Aristotle's Poetics

SUMMARY OF POETICS

1. The plot must be “a whole,” with a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning, called by modern critics the incentive moment, must start the cause-and-effect chain but not be dependent on anything outside the compass of the play (i.e., its causes are downplayed but its effects are stressed). The middle, or climax, must be caused by earlier incidents and itself cause the incidents that follow it (i.e., its causes and effects are stressed). The end, or resolution, must be caused by the preceding events but not lead to other incidents outside the compass of the play (i.e., its causes are stressed but its effects downplayed); the end should therefore solve or resolve the problem created during the incentive moment.  Aristotle calls the cause-and-effect chain leading from the incentive moment to the climax the “tying up” (desis), in modern terminology the complication. He therefore terms the more rapid cause-and-effect chain from the climax to the resolution the “unravelling” (lusis), in modern terminology the dénouement
2. The plot must be “complete,” having “unity of action.” By this Aristotle means that the plot must be structurally self-contained, with the incidents bound together by internal necessity, each action leading inevitably to the next with no outside intervention, no deus ex machina . According to Aristotle, the worst kinds of plots are “‘episodic,’ in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence”; the only thing that ties together the events in such a plot is the fact that they happen to the same person. Playwrights should exclude coincidences from their plots; if some coincidence is required, it should “have an air of design,” i.e., seem to have a fated connection to the events of the play). Similarly, the poet should exclude the irrational or at least keep it “outside the scope of the tragedy,” i.e., reported rather than dramatized .While the poet cannot change the myths that are the basis of his plots, he “ought to show invention of his own and skillfully handle the traditional materials” to create unity of action in his plot. 
3. The plot must be “of a certain magnitude,” both quantitatively (length, complexity) and qualitatively (“seriousness” and universal significance). Aristotle argues that plots should not be too brief; the more incidents and themes that the playwright can bring together in an organic unity, the greater the artistic value and richness of the play. Also, the more universal and significant the meaning of the play, the more the playwright can catch and hold the emotions of the audience, the better the play will be
4. The plot may be either simple or complex, although complex is better. Simple plots have only a “change of fortune” (catastrophe). Complex plots have both “reversal of intention” (peripeteia) and “recognition” (anagnorisis) connected with the catastrophe. Both peripeteia and anagnorisis turn upon surprise. Aristotle explains that a peripeteia occurs when a character produces an effect opposite to that which he intended to produce, while an anagnorisis “is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined for good or bad fortune.” He argues that the best plots combine these two as part of their cause-and-effect chain (i.e., the peripeteia leads directly to the anagnorisis); this in turns creates the catastrophe, leading to the final “scene of suffering”

5.      In a perfect tragedy, character will support plot, i.e., personal motivations will be intricately connected parts of the cause-and-effect chain of actions producing pity and fear in the audience. The protagonist should be renowned and prosperous, so his change of fortune can be from good to bad. This change “should come about as the result, not of vice, but of some great error or frailty in a character.” Such a plot is most likely to generate pity and fear in the audience, for “pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves.” The term Aristotle uses here, hamartia, often translated “tragic flaw,” has been the subject of much debate. The meaning of the Greek word is closer to “mistake” than to “flaw,” and I believe it is best interpreted in the context of what Aristotle has to say about plot and “the law or probability or necessity.” In the ideal tragedy, claims Aristotle, the protagonist will mistakenly bring about his own downfall—not because he is sinful or morally weak, but because he does not know enough. The role of the hamartia in tragedy comes not from its moral status but from the inevitability of its consequences. Hence the peripeteia is really one or more self-destructive actions taken in blindness, leading to results diametrically opposed to those that were intended (often termed tragic irony), and the anagnorisis is the gaining of the essential knowledge that was previously lacking.  Characters in tragedy should have the following qualities:

·        “good or fine.” Aristotle relates this quality to moral purpose and says it is relative to class: “Even a woman may be good, and also a slave, though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless.”

·        “fitness of character” (true to type); e.g. valor is appropriate for a warrior but not for a woman.

·        “true to life” (realistic)

·        “consistency” (true to themselves). Once a character's personality and motivations are established, these should continue throughout the play.

·        “necessary or probable.” Characters must be logically constructed according to “the law of probability or necessity” that governs the actions of the play.

