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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetics, by  Aristotle
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+Title: The Poetics
+
+Author:  Aristotle
+
+Release Date: October, 2004  [EBook #6763]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 24, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE POETICS ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Eric Eldred.
+
+
+
+ARISTOTLE
+ON THE ART OF POETRY
+
+
+
+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, there i.e.lightenment 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 'imitate.g.od 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 thei.e.periences 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 i.e.sier 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. The.g.ve 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 thi.e.tent,
+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 i.e.ic 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
+i.e.ic 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 i.e.sentially 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. Characte.g.ves 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 i.e.erywhere 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 tragi.e.fect; 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 tragi.e.fect 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
+i.e.ery 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 the.g.ve 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 i.e.ident 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 tragi.e.fect
+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 hi.e.ecution be faulty i.e.ery 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 i.e.ery 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 hi.e.es. 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 i.e.isodes 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;
+i.e.ic 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 i.e.er 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 hi.e.emies; and
+the end is his salvation and their death. This being all that is
+proper to the _Odyssey_, everything else in it i.e.isode.
+
+
+
+
+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 rui.e.en 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--i.e.ery 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.g.ave, or
+intermediate accent.
+
+The details of these matters we mubt 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 i.e.emplified 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 i.e.ening (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 i.e.ther 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.g.ve 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 i.e.ident 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 i.e.ic
+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 i.e.ery other respect, i.e.pecially 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, hi.e.ror 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 greate.g.od, 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_ i.e.uivocal. 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 i.e.ther (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, thi.e.ement 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 poeti.e.fect (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 poeti.e.fect 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, THE POETICS ***
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