Building Character: Synchronic and Diachronic Ēthos in Aristotle’s Poetics

The purpose of this article is to show that there are two technical definitions of ēthos in Aristotle’s Poetics, synchronic and diachronic. Synchronic ēthos is an individual indication of a specific character trait in speech or action in a poem. It is like a snapshot, a moment that captures an ethical indication in something said or done. Diachronic ēthos is an organization of these ethical indications in an intelligible structure that unfolds across the poem. It is a progression or order of character traits over sequential time. Against the conventional view that Aristotle sees character in poetry as one-dimensional and unchanging, I argue that the definition of diachronic technical ēthos shows that instead Aristotle has specific requirements for character dimensionality and development.