·        “true to life and yet more beautiful” (idealized, ennobled).

6. The elements of:
   • Thought is third in importance, and is found “where something is proved to be or not to be, or a general maxim is enunciated.” Aristotle says little about thought, and most of what he has to say is associated with how speeches should reveal character.  However, we may assume that this category would also include what we call the themes of a play.
   • Diction is fourth, and is “the expression of the meaning in words” which are proper and appropriate to the plot, characters, and end of the tragedy. In this category, Aristotle discusses the stylistic elements of tragedy; he is particularly interested in metaphors: “But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor; . . . it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances”.
   • Song, or melody, is fifth, and is the musical element of the chorus. Aristotle argues that the Chorus should be fully integrated into the play like an actor; choral odes should not be “mere interludes,” but should contribute to the unity of the plot.
   • Spectacle is last, for it is least connected with literature; “the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet.” Although Aristotle recognizes the emotional attraction of spectacle, he argues that superior poets rely on the inner structure of the play rather than spectacle to arouse pity and fear; those who rely heavily on spectacle “create a sense, not of the terrible, but only of the monstrous”
7. The end of the tragedy is a katharsis (purgation, cleansing) of the tragic emotions of pity and fear. Katharsis is another Aristotelian term that has generated considerable debate. The word means “purging,” and Aristotle seems to be employing a medical metaphor—tragedy arouses the emotions of pity and fear in order to purge away their excess, to reduce these passions to a healthy, balanced proportion. Aristotle also talks of the “pleasure” that is proper to tragedy, apparently meaning the aesthetic pleasure one gets from contemplating the pity and fear that are aroused through an intricately constructed work of art.

ARISTOTLE (384 BC- 322 BC)-  An Introduction to Poetics

Aristotle's Poetics is not only the most important critical work of classical antiquity.  It is also perhaps the most influential work in the entire history of criticism.  The unique value of the Poetics may be expressed in at least three ways, not to mention others.  (1) It marks the beginning of  literary criticism.  The beginning of critical analysis and the discovery of principles by which analysis can proceed are obviously larger and more essential steps than any one later elaboration or development of these principles.  (2) Throughout some periods, particularly the Renaissance and the early eighteenth century, the Poetics served as a starting point and sometimes a guide for literary criticism.  Even those critics whose works have appeared since the decline of neoclassicism, have revealed their awareness of it as a document which is very much to be reckoned with.  (3) The Poetics is the best key to the temper and aims of Greek art generally.  Aristotle, as we have said, did not try to deduce a theory of literature from an abstract theory of esthetics.  He looked at literature directly, almost as a naturalist would regard it.  He scrutinized it as a province of knowledge with a concrete body of material of its own; and this body of material was Greek literature itself.  He not only described the technical characteristics of Greek literature, drawing from it general aims and principles.  In answering Plato's suspicions about the moral effect of art, he also stressed, as we have indicated earlier, the healthful and formative effect of art on the mind; and, in doing so, he was quite in accord with the general Greek confidence in the power of art as psychagogia, the leading out of the soul, and as a molder and developer of the human character.  More than any other critical statement of antiquity, the Poetics offers, however briefly and incompletely, the approach to literature of one of the most gifted peoples in history—a people, indeed, which virtually created the premises and values of Western civilization.  It thus has more than the ordinary importance of a critical work that mirrors a particular, local background.  Many of the issues it raises have a perennial importance—and an importance that results from the range and penetration of Aristotle's own mind, and also from the remarkable success and fertile creativity of the Greek approach to art upon which the Poetics rests.

 In so far as it is an answer to Plato, Aristotle's Poetics justifies poetry on two grounds: the truth and validity, first of all, of poetry as an imitation of nature—or as a form of knowledge—and, secondly, the morally desirable effect of his awareness upon the human mind.  Both of these justifications Plato had seriously questioned.  Whereas Plato regarded ultimate reality as consisting of pure "Ideas," divorced from the concrete, material world,  Aristotle conceived of reality or nature as a process of becoming or developing: a process in which form manifests itself through concrete material, and in which the concrete takes on form and meaning, working in accordance with persisting, ordered principles.  Now art, as Aristotle said in the Physics, has this characteristic in common with nature.  For art, too, employs materials—concrete images, human actions, and sounds—and it deals with these materials as form or meaning emerges or dawns through theme.

