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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetics, by Aristotle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Poetics
+
+Author: Aristotle
+
+Commentator: Gilbert Murray
+
+Translator: Ingram Bywater
+
+Release Date: October, 2004  [EBook #6763]
+Posting Date: May 2, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ON THE ART OF POETRY
+
+
+By Aristotle
+
+
+Translated By Ingram Bywater
+
+
+With A Preface By Gilbert Murray
+
+
+
+     Oxford At The Clarendon Press
+     First Published 1920
+     Reprinted 1925, 1928, 1932, 1938, 1945, 1947
+     1951, 1954, 1959. 1962 Printed In Great Britain
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In the tenth book of the _Republic_, when Plato has completed his final
+burning denunciation of Poetry, the false Siren, the imitator of things
+which themselves are shadows, the ally of all that is low and weak in
+the soul against that which is high and strong, who makes us feed the
+things we ought to starve and serve the things we ought to rule, he
+ends with a touch of compunction: 'We will give her champions, not poets
+themselves but poet-lovers, an opportunity to make her defence in plain
+prose and show that she is not only sweet--as we well know--but also
+helpful to society and the life of man, and we will listen in a kindly
+spirit. For we shall be gainers, I take it, if this can be proved.'
+Aristotle certainly knew the passage, and it looks as if his treatise on
+poetry was an answer to Plato's challenge.
+
+Few of the great works of ancient Greek literature are easy reading.
+They nearly all need study and comment, and at times help from a good
+teacher, before they yield up their secret. And the _Poetics_ cannot be
+accounted an exception. For one thing the treatise is fragmentary. It
+originally consisted of two books, one dealing with Tragedy and Epic,
+the other with Comedy and other subjects. We possess only the first. For
+another, even the book we have seems to be unrevised and unfinished. The
+style, though luminous, vivid, and in its broader division systematic,
+is not that of a book intended for publication. Like most of Aristotle's
+extant writing, it suggests the MS. of an experienced lecturer, full of
+jottings and adscripts, with occasional phrases written carefully
+out, but never revised as a whole for the general reader. Even to
+accomplished scholars the meaning is often obscure, as may be seen by a
+comparison of the three editions recently published in England, all the
+work of savants of the first eminence, (1) or, still more strikingly, by
+a study of the long series of misunderstandings and overstatements
+and corrections which form the history of the _Poetics_ since the
+Renaissance.
+
+(1) Prof. Butcher, 1895 and 1898; Prof. Bywater, 1909; and Prof.
+Margoliouth, 1911.
+
+
+But it is of another cause of misunderstanding that I wish principally
+to speak in this preface. The great edition from which the present
+translation is taken was the fruit of prolonged study by one of the
+greatest Aristotelians of the nineteenth century, and is itself a
+classic among works of scholarship. In the hands of a student who knows
+even a little Greek, the translation, backed by the commentary, may lead
+deep into the mind of Aristotle. But when the translation is used, as it
+doubtless will be, by readers who are quite without the clue provided
+by a knowledge of the general habits of the Greek language, there must
+arise a number of new difficulties or misconceptions.
+
+To understand a great foreign book by means of a translation is possible
+enough where the two languages concerned operate with a common stock
+of ideas, and belong to the same period of civilization. But between
+ancient Greece and modern England there yawn immense gulfs of human
+history; the establishment and the partial failure of a common European
+religion, the barbarian invasions, the feudal system, the regrouping
+of modern Europe, the age of mechanical invention, and the industrial
+revolution. In an average page of French or German philosophy nearly all
+the nouns can be translated directly into exact equivalents in English;
+but in Greek that is not so. Scarcely one in ten of the nouns on the
+first few pages of the _Poetics_ has an exact English equivalent. Every
+proposition has to be reduced to its lowest terms of thought and then
+re-built. This is a difficulty which no translation can quite deal with;
+it must be left to a teacher who knows Greek. And there is a kindred
+difficulty which flows from it. Where words can be translated into
+equivalent words, the style of an original can be closely followed;
+but no translation which aims at being written in normal English can
+reproduce the style of Aristotle. I have sometimes played with the idea
+that a ruthlessly literal translation, helped out by bold punctuation,
+might be the best. For instance, premising that the words _poesis_,
+_poetes_ mean originally 'making' and 'maker', one might translate the
+first paragraph of the _Poetics_ thus:--
+
+MAKING: kinds of making: function of each, and how the Myths ought to be
+put together if the Making is to go right.
+
+Number of parts: nature of parts: rest of same inquiry.
+
+Begin in order of nature from first principles.
+
+Epos-making, tragedy-making (also comedy), dithyramb-making (and most
+fluting and harping), taken as a whole, are really not Makings but
+Imitations. They differ in three points; they imitate (a) different
+objects, (b) by different means, (c) differently (i.e. different
+manner).
+
+Some artists imitate (i.e. depict) by shapes and colours. (Obs.
+sometimes by art, sometimes by habit.) Some by voice. Similarly the
+above arts all imitate by rhythm, language, and tune, and these either
+(1) separate or (2) mixed.
+
+Rhythm and tune alone, harping, fluting, and other arts with same
+effect--e.g. panpipes.
+
+Rhythm without tune: dancing. (Dancers imitate characters, emotions, and
+experiences by means of rhythms expressed in form.)
+
+Language alone (whether prose or verse, and one form of verse or many):
+this art has no name up to the present (i.e. there is no name to cover
+mimes and dialogues and any similar imitation made in iambics,
+elegiacs, &c. Commonly people attach the 'making' to the metre and say
+'elegiac-makers', 'hexameter-makers,' giving them a common class-name by
+their metre, as if it was not their imitation that makes them 'makers').
+
+
+Such an experiment would doubtless be a little absurd, but it would give
+an English reader some help in understanding both Aristotle's style and
+his meaning.
+
+For example, their enlightenment in the literal phrase, 'how the
+myths ought to be put together.' The higher Greek poetry did not make
+up fictitious plots; its business was to express the heroic saga, the
+myths. Again, the literal translation of _poetes_, poet, as 'maker',
+helps to explain a term that otherwise seems a puzzle in the _Poetics_.
+If we wonder why Aristotle, and Plato before him, should lay such stress
+on the theory that art is imitation, it is a help to realize that common
+language called it 'making', and it was clearly not 'making' in the
+ordinary sense. The poet who was 'maker' of a Fall of Troy clearly did
+not make the real Fall of Troy. He made an imitation Fall of Troy. An
+artist who 'painted Pericles' really 'made an imitation Pericles by
+means of shapes and colours'. Hence we get started upon a theory of art
+which, whether finally satisfactory or not, is of immense importance,
+and are saved from the error of complaining that Aristotle did not
+understand the 'creative power' of art.
+
+As a rule, no doubt, the difficulty, even though merely verbal, lies
+beyond the reach of so simple a tool as literal translation. To say that
+tragedy 'imitates good men' while comedy 'imitates bad men' strikes a
+modern reader as almost meaningless. The truth is that neither 'good'
+nor 'bad' is an exact equivalent of the Greek. It would be nearer
+perhaps to say that, relatively speaking, you look up to the characters
+of tragedy, and down upon those of comedy. High or low, serious or
+trivial, many other pairs of words would have to be called in, in order
+to cover the wide range of the common Greek words. And the point is
+important, because we have to consider whether in Chapter VI Aristotle
+really lays it down that tragedy, so far from being the story
+of un-happiness that we think it, is properly an imitation of
+_eudaimonia_--a word often translated 'happiness', but meaning something
+more like 'high life' or 'blessedness'. (1)
+
+(1) See Margoliouth, p. 121. By water, with most editors, emends the
+text.
+
+Another difficult word which constantly recurs in the _Poetics_ is
+_prattein_ or _praxis_, generally translated 'to act' or 'action'. But
+_prattein_, like our 'do', also has an intransitive meaning 'to fare'
+either well or ill; and Professor Margoliouth has pointed out that it
+seems more true to say that tragedy shows how men 'fare' than how they
+'act'. It shows their experiences or fortunes rather than merely their
+deeds. But one must not draw the line too bluntly. I should doubt
+whether a classical Greek writer was ordinarily conscious of the
+distinction between the two meanings. Certainly it is easier to regard
+happiness as a way of faring than as a form of action. Yet Aristotle can
+use the passive of _prattein_ for things 'done' or 'gone through' (e.g.
+52a, 22, 29: 55a, 25).
+
+The fact is that much misunderstanding is often caused by our modern
+attempts to limit too strictly the meaning of a Greek word. Greek was
+very much a live language, and a language still unconscious of grammar,
+not, like ours, dominated by definitions and trained upon dictionaries.
+An instance is provided by Aristotle's famous saying that the typical
+tragic hero is one who falls from high state or fame, not through vice
+or depravity, but by some great _hamartia_. _Hamartia_ means originally
+a 'bad shot' or 'error', but is currently used for 'offence' or 'sin'.
+Aristotle clearly means that the typical hero is a great man with
+'something wrong' in his life or character; but I think it is a mistake
+of method to argue whether he means 'an intellectual error' or 'a moral
+flaw'. The word is not so precise.
+
+Similarly, when Aristotle says that a deed of strife or disaster is more
+tragic when it occurs 'amid affections' or 'among people who love each
+other', no doubt the phrase, as Aristotle's own examples show, would
+primarily suggest to a Greek feuds between near relations. Yet some of
+the meaning is lost if one translates simply 'within the family'.
+
+There is another series of obscurities or confusions in the _Poetics_
+which, unless I am mistaken, arises from the fact that Aristotle was
+writing at a time when the great age of Greek tragedy was long past, and
+was using language formed in previous generations. The words and phrases
+remained in the tradition, but the forms of art and activity which they
+denoted had sometimes changed in the interval. If we date the _Poetics_
+about the year 330 B.C., as seems probable, that is more than two
+hundred years after the first tragedy of Thespis was produced in Athens,
+and more than seventy after the death of the last great masters of
+the tragic stage. When we remember that a training in music and poetry
+formed a prominent part of the education of every wellborn Athenian,
+we cannot be surprised at finding in Aristotle, and to a less extent in
+Plato, considerable traces of a tradition of technical language and even
+of aesthetic theory.
+
+It is doubtless one of Aristotle's great services that he conceived
+so clearly the truth that literature is a thing that grows and has a
+history. But no writer, certainly no ancient writer, is always vigilant.
+Sometimes Aristotle analyses his terms, but very often he takes them for
+granted; and in the latter case, I think, he is sometimes deceived by
+them. Thus there seem to be cases where he has been affected in his
+conceptions of fifth-century tragedy by the practice of his own day,
+when the only living form of drama was the New Comedy.
+
+For example, as we have noticed above, true Tragedy had always taken its
+material from the sacred myths, or heroic sagas, which to the classical
+Greek constituted history. But the New Comedy was in the habit of
+inventing its plots. Consequently Aristotle falls into using the word
+_mythos_ practically in the sense of 'plot', and writing otherwise in a
+way that is unsuited to the tragedy of the fifth century. He says that
+tragedy adheres to 'the historical names' for an aesthetic reason,
+because what has happened is obviously possible and therefore
+convincing. The real reason was that the drama and the myth were simply
+two different expressions of the same religious kernel (p. 44). Again,
+he says of the Chorus (p. 65) that it should be an integral part of the
+play, which is true; but he also says that it' should be regarded as one
+of the actors', which shows to what an extent the Chorus in his day
+was dead and its technique forgotten. He had lost the sense of what the
+Chorus was in the hands of the great masters, say in the Bacchae or the
+Eumenides. He mistakes, again, the use of that epiphany of a God which
+is frequent at the end of the single plays of Euripides, and which seems
+to have been equally so at the end of the trilogies of Aeschylus. Having
+lost the living tradition, he sees neither the ritual origin nor the
+dramatic value of these divine epiphanies. He thinks of the convenient
+gods and abstractions who sometimes spoke the prologues of the New
+Comedy, and imagines that the God appears in order to unravel the plot.
