This Norton Critical Edition also includes: - A preface, full introduction, and appendix ("On Tragic and Epic Performance") by Michelle Zerba and David Gorman. - "Ancient Sources," giving readers the opportunity to consider the epic, dramatic, philosophical, and rhetorical texts that influenced the Poetics , including those by Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Gorgias, and Plato, among others. - Several modern interpretations--by Reuben A. Brower, Humphry House, Gérard Genette, Elizabeth Belfiore, and Terence Cave, among others--that speak to the enduring relevance of the Poetics. - An Annotated Bibliography. David Gorman is Associate Professor at Northern Illinois University. His articles on the history and theory of literary study have appeared in Modern Literature Quarterly , Poetics Today , and Educational Philosophy and Theory . He also has strong interests in philosophy (especially the philosophy of language) and in classics (especially the history of the classical tradition). Michelle Zerba is Maggie B. Martin Professor of Rhetoric and Classical Studies at Louisiana State University. Her research and teaching span the fields of classical literature, rhetoric, and philosophy; Renaissance studies; and political theory; and classical reception. She is the author of Doubt and Skepticism in Antiquity and the Renaissance and Tragedy and Theory: The Problem of Conflict Since Aristotle as well as many scholarly articles.