 Poetry, then, although it imitates concrete nature, as Plato charged, does not imitate just the concrete.  In fact, its focal point of interest—the process of which it is trying to offer a duplicate or counterpart—is form shaping, guiding, and developing the concrete into a unified meaning and completeness.  The word "form" here should be interpreted broadly, and not as a synonym for mere "technique" in art.  It applies to the direction which something would take if it were permitted to carry itself out to its final culmination.  It thus applies to what is distinctive, significant, or true about that person, object, or event, if accidental elements are not allowed to intervene or obstruct its fulfillment.  Thus, classical sculpture concerns itself not with individual features, expressions, or isolated acts, but with the total capacity of the figure carried out to the fulfillment which it would attain if it were permitted to do so.  Or again, in a drama, the plot does not include every incident that might happen to us in ordinary life.  For any number of casual incidents occur that are irrelevant to certain other events that interlock with each other and lead to a conclusion; and it is this chain of events interlocked through cause and effect upon which the dramatist concentrates, the form and meaning of which he is attempting to disclose.  Hence, Aristotle's remark that poetry can be a "more philosophical and higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular."  That is, history concentrates on specific details as they happened, regardless of the ultimate form (the "universal") that things would take if they were allowed to carry themselves out to their logical conclusions.  The dramatist, however, is selective:  he omits the irrelevant, and draws out the potential form or patterns of an event as a complete unit.  The word "form," then, may here be applied to the direction in which something is capable of reaching its complete fulfillment, and in such a way as to reveal its distinctive nature.

The term "form" also applies to the value of that object or event—to its full meaning and character, and hence to its worth and importance.  Accordingly, the object or event must have, said Aristotle, "a certain magnitude," if the development of it is to have a significance worth the disclosing.  This ordered carrying out of an object to an unobstructed and completed fulfillment is also what is meant by the classical conception of the "ideal" or what "ought to be": not something subjectively "idealized," not something as it "ought to be" in the way that one might, for any private feeling, wish it to be, but rather the way things would be, to use Aristotle's own phrase, "according to the law of probability or necessity," if they were to fulfill their total end and complete their potential form.  Aristotle applied this principle not only to what poetry should seek to disclose or "imitate," but also to the way (the harmonia) in which this imitation is made and presented as a unified thing in itself.  For this reason his emphasis was on plot rather than particular characters; indeed, for Aristotle, the plot was the "soul," or proper form of the drama.  The drama imitates actions; otherwise it is not a drama, but something else.  In imitating actions, therefore, the drama should appropriately be an activity itself; and this activity is the plot; hence Aristotle's emphasis on unity of interconnection and on a rounded completeness in this activity that comprises the plot.  The plot must contain within itself the conditions that lead to its culmination rather than rely on mere chance or some external dues ex machine who suddenly resolves all the difficulties artificially.  And if tragedy occupied most of Aristotle's attention, it is because, more than any other genre or type, it can best fulfill the general aim of poetry: to present a heightened and harmonious imitation of nature and, in particular, those aspects of nature that touch most closely upon human life.  Because it is itself an activity, and because of its necessary brevity, tragedy can offer a more packed, vivid, and closely unified imitation of events than narrative verse offers.

There must, in short, be probability.  For probability, as Aristotle used the term, does not mean a narrow, realistic verisimilitude, nor does it mean "ordinary"; great events and remarkable persons, such as tragedy deals with, may both be rare.  "Probability" applies to the inner coherence and structure, the ordered interconnection and working out of a plot.  As opposed to mere chance—however "possible" that chance may be—"probability" implies that the culmination of what happens arises naturally and inevitably, by causal interrelation, out of what precedes it.  The plot, in other words, must possess what Aristotle called a "unity of action."  It must have a "beginning, middle, and end."  Nothing in our experience, of course, is really a beginning or an end: related events or causes always exist before any one point, and further results always follow.  What is meant is simply a beginning that does not need preceding action on the stage in order to explain it; a development (or "middle"); and an end that generally concludes this development so that more action is not needed to complete the total sequence.  Except for a descriptive remark about the amount of time covered in most Greek tragedies, Aristotle did not insist on the other two unities—those of "time" and "place"—which Renaissance critics were to formulate into rules.

