Characterization - History

History

The term characterization was introduced in mid 19th century. Aristotle promoted the primacy of plot over characters, that is a plot-driven narrative, arguing in his Poetics that tragedy "is a representation, not of men, but of action and life." This view was reversed in the 19th century, when the primacy of the character, that is a character-driven narrative, was affirmed first with the petty bourgeois realist novel, and increasingly later with the influential development of psychology.

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