The paper sketches the impact of Averroes' adaptation of Aristotle's ›Poetics‹ as an argumentative discipline. Starting from the 10th century with Al-Farabi and Al-Gazali, the ›Poetics‹ is assigned to the logical disciplines of the ›Organon‹. While the theory of a ›poetic syllogism‹ never made its way to the Latin West, from 12th century onwards the logical, argumentative status of poetics became a well-known fact to western philosophers as well. With varying reasons Dominicus Gundissalinus, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas adopted the classification of poetics as an argumentative discipline. The paper ends with a prospect on Coluccio Salutati's ›Labours of Hercules‹ and the humanist reception of this tradition.
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