+As a matter of fact, in one play which he often quotes, the _Iphigenia
+Taurica_, the plot is actually distorted at the very end in order to
+give an opportunity for the epiphany.(1)
+
+(1) See my _Euripides and his Age_, pp. 221-45.
+
+One can see the effect of the tradition also in his treatment of the
+terms Anagnorisis and Peripeteia, which Professor Bywater translates
+as 'Discovery and Peripety' and Professor Butcher as 'Recognition and
+Reversal of Fortune'. Aristotle assumes that these two elements are
+normally present in any tragedy, except those which he calls 'simple';
+we may say, roughly, in any tragedy that really has a plot. This strikes
+a modern reader as a very arbitrary assumption. Reversals of Fortune
+of some sort are perhaps usual in any varied plot, but surely not
+Recognitions? The clue to the puzzle lies, it can scarcely be doubted,
+in the historical origin of tragedy. Tragedy, according to Greek
+tradition, is originally the ritual play of Dionysus, performed at his
+festival, and representing, as Herodotus tells us, the 'sufferings'
+or 'passion' of that God. We are never directly told what these
+'sufferings' were which were so represented; but Herodotus remarks that
+he found in Egypt a ritual that was 'in almost all points the same'. (1)
+This was the well-known ritual of Osiris, in which the god was torn
+in pieces, lamented, searched for, discovered or recognized, and the
+mourning by a sudden Reversal turned into joy. In any tragedy which
+still retained the stamp of its Dionysiac origin, this Discovery and
+Peripety might normally be expected to occur, and to occur together. I
+have tried to show elsewhere how many of our extant tragedies do, as a
+matter of fact, show the marks of this ritual.(2)
+
+(1) Cf. Hdt. ii. 48; cf. 42,144. The name of Dionysus must not be openly
+mentioned in connexion with mourning (ib. 61, 132, 86). This may help to
+explain the transference of the tragic shows to other heroes.
+
+(2) In Miss Harrison's _Themis_, pp. 341-63.
+
+I hope it is not rash to surmise that the much-debated word
+__katharsis__, 'purification' or 'purgation', may have come into
+Aristotle's mouth from the same source. It has all the appearance of
+being an old word which is accepted and re-interpreted by Aristotle
+rather than a word freely chosen by him to denote the exact phenomenon
+he wishes to describe. At any rate the Dionysus ritual itself was a
+_katharmos_ or _katharsis_--a purification of the community from the
+taints and poisons of the past year, the old contagion of sin and death.
+And the words of Aristotle's definition of tragedy in Chapter VI
+might have been used in the days of Thespis in a much cruder and
+less metaphorical sense. According to primitive ideas, the mimic
+representation on the stage of 'incidents arousing pity and fear' did
+act as a _katharsis_ of such 'passions' or 'sufferings' in real life.
+(For the word _pathemata_ means 'sufferings' as well as 'passions'.)
+It is worth remembering that in the year 361 B.C., during Aristotle's
+lifetime, Greek tragedies were introduced into Rome, not on artistic but
+on superstitious grounds, as a _katharmos_ against a pestilence (Livy
+vii. 2). One cannot but suspect that in his account of the purpose
+of tragedy Aristotle may be using an old traditional formula, and
+consciously or unconsciously investing it with a new meaning, much as he
+has done with the word _mythos_.
+
+Apart from these historical causes of misunderstanding, a good teacher
+who uses this book with a class will hardly fail to point out numerous
+points on which two equally good Greek scholars may well differ in
+the mere interpretation of the words. What, for instance, are the 'two
+natural causes' in Chapter IV which have given birth to Poetry? Are
+they, as our translator takes them, (1) that man is imitative, and (2)
+that people delight in imitations? Or are they (1) that man is imitative
+and people delight in imitations, and (2) the instinct for rhythm, as
+Professor Butcher prefers? Is it a 'creature' a thousand miles long, or
+a 'picture' a thousand miles long which raises some trouble in Chapter
+VII? The word _zoon_ means equally 'picture' and 'animal'. Did the older
+poets make their characters speak like 'statesmen', _politikoi_, or
+merely like ordinary citizens, _politai_, while the moderns made theirs
+like 'professors of rhetoric'? (Chapter VI, p. 38; cf. Margoliouth's
+note and glossary).
+
+It may seem as if the large uncertainties which we have indicated
+detract in a ruinous manner from the value of the _Poetics_ to us as
+a work of criticism. Certainly if any young writer took this book as
+a manual of rules by which to 'commence poet', he would find himself
+embarrassed. But, if the book is properly read, not as a dogmatic
+text-book but as a first attempt, made by a man of astounding genius, to
+build up in the region of creative art a rational order like that
+which he established in logic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics,
+psychology, and almost every department of knowledge that existed in his
+day, then the uncertainties become rather a help than a discouragement.
+They give us occasion to think and use our imagination. They make us, to
+the best of our powers, try really to follow and criticize closely the
+bold gropings of an extraordinary thinker; and it is in this process,
+and not in any mere collection of dogmatic results, that we shall find
+the true value and beauty of the _Poetics_.
+
+The book is of permanent value as a mere intellectual achievement; as
+a store of information about Greek literature; and as an original or
+first-hand statement of what we may call the classical view of
+artistic criticism. It does not regard poetry as a matter of unanalysed
+inspiration; it makes no concession to personal whims or fashion or
+_ennui_. It tries by rational methods to find out what is good in art
+and what makes it good, accepting the belief that there is just as truly
+a good way, and many bad ways, in poetry as in morals or in playing
+billiards. This is no place to try to sum up its main conclusions.
+But it is characteristic of the classical view that Aristotle lays his
+greatest stress, first, on the need for Unity in the work of art, the
+need that each part should subserve the whole, while irrelevancies,
+however brilliant in themselves, should be cast away; and next, on the
+demand that great art must have for its subject the great way of living.
+These judgements have often been misunderstood, but the truth in them is
+profound and goes near to the heart of things.
+
+Characteristic, too, is the observation that different kinds of art grow
+and develop, but not indefinitely; they develop until they 'attain their
+natural form'; also the rule that each form of art should produce 'not
+every sort of pleasure but its proper pleasure'; and the sober language
+in which Aristotle, instead of speaking about the sequence of events
+in a tragedy being 'inevitable', as we bombastic moderns do, merely
+recommends that they should be 'either necessary or probable' and
+'appear to happen because of one another'.
+
+Conceptions and attitudes of mind such as these constitute what we may
+call the classical faith in matters of art and poetry; a faith which is
+never perhaps fully accepted in any age, yet, unlike others, is never
+forgotten but lives by being constantly criticized, re-asserted, and
+rebelled against. For the fashions of the ages vary in this direction
+and that, but they vary for the most part from a central road which was
+struck out by the imagination of Greece.
+
+G. M
+
+
+
+
+
+ARISTOTLE ON THE ART OF POETRY
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+Our subject being Poetry, I propose to speak not only of the art in
+general but also of its species and their respective capacities; of the
+structure of plot required for a good poem; of the number and nature of
+the constituent parts of a poem; and likewise of any other matters in
+the same line of inquiry. Let us follow the natural order and begin with
+the primary facts.
+
+Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and most
+flute-playing and lyre-playing, are all, viewed as a whole, modes of
+imitation. But at the same time they differ from one another in three
+ways, either by a difference of kind in their means, or by differences
+in the objects, or in the manner of their imitations.
+
+I. Just as form and colour are used as means by some, who (whether by
+art or constant practice) imitate and portray many things by their aid,
+and the voice is used by others; so also in the above-mentioned group
+of arts, the means with them as a whole are rhythm, language, and
+harmony--used, however, either singly or in certain combinations. A
+combination of rhythm and harmony alone is the means in flute-playing
+and lyre-playing, and any other arts there may be of the same
+description, e.g. imitative piping. Rhythm alone, without harmony, is
+the means in the dancer's imitations; for even he, by the rhythms of his
+attitudes, may represent men's characters, as well as what they do
+and suffer. There is further an art which imitates by language alone,
+without harmony, in prose or in verse, and if in verse, either in some
+one or in a plurality of metres. This form of imitation is to this
+day without a name. We have no common name for a mime of Sophron or
+Xenarchus and a Socratic Conversation; and we should still be without
+one even if the imitation in the two instances were in trimeters or
+elegiacs or some other kind of verse--though it is the way with people
+to tack on 'poet' to the name of a metre, and talk of elegiac-poets
+and epic-poets, thinking that they call them poets not by reason of the
+imitative nature of their work, but indiscriminately by reason of the
+metre they write in. Even if a theory of medicine or physical philosophy
+be put forth in a metrical form, it is usual to describe the writer in
+this way; Homer and Empedocles, however, have really nothing in common
+apart from their metre; so that, if the one is to be called a poet, the
+other should be termed a physicist rather than a poet. We should be in
+the same position also, if the imitation in these instances were in all
+the metres, like the _Centaur_ (a rhapsody in a medley of all metres) of
+Chaeremon; and Chaeremon one has to recognize as a poet. So much, then,
+as to these arts. There are, lastly, certain other arts, which combine
+all the means enumerated, rhythm, melody, and verse, e.g. Dithyrambic
+and Nomic poetry, Tragedy and Comedy; with this difference, however,
+that the three kinds of means are in some of them all employed together,
+and in others brought in separately, one after the other. These elements
+of difference in the above arts I term the means of their imitation.
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+II. The objects the imitator represents are actions, with agents who are
+necessarily either good men or bad--the diversities of human character
+being nearly always derivative from this primary distinction, since the
+line between virtue and vice is one dividing the whole of mankind. It
+follows, therefore, that the agents represented must be either above our
+own level of goodness, or beneath it, or just such as we are in the same
+way as, with the painters, the personages of Polygnotus are better
+than we are, those of Pauson worse, and those of Dionysius just like
+ourselves. It is clear that each of the above-mentioned arts will
+admit of these differences, and that it will become a separate art by
+representing objects with this point of difference. Even in dancing,
+flute-playing, and lyre-playing such diversities are possible; and they
+are also possible in the nameless art that uses language, prose or verse
+without harmony, as its means; Homer's personages, for instance, are
+better than we are; Cleophon's are on our own level; and those of
+Hegemon of Thasos, the first writer of parodies, and Nicochares,
+the author of the _Diliad_, are beneath it. The same is true of the
+Dithyramb and the Nome: the personages may be presented in them with the
+difference exemplified in the... of... and Argas, and in the Cyclopses
+of Timotheus and Philoxenus. This difference it is that distinguishes
+Tragedy and Comedy also; the one would make its personages worse, and
+the other better, than the men of the present day.
