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THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE

By Aristotle

A Translation By S. H. Butcher


[Transcriber's Annotations and Conventions: the translator left
intact some Greek words to illustrate a specific point of the original
discourse. In this transcription, in order to retain the accuracy of
this text, those words are rendered by spelling out each Greek letter
individually, such as {alpha beta gamma delta...}. The reader can
distinguish these words by the enclosing braces {}. Where multiple
words occur together, they are separated by the "/" symbol for clarity.
Readers who do not speak or read the Greek language will usually neither
gain nor lose understanding by skipping over these passages. Those who
understand Greek, however, may gain a deeper insight to the original
meaning and distinctions expressed by Aristotle.]




Analysis of Contents

  I     'Imitation' the common principle of the Arts of Poetry.
  II    The Objects of Imitation.
  III   The Manner of Imitation.
  IV    The Origin and Development of Poetry.
  V     Definition of the Ludicrous, and a brief sketch of the rise of
        Comedy.
  VI    Definition of Tragedy.
  VII   The Plot must be a Whole.
  VIII  The Plot must be a Unity.
  IX    (Plot continued.) Dramatic Unity.
  X     (Plot continued.) Definitions of Simple and Complex Plots.
  XI    (Plot continued.) Reversal of the Situation, Recognition, and
        Tragic or disastrous Incident defined and explained.
  XII   The 'quantitative parts' of Tragedy defined.
  XIII  (Plot continued.) What constitutes Tragic Action.
  XIV   (Plot continued.) The tragic emotions of pity and fear should
        spring out of the Plot itself.
  XV    The element of Character in Tragedy.
  XVI   (Plot continued.) Recognition: its various kinds, with examples.
  XVII  Practical rules for the Tragic Poet.
  XVIII Further rules for the Tragic Poet.
  XIX   Thought, or the Intellectual element, and Diction in Tragedy.
  XX    Diction, or Language in general.
  XXI   Poetic Diction.
  XXII  (Poetic Diction continued.) How Poetry combines elevation of
        language with perspicuity.
  XXIII Epic Poetry.
  XXIV  (Epic Poetry continued.) Further points of agreement with Tragedy.
  XXV   Critical Objections brought against Poetry, and the principles on
        which they are to be answered.
  XXVI  A general estimate of the comparative worth of Epic Poetry and
        Tragedy.




ARISTOTLE'S POETICS




I

I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting
the essential quality of each; to inquire into the structure of the plot
as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of
which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within
the same inquiry. Following, then, the order of nature, let us begin
with the principles which come first.

Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic: poetry, and the
music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in
their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from
one: another in three respects,--the medium, the objects, the manner or
mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.

For as there are persons who, by conscious art or mere habit, imitate
and represent various objects through the medium of colour and form, or
again by the voice; so in the arts above mentioned, taken as a whole,
the imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or 'harmony,' either
singly or combined.

Thus in the music of the flute and of the lyre, 'harmony' and rhythm
alone are employed; also in other arts, such as that of the shepherd's
pipe, which are essentially similar to these. In dancing, rhythm alone
is used without 'harmony'; for even dancing imitates character, emotion,
and action, by rhythmical movement.

There is another art which imitates by means of language alone, and
that either in prose or verse--which, verse, again, may either combine
different metres or consist of but one kind--but this has hitherto been
without a name. For there is no common term we could apply to the mimes
of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues on the one hand;
and, on the other, to poetic imitations in iambic, elegiac, or any
similar metre. People do, indeed, add the word'maker' or 'poet' to
the name of the metre, and speak of elegiac poets, or epic (that is,
hexameter) poets, as if it were not the imitation that makes the poet,
but the verse that entitles them all indiscriminately to the name. Even
when a treatise on medicine or natural science is brought out in verse,
the name of poet is by custom given to the author; and yet Homer and
Empedocles have nothing in common but the metre, so that it would be
right to call the one poet, the other physicist rather than poet. On the
same principle, even if a writer in his poetic imitation were to combine
all metres, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur, which is a medley composed
of metres of all kinds, we should bring him too under the general term
poet. So much then for these distinctions.

There are, again, some arts which employ all the means above mentioned,
namely, rhythm, tune, and metre. Such are Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry,
and also Tragedy and Comedy; but between them the difference is, that in
the first two cases these means are all employed in combination, in the
latter, now one means is employed, now another.

Such, then, are the differences of the arts with respect to the medium
of imitation.




II

Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be
either of a higher or a lower type (for moral character mainly answers
to these divisions, goodness and badness being the distinguishing marks
of moral differences), it follows that we must represent men either as
better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are. It is the same
in painting. Polygnotus depicted men as nobler than they are, Pauson as
less noble, Dionysius drew them true to life.

Now it is evident that each of the modes of imitation above mentioned
will exhibit these differences, and become a distinct kind in imitating
objects that are thus distinct. Such diversities may be found even in
dancing, flute-playing, and lyre-playing. So again in language, whether
prose or verse unaccompanied by music. Homer, for example, makes men
better than they are; Cleophon as they are; Hegemon the Thasian, the
inventor of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the Deiliad, worse
than they are. The same thing holds good of Dithyrambs and Nomes;
here too one may portray different types, as Timotheus and Philoxenus
differed in representing their Cyclopes. The same distinction marks
off Tragedy from Comedy; for Comedy aims at representing men as worse,
Tragedy as better than in actual life.




III

There is still a third difference--the manner in