 Aristotle's emphasis on probability of dramatic structure, and on the ordered self-sufficiency of the plot, also led him to suggest another desirable principle:  that the main character of tragedy should have a "tragic flaw."  To allow the character to be simply the victim of unpredictable and undeserved calamities would violate complete, self-contained unity of action.  But there are also psychological justifications for selecting, as the central character, a man of some stature "brought from prosperity to adversity" as a result "of some great error or frailty."  For if the character is super-humanly good, it is difficult to identify oneself with him sympathetically; he appears almost an abstraction.  Moreover, if the calamity that befalls a virtuous man is completely undeserved, our sense of shock may be so violent that it prevents or obstructs other emotional reactions: the emotional and imaginative elevation, for example, that comes in witnessing the working out of a pattern of events to their culmination, and seeing the total significance emerge into universal applicability.  On the other hand, the character should have standing and capacity; he must certainly be above average, whether in rank, mind, or capacity to feel.  For, unless the character is too far removed above us, admiration stimulates sympathetic identification; we all like to regard ourselves as at least somewhat better than we are, and are more likely to surrender our identification to someone we consider worthy of it.  Moreover, the tragic fall is much greater to the degree that the character has more "multiplicity of consciousness," in Samuel Johnson's phrase, and to the degree that he himself is aware, therefore, of what is happening.  Again, the tragic character must have a place from which to fall.  And the loftier his position is, the more disastrous the fall.  Needless to say, the "downfall of the utter villain," as Aristotle stated, is not tragic; it "would doubtless satisfy the moral sense, but it would inspire neither pity nor fear; for pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves."  The "tragic flaw," it should be added, is not stated to be necessary for a tragedy.  It is regarded as desirable in an ideal or "perfect tragedy… arranged not on the simple but complex plan": a tragedy in which the calamity does not simply descend from above, but emerges as closely interconnected series of incidents, which arise from various sources including qualities in the character himself.

  Aristotle's belief in the formative and morally desirable effect of art is implicit in many of his writings.  This attitude is quite in accord with Greek thought generally; and it was Plato who took a novel and atypical position by voicing the misgivings he did.  One must not, therefore, expect to find a real defense of art in Aristotle.  He would doubtless have regarded a detailed defense as unnecessary.  He did state, however, more or less in answer to Plato, that tragedy produces a healthful effect on the human character through what he called a katharsis, "through pity and fear effecting a proper purgation of these emotions."  A successful tragedy, then, exploits and appeals at the start to two basic emotions.  One is "fear"—the painful sense, as Aristotle elsewhere describes it, of "impending evil which is destructive…."  Tragedy, in other words, deals with the elements of evil, with what we least want and most fear to face, with what is destructive to human life and values; it is this concern that makes the theme of the play tragic.  In addition, tragedy exploits our sense of "pity": it draws out our ability to sympathize with others, so that, in our identification with the tragic character, we ourselves feel something of the impact and extent of the evil befalling him.  But tragedy does more than simply arouse sympathetic identification and a vivid sense of tragic evil or destructiveness.  It offers a katharsis, a "proper purgation" of "pity and terror."

It is plain that the subject of katharsis has an important place in Aristotle's conception of poetry.  For he used the term in discussing music in the Politics, and mentioned that a fuller account was to be found in the Poetics.  The reference may well have been to an entire chapter now missing.  The term has consequently caused as much discussion as any in the history of criticism.  However one may interpret it, at least a few general implications may be borne in mind.  To begin with, the katharsis that tragedy offers is not merely an outlet or escape for emotion.  It is not simply that men go about full of pent-up emotions, and that the sight of a dramatic tragedy every once in a while serves as a safety valve, so to speak, by which they let off steam.  More than this, tragedy first of all deliberately excites in the spectator the emotions of pity and fear which are then to undergo the "proper purgation."  The tragic katharsis operates by a process which first excites and then tranquilizes emotion; and it does the first in order to accomplish the second.  It is, in short, a controlling and directing of emotion.  Whereas Plato, in the Republic, had adversely criticized poetry because it "feeds and waters the passions instead of starving them," Aristotle—both psychologically more sophisticated and also more typically Greek—took for granted that it is undesirable to "starve" the emotions; and assumed feeling—though he believed it should be directed and controlled by intelligence—to be a necessary aspect of human life.