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+
+III. A third difference in these arts is in the manner in which each
+kind of object is represented. Given both the same means and the same
+kind of object for imitation, one may either (1) speak at one moment in
+narrative and at another in an assumed character, as Homer does; or (2)
+one may remain the same throughout, without any such change; or (3) the
+imitators may represent the whole story dramatically, as though they
+were actually doing the things described.
+
+As we said at the beginning, therefore, the differences in the imitation
+of these arts come under three heads, their means, their objects, and
+their manner.
+
+So that as an imitator Sophocles will be on one side akin to Homer, both
+portraying good men; and on another to Aristophanes, since both present
+their personages as acting and doing. This in fact, according to some,
+is the reason for plays being termed dramas, because in a play the
+personages act the story. Hence too both Tragedy and Comedy are claimed
+by the Dorians as their discoveries; Comedy by the Megarians--by those
+in Greece as having arisen when Megara became a democracy, and by the
+Sicilian Megarians on the ground that the poet Epicharmus was of their
+country, and a good deal earlier than Chionides and Magnes; even Tragedy
+also is claimed by certain of the Peloponnesian Dorians. In support of
+this claim they point to the words 'comedy' and 'drama'. Their word for
+the outlying hamlets, they say, is comae, whereas Athenians call them
+demes--thus assuming that comedians got the name not from their _comoe_
+or revels, but from their strolling from hamlet to hamlet, lack of
+appreciation keeping them out of the city. Their word also for 'to act',
+they say, is _dran_, whereas Athenians use _prattein_.
+
+So much, then, as to the number and nature of the points of difference
+in the imitation of these arts.
+
+
+
+
+4
+
+
+It is clear that the general origin of poetry was due to two causes,
+each of them part of human nature. Imitation is natural to man from
+childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that
+he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first
+by imitation. And it is also natural for all to delight in works of
+imitation. The truth of this second point is shown by experience: though
+the objects themselves may be painful to see, we delight to view the
+most realistic representations of them in art, the forms for example of
+the lowest animals and of dead bodies. The explanation is to be found
+in a further fact: to be learning something is the greatest of pleasures
+not only to the philosopher but also to the rest of mankind, however
+small their capacity for it; the reason of the delight in seeing the
+picture is that one is at the same time learning--gathering the meaning
+of things, e.g. that the man there is so-and-so; for if one has not
+seen the thing before, one's pleasure will not be in the picture as an
+imitation of it, but will be due to the execution or colouring or some
+similar cause. Imitation, then, being natural to us--as also the sense
+of harmony and rhythm, the metres being obviously species of rhythms--it
+was through their original aptitude, and by a series of improvements for
+the most part gradual on their first efforts, that they created poetry
+out of their improvisations.
+
+Poetry, however, soon broke up into two kinds according to the
+differences of character in the individual poets; for the graver among
+them would represent noble actions, and those of noble personages; and
+the meaner sort the actions of the ignoble. The latter class produced
+invectives at first, just as others did hymns and panegyrics. We know of
+no such poem by any of the pre-Homeric poets, though there were probably
+many such writers among them; instances, however, may be found from
+Homer downwards, e.g. his _Margites_, and the similar poems of others.
+In this poetry of invective its natural fitness brought an iambic metre
+into use; hence our present term 'iambic', because it was the metre of
+their 'iambs' or invectives against one another. The result was that
+the old poets became some of them writers of heroic and others of iambic
+verse. Homer's position, however, is peculiar: just as he was in the
+serious style the poet of poets, standing alone not only through the
+literary excellence, but also through the dramatic character of his
+imitations, so too he was the first to outline for us the general forms
+of Comedy by producing not a dramatic invective, but a dramatic picture
+of the Ridiculous; his _Margites_ in fact stands in the same relation
+to our comedies as the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ to our tragedies. As soon,
+however, as Tragedy and Comedy appeared in the field, those naturally
+drawn to the one line of poetry became writers of comedies instead of
+iambs, and those naturally drawn to the other, writers of tragedies
+instead of epics, because these new modes of art were grander and of
+more esteem than the old.
+
+If it be asked whether Tragedy is now all that it need be in its
+formative elements, to consider that, and decide it theoretically and in
+relation to the theatres, is a matter for another inquiry.
+
+It certainly began in improvisations--as did also Comedy; the one
+originating with the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of
+the phallic songs, which still survive as institutions in many of our
+cities. And its advance after that was little by little, through their
+improving on whatever they had before them at each stage. It was in fact
+only after a long series of changes that the movement of Tragedy stopped
+on its attaining to its natural form. (1) The number of actors was first
+increased to two by Aeschylus, who curtailed the business of the Chorus,
+and made the dialogue, or spoken portion, take the leading part in the
+play. (2) A third actor and scenery were due to Sophocles. (3) Tragedy
+acquired also its magnitude. Discarding short stories and a ludicrous
+diction, through its passing out of its satyric stage, it assumed,
+though only at a late point in its progress, a tone of dignity; and
+its metre changed then from trochaic to iambic. The reason for their
+original use of the trochaic tetrameter was that their poetry was
+satyric and more connected with dancing than it now is. As soon,
+however, as a spoken part came in, nature herself found the appropriate
+metre. The iambic, we know, is the most speakable of metres, as is shown
+by the fact that we very often fall into it in conversation, whereas we
+rarely talk hexameters, and only when we depart from the speaking tone
+of voice. (4) Another change was a plurality of episodes or acts. As for
+the remaining matters, the superadded embellishments and the account of
+their introduction, these must be taken as said, as it would probably be
+a long piece of work to go through the details.
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+As for Comedy, it is (as has been observed) an imitation of men worse
+than the average; worse, however, not as regards any and every sort of
+fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the Ridiculous, which
+is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake
+or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask, for
+instance, that excites laughter, is something ugly and distorted without
+causing pain.
+
+Though the successive changes in Tragedy and their authors are not
+unknown, we cannot say the same of Comedy; its early stages passed
+unnoticed, because it was not as yet taken up in a serious way. It was
+only at a late point in its progress that a chorus of comedians was
+officially granted by the archon; they used to be mere volunteers. It
+had also already certain definite forms at the time when the record of
+those termed comic poets begins. Who it was who supplied it with masks,
+or prologues, or a plurality of actors and the like, has remained
+unknown. The invented Fable, or Plot, however, originated in Sicily,
+with Epicharmus and Phormis; of Athenian poets Crates was the first
+to drop the Comedy of invective and frame stories of a general and
+non-personal nature, in other words, Fables or Plots.
+
+Epic poetry, then, has been seen to agree with Tragedy to this extent,
+that of being an imitation of serious subjects in a grand kind of verse.
+It differs from it, however, (1) in that it is in one kind of verse and
+in narrative form; and (2) in its length--which is due to its action
+having no fixed limit of time, whereas Tragedy endeavours to keep as far
+as possible within a single circuit of the sun, or something near that.
+This, I say, is another point of difference between them, though at
+first the practice in this respect was just the same in tragedies as
+in epic poems. They differ also (3) in their constituents, some being
+common to both and others peculiar to Tragedy--hence a judge of good and
+bad in Tragedy is a judge of that in epic poetry also. All the parts of
+an epic are included in Tragedy; but those of Tragedy are not all of
+them to be found in the Epic.
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+
+Reserving hexameter poetry and Comedy for consideration hereafter, let
+us proceed now to the discussion of Tragedy; before doing so, however,
+we must gather up the definition resulting from what has been said. A
+tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also,
+as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable
+accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work;
+in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and
+fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. Here by
+'language with pleasurable accessories' I mean that with rhythm and
+harmony or song superadded; and by 'the kinds separately' I mean that
+some portions are worked out with verse only, and others in turn with
+song.
+
+I. As they act the stories, it follows that in the first place the
+Spectacle (or stage-appearance of the actors) must be some part of the
+whole; and in the second Melody and Diction, these two being the
+means of their imitation. Here by 'Diction' I mean merely this, the
+composition of the verses; and by 'Melody', what is too completely
+understood to require explanation. But further: the subject represented
+also is an action; and the action involves agents, who must necessarily
+have their distinctive qualities both of character and thought, since it
+is from these that we ascribe certain qualities to their actions. There
+are in the natural order of things, therefore, two causes, Character and
+Thought, of their actions, and consequently of their success or failure
+in their lives. Now the action (that which was done) is represented in
+the play by the Fable or Plot. The Fable, in our present sense of the
+term, is simply this, the combination of the incidents, or things done
+in the story; whereas Character is what makes us ascribe certain moral
+qualities to the agents; and Thought is shown in all they say when
+proving a particular point or, it may be, enunciating a general truth.
+There are six parts consequently of every tragedy, as a whole, that
+is, of such or such quality, viz. a Fable or Plot, Characters, Diction,
+Thought, Spectacle and Melody; two of them arising from the means, one
+from the manner, and three from the objects of the dramatic imitation;
+and there is nothing else besides these six. Of these, its formative
+elements, then, not a few of the dramatists have made due use, as every
+play, one may say, admits of Spectacle, Character, Fable, Diction,
+Melody, and Thought.
+
+II. The most important of the six is the combination of the incidents of
+the story.
+
+Tragedy is essentially an imitation not of persons but of action and
+life, of happiness and misery. All human happiness or misery takes the
+form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of
+activity, not a quality. Character gives us qualities, but it is in
+our actions--what we do--that we are happy or the reverse. In a play
+accordingly they do not act in order to portray the Characters; they
+include the Characters for the sake of the action. So that it is the
+action in it, i.e. its Fable or Plot, that is the end and purpose of
+the tragedy; and the end is everywhere the chief thing. Besides this,
+a tragedy is impossible without action, but there may be one without
+Character. The tragedies of most of the moderns are characterless--a
+defect common among poets of all kinds, and with its counterpart in
+painting in Zeuxis as compared with Polygnotus; for whereas the latter
+is strong in character, the work of Zeuxis is devoid of it. And again:
+one may string together a series of characteristic speeches of the
+utmost finish as regards Diction and Thought, and yet fail to produce
+the true tragic effect; but one will have much better success with
+a tragedy which, however inferior in these respects, has a Plot, a
+combination of incidents, in it. And again: the most powerful elements
+of attraction in Tragedy, the Peripeties and Discoveries, are parts of
+the Plot. A further proof is in the fact that beginners succeed earlier
+with the Diction and Characters than with the construction of a
+story; and the same may be said of nearly all the early dramatists. We
+maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so
+to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come
+second--compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful
+colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a
+simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait. We maintain that Tragedy is
+primarily an imitation of action, and that it is mainly for the sake of
+the action that it imitates the personal agents. Third comes the element
+of Thought, i.e. the power of saying whatever can be said, or what is
+appropriate to the occasion. This is what, in the speeches in Tragedy,
+falls under the arts of Politics and Rhetoric; for the older poets
+make their personages discourse like statesmen, and the moderns like
+rhetoricians. One must not confuse it with Character. Character in a
+play is that which reveals the moral purpose of the agents, i.e. the
+sort of thing they seek or avoid, where that is not obvious--hence there
+is no room for Character in a speech on a purely indifferent subject.
+Thought, on the other hand, is shown in all they say when proving
+or disproving some particular point, or enunciating some universal
+proposition. Fourth among the literary elements is the Diction of the
+personages, i.e. as before explained, the expression of their thoughts
+in words, which is practically the same thing with verse as with prose.
