“Beginning. Middle. End.”

Consider the universality of narrative in three movements.

In Poetics, Aristotle wrote “A whole [story] is what has a beginning and middle and end.” His articulation of each of these three parts and how they fit together is as follows:

“A beginning is that which is not itself necessarily after anything else, and which has naturally something else after it. An end is that which is naturally after something itself, either as its necessary or usual consequent, and with nothing else after it. And a middle, that which is by nature after one thing and has also…