 Katharsis, as Aristotle employed the term, may be described as the use, control, and purification of emotion.  In the medical language of the school of Hippocrates, as S.H. Butcher points out, the Greek word "strictly denotes the removal of a painful or disturbing element… and hence the purifying of what remains."  Something desirable, in other words, happens to emotion when it is aroused and managed by poetic tragedy:  the personally disturbing and morbid is purged or shed off, and the emotion, after undergoing this "purgation," has been purified and lifted, as it were, to a harmonious serenity.

 Now from what we know of the direction of Aristotle's thought as a whole, and from what we know of his conception of the mind in particular, we can generalize even further.  The morbid element purged from the emotion is the subjective, the purely personal and egoistic element.  The emotion is caught up, as it were, by sympathetic identification with the tragic character and the tragic situation.  It is extended outward, that is, away from self-centered absorption.  This enlarging of the soul through sympathy, this lifting of one above the egocentric, is itself desirable and operates to the advantage of one's psychological and moral health: it joins emotion to awareness, directing it outward to what is being conceived.  But in addition to this, there is further effect on the emotion of the observer.  Tragic drama not only arouses our sympathetic identification through presenting an "imitation" of human actions; but, by appealing to our instinct for harmonia as well as for mimesis (imitation), it also presents an ordered and proportioned regularity of structure, interrelated through "the law of probability and necessity."  And to the degree that the tragedy has been successful in offering, in its own completed and harmonious form, a truthful duplication of the forms of events significant in human life, it rises into universality.  The meaning of what has occurred—its inevitability, the various respects in which it is applicable to human life and destiny—is caught with a full and vivid awareness.  Moreover, it is reduced to a clarity of outline, and transmitted—purified and heightened—into a harmonious form created through the medium of poetic language.  Accordingly, the emotion of the spectator, after being drawn out and identified with the "imitation" before him, is then carried along and made a part of the harmonious development and working out of the particular drama.  And the intellectual realization of what has happened, emerging through the ordered structure and body of the drama.  And the intellectual realization of what has happened, emerging through the ordered structure and body of the drama, is therefore also emerging through the spectator's own feelings; in so emerging, the intellectual realization lifts our feelings to a state of harmonized serenity and tranquility.  It has "purged" them of the subjective and self-centered.  It has enlarged and extended them through sympathy.  Above all, it has joined feeling to insight, conditioning our habitual emotion to that awareness of the essential import of human actions which poetry, through "imitation," is capable of offering.  For beneath the theory of katharsis lies the general Greek premise that art, in presenting a heightened and harmonious "imitation" of reality, is formative; that, in enlarging, exercising, and refining one's feelings, and in leading them outward, art possesses a unique power to form the "total man," in whom emotion has been reconciled to intelligence and harmoniously integrated with it.

POETICS

By Aristotle

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.

Summary of Poetics

Aristotle proposes to approach poetry from a scientific viewpoint, examining the constituent parts of poetry and drawing conclusions from those observations. First, he lists the different kinds of poetry: epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and most flute-playing and lyre-playing. Next, he remarks that all of these kinds of poetry are mimetic, or imitative, but that there are significant differences between them.

The first kind of distinction is the means they employ. Just as a painter employs paint and a sculptor employs stone, the poet employs language, rhythm, and harmony, either singly or in combinations. For instance, flute-playing and lyre-playing employ rhythm and harmony, while dance employs only rhythm. He also addresses the question of non-poetic language, arguing that poetry is essentially mimetic, whether it is in verse or in prose. Thus, Homer is a poet, while Empedocles, a philosopher who wrote in verse, is not. While Empedocles writes in verse, his writing is not mimetic, and so it is not poetry. In tragedy, comedy, and other kinds of poetry, rhythm, language, and harmony are all used. In some cases, as in lyric poetry, all three are used together, while in other cases, as in comedy or tragedy, the different parts come in to play at different times.

The second distinction is the objects that are imitated. All poetry represents actions with agents who are either better than us, worse than us, or quite like us. For instance, tragedy and epic poetry deal with characters who are better than us, while comedy and parody deal with characters who are worse than us.