+As for the two remaining parts, the Melody is the greatest of the
+pleasurable accessories of Tragedy. The Spectacle, though an attraction,
+is the least artistic of all the parts, and has least to do with the
+art of poetry. The tragic effect is quite possible without a public
+performance and actors; and besides, the getting-up of the Spectacle is
+more a matter for the costumier than the poet.
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+Having thus distinguished the parts, let us now consider the proper
+construction of the Fable or Plot, as that is at once the first and the
+most important thing in Tragedy. We have laid it down that a tragedy is
+an imitation of an action that is complete in itself, as a whole of some
+magnitude; for a whole may be of no magnitude to speak of. Now a whole
+is that which has beginning, middle, and end. 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 another after it. A well-constructed Plot, therefore,
+cannot either begin or end at any point one likes; beginning and end in
+it must be of the forms just described. Again: to be beautiful, a living
+creature, and every whole made up of parts, must not only present a
+certain order in its arrangement of parts, but also be of a certain
+definite magnitude. Beauty is a matter of size and order, and therefore
+impossible either (1) in a very minute creature, since our perception
+becomes indistinct as it approaches instantaneity; or (2) in a creature
+of vast size--one, say, 1,000 miles long--as in that case, instead of
+the object being seen all at once, the unity and wholeness of it is lost
+to the beholder.
+
+Just in the same way, then, as a beautiful whole made up of parts, or a
+beautiful living creature, must be of some size, a size to be taken in
+by the eye, so a story or Plot must be of some length, but of a length
+to be taken in by the memory. As for the limit of its length, so far as
+that is relative to public performances and spectators, it does not fall
+within the theory of poetry. If they had to perform a hundred tragedies,
+they would be timed by water-clocks, as they are said to have been at
+one period. The limit, however, set by the actual nature of the thing is
+this: the longer the story, consistently with its being comprehensible
+as a whole, the finer it is by reason of its magnitude. As a rough
+general formula, 'a length which allows of the hero passing by a series
+of probable or necessary stages from misfortune to happiness, or from
+happiness to misfortune', may suffice as a limit for the magnitude of
+the story.
+
+
+
+
+8
+
+
+The Unity of a Plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having one
+man as its subject. An infinity of things befall that one man, some of
+which it is impossible to reduce to unity; and in like manner there are
+many actions of one man which cannot be made to form one action.
+One sees, therefore, the mistake of all the poets who have written a
+_Heracleid_, a _Theseid_, or similar poems; they suppose that, because
+Heracles was one man, the story also of Heracles must be one story.
+Homer, however, evidently understood this point quite well, whether
+by art or instinct, just in the same way as he excels the rest in every
+other respect. In writing an _Odyssey_, he did not make the poem cover
+all that ever befell his hero--it befell him, for instance, to get
+wounded on Parnassus and also to feign madness at the time of the call
+to arms, but the two incidents had no probable or necessary connexion
+with one another--instead of doing that, he took an action with a Unity
+of the kind we are describing as the subject of the _Odyssey_, as also
+of the _Iliad_. The truth is that, just as in the other imitative arts
+one imitation is always of one thing, so in poetry the story, as an
+imitation of action, must represent one action, a complete whole,
+with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or
+withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For
+that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is
+no real part of the whole.
+
+
+
+
+9
+
+
+From what we have said it will be seen that the poet's function is to
+describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that
+might happen, i.e. what is possible as being probable or necessary. The
+distinction between historian and poet is not in the one writing prose
+and the other verse--you might put the work of Herodotus into verse, and
+it would still be a species of history; it consists really in this, that
+the one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing
+that might be. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver
+import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather
+of universals, whereas those of history are singulars. By a universal
+statement I mean one as to what such or such a kind of man will probably
+or necessarily say or do--which is the aim of poetry, though it affixes
+proper names to the characters; by a singular statement, one as to what,
+say, Alcibiades did or had done to him. In Comedy this has become clear
+by this time; it is only when their plot is already made up of probable
+incidents that they give it a basis of proper names, choosing for the
+purpose any names that may occur to them, instead of writing like the
+old iambic poets about particular persons. In Tragedy, however, they
+still adhere to the historic names; and for this reason: what convinces
+is the possible; now whereas we are not yet sure as to the possibility
+of that which has not happened, that which has happened is manifestly
+possible, else it would not have come to pass. Nevertheless even in
+Tragedy there are some plays with but one or two known names in them,
+the rest being inventions; and there are some without a single known
+name, e.g. Agathon's Anthens, in which both incidents and names are of
+the poet's invention; and it is no less delightful on that account. So
+that one must not aim at a rigid adherence to the traditional stories
+on which tragedies are based. It would be absurd, in fact, to do so,
+as even the known stories are only known to a few, though they are a
+delight none the less to all.
+
+It is evident from the above that, the poet must be more the poet of his
+stories or Plots than of his verses, inasmuch as he is a poet by
+virtue of the imitative element in his work, and it is actions that he
+imitates. And if he should come to take a subject from actual history,
+he is none the less a poet for that; since some historic occurrences may
+very well be in the probable and possible order of things; and it is in
+that aspect of them that he is their poet.
+
+Of simple Plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a Plot
+episodic when there is neither probability nor necessity in the sequence
+of episodes. Actions of this sort bad poets construct through their
+own fault, and good ones on account of the players. His work being for
+public performance, a good poet often stretches out a Plot beyond its
+capabilities, and is thus obliged to twist the sequence of incident.
+
+Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete action, but
+also of incidents arousing pity and fear. Such incidents have the very
+greatest effect on the mind when they occur unexpectedly and at the same
+time in consequence of one another; there is more of the marvellous in
+them then than if they happened of themselves or by mere chance. Even
+matters of chance seem most marvellous if there is an appearance of
+design as it were in them; as for instance the statue of Mitys at
+Argos killed the author of Mitys' death by falling down on him when a
+looker-on at a public spectacle; for incidents like that we think to be
+not without a meaning. A Plot, therefore, of this sort is necessarily
+finer than others.
+
+
+
+
+10
+
+
+Plots are either simple or complex, since the actions they represent are
+naturally of this twofold description. The action, proceeding in the way
+defined, as one continuous whole, I call simple, when the change in the
+hero's fortunes takes place without Peripety or Discovery; and complex,
+when it involves one or the other, or both. These should each of
+them arise out of the structure of the Plot itself, so as to be the
+consequence, necessary or probable, of the antecedents. There is a great
+difference between a thing happening _propter hoc_ and _post hoc_.
+
+
+
+
+11
+
+
+A Peripety is the change from one state of things within the play to its
+opposite of the kind described, and that too in the way we are saying,
+in the probable or necessary sequence of events; as it is for instance
+in _Oedipus_: here the opposite state of things is produced by the
+Messenger, who, coming to gladden Oedipus and to remove his fears as to
+his mother, reveals the secret of his birth. And in _Lynceus_: just as
+he is being led off for execution, with Danaus at his side to put him to
+death, the incidents preceding this bring it about that he is saved and
+Danaus put to death. A Discovery is, as the very word implies, a change
+from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, in the
+personages marked for good or evil fortune. The finest form of Discovery
+is one attended by Peripeties, like that which goes with the Discovery
+in _Oedipus_. There are no doubt other forms of it; what we have said
+may happen in a way in reference to inanimate things, even things of a
+very casual kind; and it is also possible to discover whether some one
+has done or not done something. But the form most directly connected
+with the Plot and the action of the piece is the first-mentioned. This,
+with a Peripety, will arouse either pity or fear--actions of that nature
+being what Tragedy is assumed to represent; and it will also serve to
+bring about the happy or unhappy ending. The Discovery, then, being of
+persons, it may be that of one party only to the other, the latter being
+already known; or both the parties may have to discover themselves.
+Iphigenia, for instance, was discovered to Orestes by sending the
+letter; and another Discovery was required to reveal him to Iphigenia.
+
+Two parts of the Plot, then, Peripety and Discovery, are on matters of
+this sort. A third part is Suffering; which we may define as an action
+of a destructive or painful nature, such as murders on the stage,
+tortures, woundings, and the like. The other two have been already
+explained.
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+The parts of Tragedy to be treated as formative elements in the whole
+were mentioned in a previous Chapter. From the point of view, however,
+of its quantity, i.e. the separate sections into which it is divided, a
+tragedy has the following parts: Prologue, Episode, Exode, and a choral
+portion, distinguished into Parode and Stasimon; these two are common to
+all tragedies, whereas songs from the stage and Commoe are only found
+in some. The Prologue is all that precedes the Parode of the chorus; an
+Episode all that comes in between two whole choral songs; the Exode
+all that follows after the last choral song. In the choral portion the
+Parode is the whole first statement of the chorus; a Stasimon, a song of
+the chorus without anapaests or trochees; a Commas, a lamentation sung
+by chorus and actor in concert. The parts of Tragedy to be used as
+formative elements in the whole we have already mentioned; the above
+are its parts from the point of view of its quantity, or the separate
+sections into which it is divided.
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+The next points after what we have said above will be these: (1) What is
+the poet to aim at, and what is he to avoid, in constructing his Plots?
+and (2) What are the conditions on which the tragic effect depends?
+
+We assume that, for the finest form of Tragedy, the Plot must be not
+simple but complex; and further, that it must imitate actions arousing
+pity and fear, since that is the distinctive function of this kind of
+imitation. It follows, therefore, that there are three forms of Plot to
+be avoided. (1) A good man must not be seen passing from happiness to
+misery, or (2) a bad man from misery to happiness.
+
+The first situation is not fear-inspiring or piteous, but simply odious
+to us. The second is the most untragic that can be; it has no one of the
+requisites of Tragedy; it does not appeal either to the human feeling in
+us, or to our pity, or to our fears. Nor, on the other hand, should (3)
+an extremely bad man be seen falling from happiness into misery. Such
+a story may arouse the human feeling in us, but it will not move us to
+either pity or fear; pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortune, and
+fear by that of one like ourselves; so that there will be nothing either
+piteous or fear-inspiring in the situation. There remains, then, the
+intermediate kind of personage, a man not pre-eminently virtuous and
+just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice and
+depravity but by some error of judgement, of the number of those in the
+enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity; e.g. Oedipus, Thyestes,
+and the men of note of similar families. The perfect Plot, accordingly,
+must have a single, and not (as some tell us) a double issue; the change
+in the hero's fortunes must be not from misery to happiness, but on the
+contrary from happiness to misery; and the cause of it must lie not
+in any depravity, but in some great error on his part; the man himself
+being either such as we have described, or better, not worse, than that.
+Fact also confirms our theory. Though the poets began by accepting any
+tragic story that came to hand, in these days the finest tragedies are
+always on the story of some few houses, on that of Alemeon, Oedipus,
+Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, or any others that may have been
+involved, as either agents or sufferers, in some deed of horror. The
+theoretically best tragedy, then, has a Plot of this description. The
+critics, therefore, are wrong who blame Euripides for taking this line
+in his tragedies, and giving many of them an unhappy ending. It is, as
+we have said, the right line to take. The best proof is this: on the
+stage, and in the public performances, such plays, properly worked
+out, are seen to be the most truly tragic; and Euripides, even if
+his elecution be faulty in every other point, is seen to be nevertheless
+the most tragic certainly of the dramatists. After this comes the
+construction of Plot which some rank first, one with a double story
+(like the _Odyssey_) and an opposite issue for the good and the bad
+personages. It is ranked as first only through the weakness of the
+audiences; the poets merely follow their public, writing as its wishes
+dictate. But the pleasure here is not that of Tragedy. It belongs rather
+to Comedy, where the bitterest enemies in the piece (e.g. Orestes and
+Aegisthus) walk off good friends at the end, with no slaying of any one
+by any one.
