Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia was discovered one hundred years ago and has since been treated as an historical document of ancient history. Some have believed that the work is so poor as history that it must have been the product of a mind inferior to Aristotle's. The `historical' approach has dominated and there has been no literary analysis of the work since Kaibel's 1893 work. Keaney starts from the belief that the Athenaion Politeia does not fit any ancient genre: Aristotle seems to have created a new genre and he was not inhibited by generic constraints of any kind.

Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia was discovered one hundred years ago and has since been treated as an historical document of ancient history. Some have believed that the work is so poor as history that it must have been the product of a mind inferior to Aristotle's. The `historical' approach has dominated and there has been no literary analysis of the work since Kaibel's 1893 work. Keaney starts from the belief that the Athenaion Politeia does not fit any ancient genre: Aristotle seems to have created a new genre and he was not inhibited by generic constraints of any kind.

Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia was discovered one hundred years ago and has since been treated as an historical document of ancient history. Some have believed that the work is so poor as history that it must have been the product of a mind inferior to Aristotle's. The `historical' approach has dominated and there has been no literary analysis of the work since Kaibel's 1893 work. Keaney starts from the belief that the Athenaion Politeia does not fit any ancient genre: Aristotle seems to have created a new genre and he was not inhibited by generic constraints of any kind.