The final distinction is with the manner of representation: the poet either speaks directly in narrative or assumes the characters of people in the narrative and speaks through them. For instance, many poets tell straight narratives while Homer alternates between narrative and accounts of speeches given by characters in his narrative. In tragedy and comedy, the poet speaks exclusively through assumed characters.

Analysis of Poetics

The very first paragraph of the Poetics gives us a hint as to how we should approach the work: it is meant to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, Aristotle is not so much interested in arguing that poetry or tragedy should be one thing or another. Rather, he wants to look at past examples of poetry—tragedy in particular—and by dissecting them and examining their constituent parts to arrive at some general sense of what poetry is and how it works.

This is the same scientific method that Aristotle employs so successfully in examining natural phenomena: careful observation followed by tentative theories to explain the observations. The immediate and pressing question, then, is whether Aristotle is right in applying his scientific method to poetry. Physical phenomena are subject to unchanging, natural laws, and presumably a careful study of the phenomena matched with a little insight might uncover what these natural laws are. Aristotle seems to be proceeding with the assumption that the same is true for poetry: its growth and development has been guided by unchanging, natural laws, and the Poetics seeks to uncover these laws.

The results are mixed. In some cases, what Aristotle says seems quite right, while in others his conclusions seem very limiting. We will examine this question further when Aristotle delves deeper into the elements of tragedy.

Before going any further, we might do well to clarify some terms. When Aristotle talks about "art" or "poetry" he is not talking about what we might understand by these words. "Art" is the translation of the Greek word techne and is closely related to "artifice" and "artificial." Art for Aristotle is anything that is made by human beings as opposed to being found in nature. Thus, poetry, painting, and sculpture count as "art," but so do chairs, horseshoes, and sandals.

Our conception of "art" is more closely (but not exactly) approximated by what Aristotle calls "mimetic art." The Greek word mimesis defies exact translation, though "imitation" works quite well in the context of the Poetics. A chair is something you can sit in, but a painting of a chair is merely an imitation, or representation, of a real chair.

Paintings use paint to imitate real life, and sculptures use stone. Poetry is distinguished as the mimetic art that uses language, rhythm, and harmony to imitate real life, language obviously being the most crucial component.

This raises the question of in what way poetry imitates, or "mimics," real life. The events in Oedipus Rex did not actually happen in real life. In fact, it is important that tragedy be fictional and that there be an understanding that the events taking place on stage are not real: no one should call the police when Hamlet kills Polonius. Still, tragedy deals with humans who speak and act in a way that real humans conceivably could have spoken and acted. It is important that there be an understanding that the account is fictional, but it must also be close enough to reality that it is plausible.

There are significant differences between the kind of poetry discussed here and our conception of poetry. In modern times, the definition of poetry is closely linked to its being written in verse. Aristotle directly contradicts that definition, pointing out that Empedocles' philosophical verses are not poetry; they present ideas rather than imitate life.

Further, narrative is essential to Aristotle's definition of poetry. Not only comedy and tragedy, but also the epic poetry of the Greeks tells stories, as we find in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Both drama and epic poetry are fictional accounts that imitate real life in some way. On the other hand, a great deal of poetry in the modern world does not imitate life in any obvious way. For instance, the Robert Burns line, "My love is like a red, red rose" may be said to "imitate" or represent the poet's love for a woman, but by that token, Empedocles' verses might be said to "imitate" or represent certain philosophical concepts.

Aristotle is not trying to condemn Robert Burns for writing love poems; he is simply trying to catalog the different kinds of poetry that existed in his time. They all employ language, rhythm, and harmony in some way or another, they all deal with people who are engaging in certain kinds of action, and they all involve some sort of direct or indirect narrative. Whether something is an epic poem, a comedy, or a tragedy depends on how it fits within these categories. For instance, a tragedy is a composite of language, rhythm, and harmony that deals with agents who are on the whole better than us, and the poet speaks directly through these agents.

The Classical Definition of Tragedy 

In fourth century B.C., Aristotle, in his work the Poetics, gave Western civilization a definition of tragedy which has greatly influenced writers of tragedy and the form of tragedy over twenty-four centuries.  The following are essential facets of Aristotle’s definition.

 Aristotle begins his analysis of tragedy with this famous definition:  Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of an action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation for these emotions.

