as the "exemplar" for all future philosophers
Medieval Muslim scholars regularly described Aristotle as the "First Teacher"
The title was later used by Western philosophers (as in the famous poem of Dante) who were influenced by the tradition of Islamic philosophy
These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages
Scholars such as Boethius, Peter Abelard, and John Buridan worked on Aristotelian logic
Dante knew Aristotle directly from Latin translations of his works and indirectly through quotations in the works of Albert Magnus
Dante even acknowledges Aristotle's influence explicitly in the poem, specifically when Virgil justifies the Inferno's structure by citing the Nicomachean Ethics
Maimonides also considered Aristotle to be the greatest philosopher that ever lived, and styled him as the "chief of the philosophers"
Harvey demonstrated the circulation of the blood, establishing that the heart functioned as a pump rather than being the seat of the soul and the controller of the body's heat, as Aristotle thought
Galileo used more doubtful arguments to displace Aristotle's physics, proposing that bodies all fall at the same speed whatever their weight
Charles Darwin regarded Aristotle as the most important contributor to the subject of biology
In an 1882 letter he wrote that "Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle"
Surviving works

Corpus Aristotelicum 

The works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are collected in the Corpus Aristotelicum
These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school
Loss and preservation 

Aristotle wrote his works on papyrus scrolls, the common writing medium of that era
His writings are divisible into two groups: the "exoteric", intended for the public, and the "esoteric", for use within the Lyceum school
Aristotle's "lost" works stray considerably in characterization from the surviving Aristotelian corpus
Whereas the lost works appear to have been originally written with a view to subsequent publication, the surviving works mostly resemble lecture notes not intended for publication
Cicero's description of Aristotle's literary style as "a river of gold" must have applied to the published works, not the surviving notes
A major question in the history of Aristotle's works is how the exoteric writings were all lost, and how the ones now possessed came to be found
According to Strabo and Plutarch, after Aristotle's death, his library and writings went to Theophrastus (Aristotle's successor as head of the Lycaeum and the Peripatetic school)
After the death of Theophrastus, the peripatetic library went to Neleus of Scepsis
Some time later, the Kingdom of Pergamon began conscripting books for a royal library, and the heirs of Neleus hid their collection in a cellar to prevent it from being seized for that purpose