+
+
+
+
+14
+
+
+The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may
+also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play--which
+is the better way and shows the better poet. The Plot in fact should be
+so framed that, even without seeing the things take place, he who simply
+hears the account of them shall be filled with horror and pity at the
+incidents; which is just the effect that the mere recital of the story
+in _Oedipus_ would have on one. To produce this same effect by means
+of the Spectacle is less artistic, and requires extraneous aid. Those,
+however, who make use of the Spectacle to put before us that which is
+merely monstrous and not productive of fear, are wholly out of touch
+with Tragedy; not every kind of pleasure should be required of a
+tragedy, but only its own proper pleasure.
+
+The tragic pleasure is that of pity and fear, and the poet has to
+produce it by a work of imitation; it is clear, therefore, that the
+causes should be included in the incidents of his story. Let us see,
+then, what kinds of incident strike one as horrible, or rather as
+piteous. In a deed of this description the parties must necessarily
+be either friends, or enemies, or indifferent to one another. Now when
+enemy does it on enemy, there is nothing to move us to pity either in
+his doing or in his meditating the deed, except so far as the actual
+pain of the sufferer is concerned; and the same is true when the parties
+are indifferent to one another. Whenever the tragic deed, however, is
+done within the family--when murder or the like is done or meditated
+by brother on brother, by son on father, by mother on son, or son
+on mother--these are the situations the poet should seek after. The
+traditional stories, accordingly, must be kept as they are, e.g. the
+murder of Clytaemnestra by Orestes and of Eriphyle by Alcmeon. At the
+same time even with these there is something left to the poet himself;
+it is for him to devise the right way of treating them. Let us explain
+more clearly what we mean by 'the right way'. The deed of horror may be
+done by the doer knowingly and consciously, as in the old poets, and
+in Medea's murder of her children in Euripides. Or he may do it, but in
+ignorance of his relationship, and discover that afterwards, as does the
+_Oedipus_ in Sophocles. Here the deed is outside the play; but it may
+be within it, like the act of the Alcmeon in Astydamas, or that of
+the Telegonus in _Ulysses Wounded_. A third possibility is for
+one meditating some deadly injury to another, in ignorance of his
+relationship, to make the discovery in time to draw back. These exhaust
+the possibilities, since the deed must necessarily be either done or not
+done, and either knowingly or unknowingly.
+
+The worst situation is when the personage is with full knowledge on the
+point of doing the deed, and leaves it undone. It is odious and also
+(through the absence of suffering) untragic; hence it is that no one is
+made to act thus except in some few instances, e.g. Haemon and Creon in
+_Antigone_. Next after this comes the actual perpetration of the deed
+meditated. A better situation than that, however, is for the deed to
+be done in ignorance, and the relationship discovered afterwards, since
+there is nothing odious in it, and the Discovery will serve to astound
+us. But the best of all is the last; what we have in _Cresphontes_, for
+example, where Merope, on the point of slaying her son, recognizes
+him in time; in _Iphigenia_, where sister and brother are in a like
+position; and in _Helle_, where the son recognizes his mother, when on
+the point of giving her up to her enemy.
+
+This will explain why our tragedies are restricted (as we said just now)
+to such a small number of families. It was accident rather than art that
+led the poets in quest of subjects to embody this kind of incident in
+their Plots. They are still obliged, accordingly, to have recourse to
+the families in which such horrors have occurred.
+
+On the construction of the Plot, and the kind of Plot required for
+Tragedy, enough has now been said.
+
+
+
+
+15
+
+
+In the Characters there are four points to aim at. First and foremost,
+that they shall be good. There will be an element of character in the
+play, if (as has been observed) what a personage says or does reveals a
+certain moral purpose; and a good element of character, if the
+purpose so revealed is good. Such goodness is possible in every type
+of personage, even in a woman or a slave, though the one is perhaps an
+inferior, and the other a wholly worthless being. The second point is to
+make them appropriate. The Character before us may be, say, manly; but
+it is not appropriate in a female Character to be manly, or clever. The
+third is to make them like the reality, which is not the same as their
+being good and appropriate, in our sense of the term. The fourth is to
+make them consistent and the same throughout; even if inconsistency
+be part of the man before one for imitation as presenting that form
+of character, he should still be consistently inconsistent. We have an
+instance of baseness of character, not required for the story, in
+the Menelaus in _Orestes_; of the incongruous and unbefitting in the
+lamentation of Ulysses in _Scylla_, and in the (clever) speech of
+Melanippe; and of inconsistency in _Iphigenia at Aulis_, where Iphigenia
+the suppliant is utterly unlike the later Iphigenia. The right thing,
+however, is in the Characters just as in the incidents of the play to
+endeavour always after the necessary or the probable; so that whenever
+such-and-such a personage says or does such-and-such a thing, it shall
+be the probable or necessary outcome of his character; and whenever
+this incident follows on that, it shall be either the necessary or the
+probable consequence of it. From this one sees (to digress for a moment)
+that the Denouement also should arise out of the plot itself, arid
+not depend on a stage-artifice, as in _Medea_, or in the story of the
+(arrested) departure of the Greeks in the _Iliad_. The artifice must
+be reserved for matters outside the play--for past events beyond human
+knowledge, or events yet to come, which require to be foretold or
+announced; since it is the privilege of the Gods to know everything.
+There should be nothing improbable among the actual incidents. If it
+be unavoidable, however, it should be outside the tragedy, like the
+improbability in the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles. But to return to the
+Characters. As Tragedy is an imitation of personages better than
+the ordinary man, we in our way should follow the example of good
+portrait-painters, who reproduce the distinctive features of a man, and
+at the same time, without losing the likeness, make him handsomer than
+he is. The poet in like manner, in portraying men quick or slow to
+anger, or with similar infirmities of character, must know how to
+represent them as such, and at the same time as good men, as Agathon and
+Homer have represented Achilles.
+
+All these rules one must keep in mind throughout, and further, those
+also for such points of stage-effect as directly depend on the art
+of the poet, since in these too one may often make mistakes. Enough,
+however, has been said on the subject in one of our published writings.
+
+
+
+
+16
+
+
+Discovery in general has been explained already. As for the species of
+Discovery, the first to be noted is (1) the least artistic form of
+it, of which the poets make most use through mere lack of invention,
+Discovery by signs or marks. Of these signs some are congenital, like
+the 'lance-head which the Earth-born have on them', or 'stars', such as
+Carcinus brings in in his _Thyestes_; others acquired after birth--these
+latter being either marks on the body, e.g. scars, or external tokens,
+like necklaces, or to take another sort of instance, the ark in the
+Discovery in _Tyro_. Even these, however, admit of two uses, a better
+and a worse; the scar of Ulysses is an instance; the Discovery of
+him through it is made in one way by the nurse and in another by the
+swineherds. A Discovery using signs as a means of assurance is less
+artistic, as indeed are all such as imply reflection; whereas one
+bringing them in all of a sudden, as in the _Bath-story_, is of a better
+order. Next after these are (2) Discoveries made directly by the poet;
+which are inartistic for that very reason; e.g. Orestes' Discovery of
+himself in _Iphigenia_: whereas his sister reveals who she is by the
+letter, Orestes is made to say himself what the poet rather than
+the story demands. This, therefore, is not far removed from the
+first-mentioned fault, since he might have presented certain tokens
+as well. Another instance is the 'shuttle's voice' in the _Tereus_ of
+Sophocles. (3) A third species is Discovery through memory, from a man's
+consciousness being awakened by something seen or heard. Thus in _The
+Cyprioe_ of Dicaeogenes, the sight of the picture makes the man burst
+into tears; and in the _Tale of Alcinous_, hearing the harper Ulysses is
+reminded of the past and weeps; the Discovery of them being the
+result. (4) A fourth kind is Discovery through reasoning; e.g. in _The
+Choephoroe_: 'One like me is here; there is no one like me but Orestes;
+he, therefore, must be here.' Or that which Polyidus the Sophist
+suggested for _Iphigenia_; since it was natural for Orestes to reflect:
+'My sister was sacrificed, and I am to be sacrificed like her.' Or that
+in the _Tydeus_ of Theodectes: 'I came to find a son, and am to die
+myself.' Or that in _The Phinidae_: on seeing the place the women
+inferred their fate, that they were to die there, since they had also
+been exposed there. (5) There is, too, a composite Discovery arising
+from bad reasoning on the side of the other party. An instance of it is
+in _Ulysses the False Messenger_: he said he should know the bow--which
+he had not seen; but to suppose from that that he would know it again
+(as though he had once seen it) was bad reasoning. (6) The best of all
+Discoveries, however, is that arising from the incidents themselves,
+when the great surprise comes about through a probable incident, like
+that in the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles; and also in _Iphigenia_; for it was
+not improbable that she should wish to have a letter taken home. These
+last are the only Discoveries independent of the artifice of signs and
+necklaces. Next after them come Discoveries through reasoning.
+
+
+
+
+17
+
+
+At the time when he is constructing his Plots, and engaged on the
+Diction in which they are worked out, the poet should remember (1) to
+put the actual scenes as far as possible before his eyes. In this way,
+seeing everything with the vividness of an eye-witness as it were,
+he will devise what is appropriate, and be least likely to overlook
+incongruities. This is shown by what was censured in Carcinus, the
+return of Amphiaraus from the sanctuary; it would have passed unnoticed,
+if it had not been actually seen by the audience; but on the stage his
+play failed, the incongruity of the incident offending the spectators.
+(2) As far as may be, too, the poet should even act his story with the
+very gestures of his personages. Given the same natural qualifications,
+he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing;
+distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one
+who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man
+with special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him;
+the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may
+be actually beside himself with emotion. (3) His story, again, whether
+already made or of his own making, he should first simplify and reduce
+to a universal form, before proceeding to lengthen it out by the
+insertion of episodes. The following will show how the universal element
+in _Iphigenia_, for instance, may be viewed: A certain maiden having
+been offered in sacrifice, and spirited away from her sacrificers into
+another land, where the custom was to sacrifice all strangers to the
+Goddess, she was made there the priestess of this rite. Long after that
+the brother of the priestess happened to come; the fact, however, of the
+oracle having for a certain reason bidden him go thither, and his
+object in going, are outside the Plot of the play. On his coming he
+was arrested, and about to be sacrificed, when he revealed who he
+was--either as Euripides puts it, or (as suggested by Polyidus) by the
+not improbable exclamation, 'So I too am doomed to be sacrificed, as
+my sister was'; and the disclosure led to his salvation. This done, the
+next thing, after the proper names have been fixed as a basis for the
+story, is to work in episodes or accessory incidents. One must mind,
+however, that the episodes are appropriate, like the fit of madness in
+Orestes, which led to his arrest, and the purifying, which brought about
+his salvation. In plays, then, the episodes are short; in epic poetry
+they serve to lengthen out the poem. The argument of the _Odyssey_ is
+not a long one.