 Collectively, throughout the Poetics, Aristotle divides his analysis into six basic parts:  plot-making, character delineation, thought and language, speech, song, and spectacle.  Aristotle confined most of his analysis to play-making, mentioning the final three merely as components of the whole.  Therefore, to understand Aristotle’s definition of tragedy more clearly, consider the following facets of his analysis:

1.  The writer of tragedy imitates a serious and complete action, of a certain magnitude, represented by what characters on stage say and do.

 2.  “Action” is the motivation from which deeds emanate, or the rational purpose of the play.

 3.  The element of pathos is essential to the whole.

 4.  Plot is the arrangement of carefully selected, carefully sequenced, tragic incidents to represent one complete action.

 5.  The plot consists of parts or types of incidents in the beginning, middle and end of the play.

                a.  Quantitative parts:  Prologos (introduction to the play), Parados (Chorus, in unison, tells us what has happened before the beginning of the action of the play), Episodes (The sections of

                    storytelling  within the play, usually characterized by what information is revealed in them), Choric Odes (Chorus speaks about something connected with the theme of the story, but not

                    necessarily about he story itself, and Exodus (As or after the characters leave, the chorus tells us what we have learned from the story).

                b.  Organic Parts:  Reversal of the situation—a change by which the situation turns around toward its opposite.

                                1)  Recognition—a change from ignorance to knowledge.

        2)  Pathos (or scene of suffering)—a moment of passion which may be aroused by spectacular means, or may also result from the inner structures of the play.

 6.  Plots vary in kind:

                a.  Complex versus simple—Complex plots include reversal and recognition; simple plots do not include these elements.

                b.  Ethically motivated versus pathetically motivated.

 7.  The story must seem probable.

 8.  Plot is divided into two main parts.

                 a.  Complication—the part of the play which extends from the Prologos to the turning point.

                 b.  Unraveling or Denouement--  The part of the play which extends from the turning point to the end.

 9.  A play can be unified only if it represents one action, and the best plays are unified by a single plot and a single catastrophe.

 10.  A central action of the play springs from character and thought, manifested in the dialogue.

 11.  The chorus most directly represents the action (or purpose) of the play.

 12.  Characters should be carefully delineated to contrast sharply with one another, should be full of life individually, should vary ethically, should be probable, consistent, and should reflect the central action of the play in the development of character.

 13.  The tragic hero should be a ruler or leader, whose character is good and whose misfortune is brought about by some error or frailty.

 14.  Language should be elevated and in verse (which in fifth century, B.C. was reminiscent of our blank verse today) and should reflect rhetorical strategies of persuasion (primarily represented in the Episodes and Choric Odes).

 15.  The special quality of man’s pleasure in tragedy comes from the purgation of the passions of fear and pity felt by the audience as they watch the fate of the tragic hero unfold, recognizing in it the universal human lot.

Elements of Literature According to Aristotle

The Plot:

•   Should focus on the life of one character and/or on one situation

•   Should draw from a selection of important experiences in the character's life rather than the whole life, or just one.

•   There should be no elements that are unnecessary; all parts of the story should be integral to the story

•   Character should go from fortune to misfortune due to hamartia (some error or flaw)

•   The denouement (from the revelation of the crisis to the katharsis) should be driven by the plot and make sense.

Character:

•  In a tragedy, an exceptionally good character should not go from happiness to destruction because the audience is horrified, not fearful or full of pity

•  a bad character should not go from a low position to a better one—or the reverse— because the audience does not fell fear or pity.

•  A realistic character (neutral, or even better than the average man, but definitely essentially good) should fall due to a flaw or error in judgment

•  The character should have qualities that seem consistent with other aspects of the character

Thought:

•  Deals with universal/ general truth

•  a character acts realistically in response to a situation, and thus the audience gains general knowledge about a human issue

Assignment 1  (Fall 2006)

In groups of no more than three, prepare a presentation in which you analyze Poetics from the perspective of the following topics.  Your group is responsible for preparing a 1-page synopsis of your topic.  Be sure to cooperate on the assignment.  Responses should be typed and e-mailed. The written assignment must be saved as a Microsoft Word document and attached to an e-mail sent to me.  The e-mail must be received by class time on the date due.  If for some reason you do not have access to either Microsoft Word or the internet, you must submit a hard copy of the assignment at the beginning of class on the day due. Your presentation to the class should be no longer than 5 minutes in length with a poster as a  visual aid. 

