Aristotle's Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. Aristotle does this by attempting to explain poetry through first principles (1447a13), and by classifying poetry into its different genres and component parts.

Poetics refers generally to the theory of literary discourse and specifically to the theory of poetry, although some speakers use the term so broadly as to denote the concept of "theory" itself.Brogan, T.V.F. in Brogan, T.V.F., Ed. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1993 The word originated with Aristotle's Poetics, a work on the definition of poetry that laid the foundation for Western thought on the subject.