+
+A certain man has been abroad many years; Poseidon is ever on the watch
+for him, and he is all alone. Matters at home too have come to this,
+that his substance is being wasted and his son's death plotted by
+suitors to his wife. Then he arrives there himself after his grievous
+sufferings; reveals himself, and falls on his enemies; and the end is
+his salvation and their death. This being all that is proper to the
+_Odyssey_, everything else in it is episode.
+
+
+
+
+18
+
+
+(4) There is a further point to be borne in mind. Every tragedy is
+in part Complication and in part Denouement; the incidents before the
+opening scene, and often certain also of those within the play, forming
+the Complication; and the rest the Denouement. By Complication I mean
+all from the beginning of the story to the point just before the change
+in the hero's fortunes; by Denouement, all from the beginning of the
+change to the end. In the _Lynceus_ of Theodectes, for instance, the
+Complication includes, together with the presupposed incidents, the
+seizure of the child and that in turn of the parents; and the Denouement
+all from the indictment for the murder to the end. Now it is right, when
+one speaks of a tragedy as the same or not the same as another, to do so
+on the ground before all else of their Plot, i.e. as having the same or
+not the same Complication and Denouement. Yet there are many dramatists
+who, after a good Complication, fail in the Denouement. But it is
+necessary for both points of construction to be always duly mastered.
+(5) There are four distinct species of Tragedy--that being the number
+of the constituents also that have been mentioned: first, the complex
+Tragedy, which is all Peripety and Discovery; second, the Tragedy
+of suffering, e.g. the _Ajaxes_ and _Ixions_; third, the Tragedy of
+character, e.g. _The Phthiotides_ and _Peleus_. The fourth constituent
+is that of 'Spectacle', exemplified in _The Phorcides_, in _Prometheus_,
+and in all plays with the scene laid in the nether world. The poet's
+aim, then, should be to combine every element of interest, if possible,
+or else the more important and the major part of them. This is now
+especially necessary owing to the unfair criticism to which the poet is
+subjected in these days. Just because there have been poets before him
+strong in the several species of tragedy, the critics now expect the
+one man to surpass that which was the strong point of each one of his
+predecessors. (6) One should also remember what has been said more than
+once, and not write a tragedy on an epic body of incident (i.e. one with
+a plurality of stories in it), by attempting to dramatize, for instance,
+the entire story of the _Iliad_. In the epic owing to its scale every
+part is treated at proper length; with a drama, however, on the same
+story the result is very disappointing. This is shown by the fact that
+all who have dramatized the fall of Ilium in its entirety, and not part
+by part, like Euripides, or the whole of the Niobe story, instead of a
+portion, like Aeschylus, either fail utterly or have but ill success
+on the stage; for that and that alone was enough to ruin a play by
+Agathon. Yet in their Peripeties, as also in their simple plots, the
+poets I mean show wonderful skill in aiming at the kind of effect they
+desire--a tragic situation that arouses the human feeling in one, like
+the clever villain (e.g. Sisyphus) deceived, or the brave wrongdoer
+worsted. This is probable, however, only in Agathon's sense, when he
+speaks of the probability of even improbabilities coming to pass. (7)
+The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an
+integral part of the whole, and take a share in the action--that which
+it has in Sophocles rather than in Euripides. With the later poets,
+however, the songs in a play of theirs have no more to do with the Plot
+of that than of any other tragedy. Hence it is that they are now singing
+intercalary pieces, a practice first introduced by Agathon. And yet what
+real difference is there between singing such intercalary pieces, and
+attempting to fit in a speech, or even a whole act, from one play into
+another?
+
+
+
+
+19
+
+
+The Plot and Characters having been discussed, it remains to consider
+the Diction and Thought. As for the Thought, we may assume what is
+said of it in our Art of Rhetoric, as it belongs more properly to
+that department of inquiry. The Thought of the personages is shown in
+everything to be effected by their language--in every effort to prove
+or disprove, to arouse emotion (pity, fear, anger, and the like), or
+to maximize or minimize things. It is clear, also, that their mental
+procedure must be on the same lines in their actions likewise, whenever
+they wish them to arouse pity or horror, or have a look of importance or
+probability. The only difference is that with the act the impression has
+to be made without explanation; whereas with the spoken word it has to
+be produced by the speaker, and result from his language. What, indeed,
+would be the good of the speaker, if things appeared in the required
+light even apart from anything he says?
+
+As regards the Diction, one subject for inquiry under this head is the
+turns given to the language when spoken; e.g. the difference between
+command and prayer, simple statement and threat, question and answer,
+and so forth. The theory of such matters, however, belongs to Elocution
+and the professors of that art. Whether the poet knows these things or
+not, his art as a poet is never seriously criticized on that account.
+What fault can one see in Homer's 'Sing of the wrath, Goddess'?--which
+Protagoras has criticized as being a command where a prayer was meant,
+since to bid one do or not do, he tells us, is a command. Let us pass
+over this, then, as appertaining to another art, and not to that of
+poetry.
+
+
+
+
+20
+
+
+The Diction viewed as a whole is made up of the following parts:
+the Letter (or ultimate element), the Syllable, the Conjunction, the
+Article, the Noun, the Verb, the Case, and the Speech. (1) The Letter is
+an indivisible sound of a particular kind, one that may become a factor
+in an intelligible sound. Indivisible sounds are uttered by the brutes
+also, but no one of these is a Letter in our sense of the term. These
+elementary sounds are either vowels, semivowels, or mutes. A vowel is a
+Letter having an audible sound without the addition of another Letter.
+A semivowel, one having an audible sound by the addition of another
+Letter; e.g. S and R. A mute, one having no sound at all by itself, but
+becoming audible by an addition, that of one of the Letters which have
+a sound of some sort of their own; e.g. D and G. The Letters differ in
+various ways: as produced by different conformations or in different
+regions of the mouth; as aspirated, not aspirated, or sometimes one
+and sometimes the other; as long, short, or of variable quantity; and
+further as having an acute grave, or intermediate accent.
+
+The details of these matters we must leave to the metricians. (2) A
+Syllable is a nonsignificant composite sound, made up of a mute and a
+Letter having a sound (a vowel or semivowel); for GR, without an A,
+is just as much a Syllable as GRA, with an A. The various forms of the
+Syllable also belong to the theory of metre. (3) A Conjunction is (a) a
+non-significant sound which, when one significant sound is formable out
+of several, neither hinders nor aids the union, and which, if the Speech
+thus formed stands by itself (apart from other Speeches) must not be
+inserted at the beginning of it; e.g. _men_, _de_, _toi_, _de_. Or (b)
+a non-significant sound capable of combining two or more significant
+sounds into one; e.g. _amphi_, _peri_, etc. (4) An Article is a
+non-significant sound marking the beginning, end, or dividing-point of
+a Speech, its natural place being either at the extremities or in
+the middle. (5) A Noun or name is a composite significant sound not
+involving the idea of time, with parts which have no significance by
+themselves in it. It is to be remembered that in a compound we do not
+think of the parts as having a significance also by themselves; in the
+name 'Theodorus', for instance, the _doron_ means nothing to us.
+
+(6) A Verb is a composite significant sound involving the idea of
+time, with parts which (just as in the Noun) have no significance by
+themselves in it. Whereas the word 'man' or 'white' does not imply
+_when_, 'walks' and 'has walked' involve in addition to the idea of
+walking that of time present or time past.
+
+(7) A Case of a Noun or Verb is when the word means 'of or 'to' a thing,
+and so forth, or for one or many (e.g. 'man' and 'men'); or it may
+consist merely in the mode of utterance, e.g. in question, command, etc.
+'Walked?' and 'Walk!' are Cases of the verb 'to walk' of this last kind.
+(8) A Speech is a composite significant sound, some of the parts of
+which have a certain significance by themselves. It may be observed that
+a Speech is not always made up of Noun and Verb; it may be without a
+Verb, like the definition of man; but it will always have some part with
+a certain significance by itself. In the Speech 'Cleon walks', 'Cleon'
+is an instance of such a part. A Speech is said to be one in two ways,
+either as signifying one thing, or as a union of several Speeches made
+into one by conjunction. Thus the _Iliad_ is one Speech by conjunction
+of several; and the definition of man is one through its signifying one
+thing.
+
+
+
+
+21
+
+
+Nouns are of two kinds, either (1) simple, i.e. made up of
+non-significant parts, like the word ge, or (2) double; in the
+latter case the word may be made up either of a significant and a
+non-significant part (a distinction which disappears in the compound),
+or of two significant parts. It is possible also to have triple,
+quadruple or higher compounds, like most of our amplified names; e.g.'
+Hermocaicoxanthus' and the like.
+
+Whatever its structure, a Noun must always be either (1) the ordinary
+word for the thing, or (2) a strange word, or (3) a metaphor, or (4) an
+ornamental word, or (5) a coined word, or (6) a word lengthened out, or
+(7) curtailed, or (8) altered in form. By the ordinary word I mean
+that in general use in a country; and by a strange word, one in use
+elsewhere. So that the same word may obviously be at once strange and
+ordinary, though not in reference to the same people; _sigunos_, for
+instance, is an ordinary word in Cyprus, and a strange word with us.
+Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something
+else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from
+species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy.
+That from genus to species is eXemplified in 'Here stands my ship'; for
+lying at anchor is the 'standing' of a particular kind of thing. That
+from species to genus in 'Truly ten thousand good deeds has Ulysses
+wrought', where 'ten thousand', which is a particular large number,
+is put in place of the generic 'a large number'. That from species to
+species in 'Drawing the life with the bronze', and in 'Severing with the
+enduring bronze'; where the poet uses 'draw' in the sense of 'sever' and
+'sever' in that of 'draw', both words meaning to 'take away' something.
+That from analogy is possible whenever there are four terms so related
+that the second (B) is to the first (A), as the fourth (D) to the third
+(C); for one may then metaphorically put B in lieu of D, and D in lieu
+of B. Now and then, too, they qualify the metaphor by adding on to it
+that to which the word it supplants is relative. Thus a cup (B) is
+in relation to Dionysus (A) what a shield (D) is to Ares (C). The
+cup accordingly will be metaphorically described as the 'shield _of
+Dionysus_' (D + A), and the shield as the 'cup _of Ares_' (B + C). Or to
+take another instance: As old age (D) is to life (C), so is evening (B)
+to day (A). One will accordingly describe evening (B) as the 'old age
+_of the day_' (D + A)--or by the Empedoclean equivalent; and old age (D)
+as the 'evening' or 'sunset of life'' (B + C). It may be that some of
+the terms thus related have no special name of their own, but for all
+that they will be metaphorically described in just the same way. Thus to
+cast forth seed-corn is called 'sowing'; but to cast forth its flame,
+as said of the sun, has no special name. This nameless act (B), however,
+stands in just the same relation to its object, sunlight (A), as sowing
+(D) to the seed-corn (C). Hence the expression in the poet, 'sowing
+around a god-created _flame_' (D + A). There is also another form of
+qualified metaphor. Having given the thing the alien name, one may by a
+negative addition deny of it one of the attributes naturally associated
+with its new name. An instance of this would be to call the shield not
+the 'cup _of Ares_,' as in the former case, but a 'cup _that holds no
+wine_'. * * * A coined word is a name which, being quite unknown among
+a people, is given by the poet himself; e.g. (for there are some words
+that seem to be of this origin) _hernyges_ for horns, and _areter_ for
+priest. A word is said to be lengthened out, when it has a short vowel
+made long, or an extra syllable inserted; e. g. _polleos_ for _poleos_,
+_Peleiadeo_ for _Peleidon_. It is said to be curtailed, when it has lost
+a part; e.g. _kri_, _do_, and _ops_ in _mia ginetai amphoteron ops_.