• compare tragedy & comedy
• compare tragedy & epic
• definition of tragedy & comedy
• roles of comedy & tragedy in society
• six parts of tragedy
• problems of spectacle in tragedy
• plot in tragedy (unity, simple/complex, peripety, discovery)
• organization of a tragedy (choral mix, complication, denouement)
• character in a high quality tragedy
• logos, pathos, ethos in character
• diction goals
• thought (invention of words and actions) in tragedy

Assignment 2- Fall 2007 (Assigned on 9/7/07)

Complete the following study questions on Poetics if you did not complete them in class. 

               In Aristotle’s Poetics, he goes in depth in discussing the importance of poetry and the elements that are necessary in order to write a successful piece of poetry. Tragedy, a form of poetry, consists of six parts, Thought being one of them. Aristotle defines thought as “the power of saying whatever can be said, or what is appropriate to the occasion” (Aristotle 8). In other words, Thought “falls under the arts of Politics and Rhetoric” (Aristotle 8). Unlike Character, “which reveals the moral purpose of the agents, i.e. the sort of thing they seek or avoid, where that is not obvious” thought is the use of appropriate language to control the emotions of the reader and bring a certain response out of him (Aristotle 8). 

               According to Poetics, the reader can easily decipher Aristotle’s view on thought as an essential literary element in poetry. Aristotle believes that a poem is just words until thought is put behind the diction. One can come to this conclusion because Aristotle writes, “The thought of the personages is shown in everything to be effected by their language--i.e. every effort to prove or disprove, to arouse emotion (pity, fear, anger, and the like), or to maximize or minimize things.” By this statement, the author infers that thought is the only element that can add feeling to the work. When Aristotle writes, “to arouse emotion”, he shows that thought can make the reader care about the plot and characters because they have now invested time and emotion into the literature. 

               Thought is also beneficial to a literary work because it can reveal a universal truth. Aristotle states, “Thought is shown in all they [the characters] say when proving a particular point or, it may be, enunciating a general truth.” Meaning, by thought being expressed through the characters, the reader is granted a basic carrot of knowledge that perpetuates the plot. This allows for a clever disguising of a general truth.  

               Aristotle states that thought falls into the category of Rhetoric as much as it does tragedy.  By this, Aristotle means that thought must be used effectively and persuasively. Because thought is the element of tragedy that invokes emotion and response from the reader, ineffective use could cause the reader to become uninterested or bored.  Aristotle claims that the impression the reader has of the writing and the emotions he feels such as pity or horror must “be produced by the speaker, and result from his language.”  In this light, thought is clearly essential to poetry and must be used correctly to persuade the reader to feel a certain way.

               However, as visually conspicuous the spectacle in a play may be, Aristotle feels that spectacle is one of the least significant components of the tragedy. He writes at the end of Part VI, “The Spectacle, though an attraction, is the least artistic of all the parts, and has least to do with the art of poetry.” Throughout Poetics, Aristotle is chiefly concerned with combining each component of the tragedy in order to produce the “tragic effect”, an emotional upheaval of the audience consisting of great feelings of pity or fear. While he acknowledges that spectacle may help in generating this audience reaction, he also feels that it is the least important, least skilled, and most superficial way to do so. Why does he feel this way about spectacle?

               Well, according to Aristotle, “The tragic effect is quite possible without a public performance and actors; and besides, the getting-up of the Spectacle is more a matter for the costumer than the poet.” Aristotle believes that spectacle is quite inadequate in producing the tragic effect. There are many other, more skill-requiring ways to produce these emotions in the audience (such as building a plot which innately contains tragedy, which he discusses at length); in fact, visual onstage effects are not only superficial, but just plain unnecessary. After all, an epic poem might be just as tragic as a play, and in the epic poem, there really are no visual effects at all. Instead, that poem relies on how it is written (diction), how its plot is constructed, etc. to create the tragic effect. As Aristotle points out, there are so many more powerful ways to produce tragedy rather than relying on eye candy. Besides, costumes, backdrops, and fight scenes are the job of stage designers and choreographers, not playwrights and poets.