+It is an altered word, when part is left as it was and part is of the
+poet's making; e.g. _dexiteron_ for _dexion_, in _dexiteron kata maxon_.
+
+The Nouns themselves (to whatever class they may belong) are either
+masculines, feminines, or intermediates (neuter). All ending in N, P,
+S, or in the two compounds of this last, PS and X, are masculines. All
+ending in the invariably long vowels, H and O, and in A among the vowels
+that may be long, are feminines. So that there is an equal number of
+masculine and feminine terminations, as PS and X are the same as S,
+and need not be counted. There is no Noun, however, ending in a mute
+or in either of the two short vowels, E and O. Only three (_meli, kommi,
+peperi_) end in I, and five in T. The intermediates, or neuters, end in
+the variable vowels or in N, P, X.
+
+
+
+
+22
+
+
+The perfection of Diction is for it to be at once clear and not mean.
+The clearest indeed is that made up of the ordinary words for things,
+but it is mean, as is shown by the poetry of Cleophon and Sthenelus. On
+the other hand the Diction becomes distinguished and non-prosaic by
+the use of unfamiliar terms, i.e. strange words, metaphors, lengthened
+forms, and everything that deviates from the ordinary modes of
+speech.--But a whole statement in such terms will be either a riddle or
+a barbarism, a riddle, if made up of metaphors, a barbarism, if made
+up of strange words. The very nature indeed of a riddle is this, to
+describe a fact in an impossible combination of words (which cannot be
+done with the real names for things, but can be with their metaphorical
+substitutes); e.g. 'I saw a man glue brass on another with fire',
+and the like. The corresponding use of strange words results in a
+barbarism.--A certain admixture, accordingly, of unfamiliar terms
+is necessary. These, the strange word, the metaphor, the ornamental
+equivalent, etc.. will save the language from seeming mean and prosaic,
+while the ordinary words in it will secure the requisite clearness. What
+helps most, however, to render the Diction at once clear and non-prosaic
+is the use of the lengthened, curtailed, and altered forms of words.
+Their deviation from the ordinary words will, by making the language
+unlike that in general use give it a non-prosaic appearance; and their
+having much in common with the words in general use will give it the
+quality of clearness. It is not right, then, to condemn these modes of
+speech, and ridicule the poet for using them, as some have done; e.g.
+the elder Euclid, who said it was easy to make poetry if one were to
+be allowed to lengthen the words in the statement itself as much as
+one likes--a procedure he caricatured by reading '_Epixarhon eidon
+Marathonade Badi--gonta_, and _ouk han g' eramenos ton ekeinou helle
+boron_ as verses. A too apparent use of these licences has certainly a
+ludicrous effect, but they are not alone in that; the rule of moderation
+applies to all the constituents of the poetic vocabulary; even with
+metaphors, strange words, and the rest, the effect will be the same,
+if one uses them improperly and with a view to provoking laughter. The
+proper use of them is a very different thing. To realize the difference
+one should take an epic verse and see how it reads when the normal words
+are introduced. The same should be done too with the strange word, the
+metaphor, and the rest; for one has only to put the ordinary words in
+their place to see the truth of what we are saying. The same iambic, for
+instance, is found in Aeschylus and Euripides, and as it stands in the
+former it is a poor line; whereas Euripides, by the change of a single
+word, the substitution of a strange for what is by usage the ordinary
+word, has made it seem a fine one. Aeschylus having said in his
+_Philoctetes_:
+
+ _phagedaina he mon sarkas hesthiei podos_
+
+Euripides has merely altered the hesthiei here into thoinatai. Or
+suppose
+
+ _nun de m' heon holigos te kai outidanos kai haeikos_
+
+to be altered by the substitution of the ordinary words into
+
+ _nun de m' heon mikros te kai hasthenikos kai haeidos_
+
+Or the line
+
+ _diphron haeikelion katatheis olingen te trapexan_
+
+into
+
+ _diphron moxtheron katatheis mikran te trapexan_
+
+Or heiones boosin into heiones kraxousin. Add to this that Ariphrades
+used to ridicule the tragedians for introducing expressions unknown
+in the language of common life, _doeaton hapo_ (for _apo domaton_),
+_sethen_, _hego de nin_, _Achilleos peri_ (for _peri Achilleos_), and
+the like. The mere fact of their not being in ordinary speech gives the
+Diction a non-prosaic character; but Ariphrades was unaware of that. It
+is a great thing, indeed, to make a proper use of these poetical forms,
+as also of compounds and strange words. But the greatest thing by far
+is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt
+from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor
+implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.
+
+Of the kinds of words we have enumerated it may be observed that
+compounds are most in place in the dithyramb, strange words in heroic,
+and metaphors in iambic poetry. Heroic poetry, indeed, may avail itself
+of them all. But in iambic verse, which models itself as far as possible
+on the spoken language, only those kinds of words are in place which are
+allowable also in an oration, i.e. the ordinary word, the metaphor, and
+the ornamental equivalent.
+
+Let this, then, suffice as an account of Tragedy, the art imitating by
+means of action on the stage.
+
+
+
+
+23
+
+
+As for the poetry which merely narrates, or imitates by means of
+versified language (without action), it is evident that it has several
+points in common with Tragedy.
+
+I. The construction of its stories should clearly be like that in a
+drama; they should be based on a single action, one that is a complete
+whole in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end, so as to enable the
+work to produce its own proper pleasure with all the organic unity of a
+living creature. Nor should one suppose that there is anything like them
+in our usual histories. A history has to deal not with one action, but
+with one period and all that happened in that to one or more persons,
+however disconnected the several events may have been. Just as two
+events may take place at the same time, e.g. the sea-fight off Salamis
+and the battle with the Carthaginians in Sicily, without converging to
+the same end, so too of two consecutive events one may sometimes come
+after the other with no one end as their common issue. Nevertheless most
+of our epic poets, one may say, ignore the distinction.
+
+Herein, then, to repeat what we have said before, we have a further
+proof of Homer's marvellous superiority to the rest. He did not attempt
+to deal even with the Trojan war in its entirety, though it was a whole
+with a definite beginning and end--through a feeling apparently that
+it was too long a story to be taken in in one view, or if not that, too
+complicated from the variety of incident in it. As it is, he has singled
+out one section of the whole; many of the other incidents, however, he
+brings in as episodes, using the Catalogue of the Ships, for instance,
+and other episodes to relieve the uniformity of his narrative. As for
+the other epic poets, they treat of one man, or one period; or else of
+an action which, although one, has a multiplicity of parts in it. This
+last is what the authors of the _Cypria_ and _Little_ _Iliad_ have
+done. And the result is that, whereas the _Iliad_ or _Odyssey_ supplies
+materials for only one, or at most two tragedies, the _Cypria_ does
+that for several, and the _Little_ _Iliad_ for more than eight: for an
+_Adjudgment of Arms_, a _Philoctetes_, a _Neoptolemus_, a _Eurypylus_,
+a _Ulysses as Beggar_, a _Laconian Women_, a _Fall of Ilium_, and a
+_Departure of the Fleet_; as also a _Sinon_, and _Women of Troy_.
+
+
+
+
+24
+
+
+II. Besides this, Epic poetry must divide into the same species as
+Tragedy; it must be either simple or complex, a story of character
+or one of suffering. Its parts, too, with the exception of Song and
+Spectacle, must be the same, as it requires Peripeties, Discoveries, and
+scenes of suffering just like Tragedy. Lastly, the Thought and Diction
+in it must be good in their way. All these elements appear in Homer
+first; and he has made due use of them. His two poems are each examples
+of construction, the _Iliad_ simple and a story of suffering, the
+_Odyssey_ complex (there is Discovery throughout it) and a story of
+character. And they are more than this, since in Diction and Thought too
+they surpass all other poems.
+
+There is, however, a difference in the Epic as compared with Tragedy,
+(1) in its length, and (2) in its metre. (1) As to its length, the limit
+already suggested will suffice: it must be possible for the beginning
+and end of the work to be taken in in one view--a condition which will
+be fulfilled if the poem be shorter than the old epics, and about
+as long as the series of tragedies offered for one hearing. For the
+extension of its length epic poetry has a special advantage, of which it
+makes large use. In a play one cannot represent an action with a number
+of parts going on simultaneously; one is limited to the part on the
+stage and connected with the actors. Whereas in epic poetry the narrative
+form makes it possible for one to describe a number of simultaneous
+incidents; and these, if germane to the subject, increase the body of
+the poem. This then is a gain to the Epic, tending to give it grandeur,
+and also variety of interest and room for episodes of diverse kinds.
+Uniformity of incident by the satiety it soon creates is apt to ruin
+tragedies on the stage. (2) As for its metre, the heroic has been
+assigned it from experience; were any one to attempt a narrative poem
+in some one, or in several, of the other metres, the incongruity of
+the thing would be apparent. The heroic; in fact is the gravest and
+weightiest of metres--which is what makes it more tolerant than the rest
+of strange words and metaphors, that also being a point in which
+the narrative form of poetry goes beyond all others. The iambic
+and trochaic, on the other hand, are metres of movement, the one
+representing that of life and action, the other that of the dance. Still
+more unnatural would it appear, it one were to write an epic in a medley
+of metres, as Chaeremon did. Hence it is that no one has ever written
+a long story in any but heroic verse; nature herself, as we have said,
+teaches us to select the metre appropriate to such a story.
+
+Homer, admirable as he is in every other respect, is especially so in
+this, that he alone among epic poets is not unaware of the part to be
+played by the poet himself in the poem. The poet should say very little
+in propria persona, as he is no imitator when doing that. Whereas
+the other poets are perpetually coming forward in person, and say but
+little, and that only here and there, as imitators, Homer after a brief
+preface brings in forthwith a man, a woman, or some other Character--no
+one of them characterless, but each with distinctive characteristics.
+
+The marvellous is certainly required in Tragedy. The Epic, however,
+affords more opening for the improbable, the chief factor in the
+marvellous, because in it the agents are not visibly before one. The
+scene of the pursuit of Hector would be ridiculous on the stage--the
+Greeks halting instead of pursuing him, and Achilles shaking his head to
+stop them; but in the poem the absurdity is overlooked. The marvellous,
+however, is a cause of pleasure, as is shown by the fact that we all
+tell a story with additions, in the belief that we are doing our hearers
+a pleasure.
+
+Homer more than any other has taught the rest of us the art of framing
+lies in the right way. I mean the use of paralogism. Whenever, if A is
+or happens, a consequent, B, is or happens, men's notion is that, if the
+B is, the A also is--but that is a false conclusion. Accordingly, if A
+is untrue, but there is something else, B, that on the assumption of its
+truth follows as its consequent, the right thing then is to add on the
+B. Just because we know the truth of the consequent, we are in our own
+minds led on to the erroneous inference of the truth of the antecedent.
+Here is an instance, from the Bath-story in the _Odyssey_.
+
+A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing
+possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents;
+there should be nothing of the sort in it. If, however, such incidents
+are unavoidable, they should be outside the piece, like the hero's
+ignorance in _Oedipus_ of the circumstances of Lams' death; not within
+it, like the report of the Pythian games in _Electra_, or the man's
+having come to Mysia from Tegea without uttering a word on the way, in
+_The Mysians_. So that it is ridiculous to say that one's Plot would
+have been spoilt without them, since it is fundamentally wrong to make
+up such Plots. If the poet has taken such a Plot, however, and one
+sees that he might have put it in a more probable form, he is guilty
+of absurdity as well as a fault of art. Even in the _Odyssey_ the
+improbabilities in the setting-ashore of Ulysses would be clearly
+intolerable in the hands of an inferior poet. As it is, the poet
+conceals them, his other excellences veiling their absurdity. Elaborate
+Diction, however, is required only in places where there is no action,
+and no Character or Thought to be revealed. Where there is Character
+or Thought, on the other hand, an over-ornate Diction tends to obscure
+them.
+
+
+
+
+25
+
+
+As regards Problems and their Solutions, one may see the number and
+nature of the assumptions on which they proceed by viewing the matter in
+the following way. (1) The poet being an imitator just like the painter
+or other maker of likenesses, he must necessarily in all instances
+represent things in one or other of three aspects, either as they were
+or are, or as they are said or thought to be or to have been, or as they
+ought to be. (2) All this he does in language, with an admixture, it
+may be, of strange words and metaphors, as also of the various modified
+forms of words, since the use of these is conceded in poetry. (3) It is
+to be remembered, too, that there is not the same kind of correctness
+in poetry as in politics, or indeed any other art. There is, however,
+within the limits of poetry itself a possibility of two kinds of error,
+the one directly, the other only accidentally connected with the art. If
+the poet meant to describe the thing correctly, and failed through
+lack of power of expression, his art itself is at fault. But if it was
+through his having meant to describe it in some incorrect way (e.g. to
+make the horse in movement have both right legs thrown forward) that the
+technical error (one in a matter of, say, medicine or some other special
+science), or impossibilities of whatever kind they may be, have got into
+his description, his error in that case is not in the essentials of the
+poetic art. These, therefore, must be the premisses of the Solutions in
+answer to the criticisms involved in the Problems.
+
+I. As to the criticisms relating to the poet's art itself. Any
+impossibilities there may be in his descriptions of things are faults.
+But from another point of view they are justifiable, if they serve the
+end of poetry itself--if (to assume what we have said of that end) they
+make the effect of some portion of the work more astounding. The Pursuit
+of Hector is an instance in point. If, however, the poetic end might
+have been as well or better attained without sacrifice of technical
+correctness in such matters, the impossibility is not to be justified,
+since the description should be, if it can, entirely free from error.
+One may ask, too, whether the error is in a matter directly or only
+accidentally connected with the poetic art; since it is a lesser error
+in an artist not to know, for instance, that the hind has no horns, than
+to produce an unrecognizable picture of one.
+
+II. If the poet's description be criticized as not true to fact, one may
+urge perhaps that the object ought to be as described--an answer like
+that of Sophocles, who said that he drew men as they ought to be, and
+Euripides as they were. If the description, however, be neither true nor
+of the thing as it ought to be, the answer must be then, that it is in
+accordance with opinion. The tales about Gods, for instance, may be as
+wrong as Xenophanes thinks, neither true nor the better thing to say;
+but they are certainly in accordance with opinion. Of other statements
+in poetry one may perhaps say, not that they are better than the truth,
+but that the fact was so at the time; e.g. the description of the arms:
+'their spears stood upright, butt-end upon the ground'; for that was the
+usual way of fixing them then, as it is still with the Illyrians. As for
+the question whether something said or done in a poem is morally right
+or not, in dealing with that one should consider not only the intrinsic
+quality of the actual word or deed, but also the person who says or does
+it, the person to whom he says or does it, the time, the means, and the
+motive of the agent--whether he does it to attain a greater good, or to
+avoid a greater evil.
+
+III. Other criticisms one must meet by considering the language of the
+poet: (1) by the assumption of a strange word in a passage like _oureas
+men proton_, where by _oureas_ Homer may perhaps mean not mules but
+sentinels. And in saying of Dolon, _hos p e toi eidos men heen kakos_,
+his meaning may perhaps be, not that Dolon's body was deformed, but that
+his face was ugly, as _eneidos_ is the Cretan word for handsome-faced.
+So, too, _goroteron de keraie_ may mean not 'mix the wine stronger', as
+though for topers, but 'mix it quicker'. (2) Other expressions in Homer
+may be explained as metaphorical; e.g. in _halloi men ra theoi te kai
+aneres eudon (hapantes) pannux_ as compared with what he tells us at the
+same time, _e toi hot hes pedion to Troikon hathreseien, aulon suriggon
+*te homadon*_ the word _hapantes_ 'all', is metaphorically put for
+'many', since 'all' is a species of 'many '. So also his _oie d'
+ammoros_ is metaphorical, the best known standing 'alone'. (3) A change,
+as Hippias suggested, in the mode of reading a word will solve the
+difficulty in _didomen de oi_, and _to men ou kataputhetai hombro_.
+(4) Other difficulties may be solved by another punctuation; e.g. in
+Empedocles, _aipsa de thnet ephyonto, ta prin mathon athanata xora te
+prin kekreto_. Or (5) by the assumption of an equivocal term, as in
+_parocheken de pleo nux_, where _pleo_ in equivocal. Or (6) by an appeal
+to the custom of language. Wine-and-water we call 'wine'; and it is
+on the same principle that Homer speaks of a _knemis neoteuktou
+kassiteroio_, a 'greave of new-wrought tin.' A worker in iron we call a
+'brazier'; and it is on the same principle that Ganymede is described
+as the 'wine-server' of Zeus, though the Gods do not drink wine. This
+latter, however, may be an instance of metaphor. But whenever also a
+word seems to imply some contradiction, it is necessary to reflect how
+many ways there may be of understanding it in the passage in question;
+e.g. in Homer's _te r' hesxeto xalkeon hegxos_ one should consider the
+possible senses of 'was stopped there'--whether by taking it in this
+sense or in that one will best avoid the fault of which Glaucon speaks:
+'They start with some improbable presumption; and having so decreed it
+themselves, proceed to draw inferences, and censure the poet as though
+he had actually said whatever they happen to believe, if his statement
+conflicts with their own notion of things.' This is how Homer's silence
+about Icarius has been treated. Starting with, the notion of his having
+been a Lacedaemonian, the critics think it strange for Telemachus not to
+have met him when he went to Lacedaemon. Whereas the fact may have been
+as the Cephallenians say, that the wife of Ulysses was of a Cephallenian
+family, and that her father's name was Icadius, not Icarius. So that it
+is probably a mistake of the critics that has given rise to the Problem.
+
+Speaking generally, one has to justify (1) the Impossible by reference
+to the requirements of poetry, or to the better, or to opinion. For
+the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to
+an unconvincing possibility; and if men such as Zeuxis depicted be
+impossible, the answer is that it is better they should be like that, as
+the artist ought to improve on his model. (2) The Improbable one has
+to justify either by showing it to be in accordance with opinion, or by
+urging that at times it is not improbable; for there is a probability of
+things happening also against probability. (3) The contradictions found
+in the poet's language one should first test as one does an opponent's
+confutation in a dialectical argument, so as to see whether he means
+the same thing, in the same relation, and in the same sense, before
+admitting that he has contradicted either something he has said himself
+or what a man of sound sense assumes as true. But there is no possible
+apology for improbability of Plot or depravity of character, when they
+are not necessary and no use is made of them, like the improbability
+in the appearance of Aegeus in _Medea_ and the baseness of Menelaus in
+_Orestes_.
+
+The objections, then, of critics start with faults of five kinds:
+the allegation is always that something in either (1) impossible, (2)
+improbable, (3) corrupting, (4) contradictory, or (5) against technical
+correctness. The answers to these objections must be sought under one or
+other of the above-mentioned heads, which are twelve in number.
+
+
+
+
+26
+
+
+The question may be raised whether the epic or the tragic is the higher
+form of imitation. It may be argued that, if the less vulgar is the
+higher, and the less vulgar is always that which addresses the better
+public, an art addressing any and every one is of a very vulgar order.
+It is a belief that their public cannot see the meaning, unless they
+add something themselves, that causes the perpetual movements of
+the performers--bad flute-players, for instance, rolling about, if
+quoit-throwing is to be represented, and pulling at the conductor, if
+Scylla is the subject of the piece. Tragedy, then, is said to be an art
+of this order--to be in fact just what the later actors were in the eyes
+of their predecessors; for Myrmiscus used to call Callippides 'the ape',
+because he thought he so overacted his parts; and a similar view was
+taken of Pindarus also. All Tragedy, however, is said to stand to the
+Epic as the newer to the older school of actors. The one, accordingly,
+is said to address a cultivated 'audience, which does not need the
+accompaniment of gesture; the other, an uncultivated one. If, therefore,
+Tragedy is a vulgar art, it must clearly be lower than the Epic.
+
+The answer to this is twofold. In the first place, one may urge (1) that
+the censure does not touch the art of the dramatic poet, but only that
+of his interpreter; for it is quite possible to overdo the gesturing
+even in an epic recital, as did Sosistratus, and in a singing contest,
+as did Mnasitheus of Opus. (2) That one should not condemn all movement,
+unless one means to condemn even the dance, but only that of ignoble
+people--which is the point of the criticism passed on Callippides and
+in the present day on others, that their women are not like gentlewomen.
+(3) That Tragedy may produce its effect even without movement or action
+in just the same way as Epic poetry; for from the mere reading of a
+play its quality may be seen. So that, if it be superior in all other
+respects, this element of inferiority is not a necessary part of it.
+
+In the second place, one must remember (1) that Tragedy has everything
+that the Epic has (even the epic metre being admissible), together with
+a not inconsiderable addition in the shape of the Music (a very real
+factor in the pleasure of the drama) and the Spectacle. (2) That its
+reality of presentation is felt in the play as read, as well as in the
+play as acted. (3) That the tragic imitation requires less space for
+the attainment of its end; which is a great advantage, since the more
+concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one with a large admixture
+of time to dilute it--consider the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles, for instance,
+and the effect of expanding it into the number of lines of the _Iliad_.
+(4) That there is less unity in the imitation of the epic poets, as
+is proved by the fact that any one work of theirs supplies matter for
+several tragedies; the result being that, if they take what is really
+a single story, it seems curt when briefly told, and thin and waterish
+when on the scale of length usual with their verse. In saying that
+there is less unity in an epic, I mean an epic made up of a plurality
+of actions, in the same way as the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ have many such
+parts, each one of them in itself of some magnitude; yet the structure
+of the two Homeric poems is as perfect as can be, and the action in them
+is as nearly as possible one action. If, then, Tragedy is superior in
+these respects, and also besides these, in its poetic effect (since the
+two forms of poetry should give us, not any or every pleasure, but the
+very special kind we have mentioned), it is clear that, as attaining the
+poetic effect better than the Epic, it will be the higher form of art.
+
+So much for Tragedy and Epic poetry--for these two arts in general and
+their species; the number and nature of their constituent parts; the
+causes of success and failure in them; the Objections of the critics,
+and the Solutions in answer to them.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetics, by Aristotle
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