



Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





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 which each of these
objects may be imitated. For the medium being the same, and the objects
the same, the poet may imitate by narration--in which case he can either
take another personality as Homer does, or speak in his own person,
unchanged--or he may present all his characters as living and moving
before us.

These, then, as we said at the beginning, are the three differences
which distinguish artistic imitation,--the medium, the objects, and the
manner. So that from one point of view, Sophocles is an imitator of the
same kind as Homer--for both imitate higher types of character; from
another point of view, of the same kind as Aristophanes--for both
imitate persons acting and doing. Hence, some say, the name of 'drama'
is given to such poems, as representing action. For the same reason the
Dorians claim the invention both of Tragedy and Comedy. The claim to
Comedy is put forward by the Megarians,--not only by those of Greece
proper, who allege that it originated under their democracy, but also
by the Megarians of Sicily, for the poet Epicharmus, who is much earlier
than Chionides and Magnes, belonged to that country. Tragedy too is
claimed by certain Dorians of the Peloponnese. In each case they appeal
to the evidence of language. The outlying villages, they say, are by
them called {kappa omega mu alpha iota}, by the Athenians {delta eta
mu iota}: and they assume that Comedians were so named not from {kappa
omega mu 'alpha zeta epsilon iota nu}, 'to revel,' but because they
wandered from village to village (kappa alpha tau alpha / kappa omega mu
alpha sigma), being excluded contemptuously from the city. They add
also that the Dorian word for 'doing' is {delta rho alpha nu}, and the
Athenian, {pi rho alpha tau tau epsilon iota nu}.

This may suffice as to the number and nature of the various modes of
imitation.




IV

Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them
lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted
in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals
being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through
imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the
pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts
of experience. Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight
to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms
of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again
is, that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers
but to men in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more
limited. Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in
contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying
perhaps, 'Ah, that is he.' For if you happen not to have seen the
original, the pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to
the execution, the colouring, or some such other cause.

Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the
instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, metres being manifestly sections of
rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed
by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave
birth to Poetry.

Poetry now diverged in two directions, according to the individual
character of the writers. The graver spirits imitated noble actions, and
the actions of good men. The more trivial sort imitated the actions of
meaner persons, at first composing satires, as the former did hymns to
the gods and the praises of famous men. A poem of the satirical kind
cannot indeed be put down to any author earlier than Homer; though many
such writers probably there were. But from Homer onward, instances
can be cited,--his own Margites, for example, and other similar
compositions. The appropriate metre was also here introduced; hence the
measure is still called the iambic or lampooning measure, being that
in which people lampooned one another. Thus the older poets were
distinguished as writers of heroic or of lampooning verse.

As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he alone
combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation, so he too first
laid down the main lines of Comedy, by dramatising the ludicrous instead
of writing personal satire. His Margites bears the same relation to
Comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to Tragedy. But when Tragedy and
Comedy came to light, the two classes of poets still followed their
natural bent: the lampooners became writers of Comedy, and the Epic
poets were succeeded by Tragedians, since the drama was a larger and
higher form of art.

Whether Tragedy has as yet perfected its proper types or not; and
whether it is to be judged in itself, or in relation also to the
audience,--this raises another question. Be that as it may, Tragedy--as
also Comedy--was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with
the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs,
which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow
degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed.
Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there
it stopped.

Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the importance
of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the dialogue. Sophocles
raised the number of actors to three, and added scene-painting.
Moreover, it was not till late that the short plot was discarded for
one of greater compass, and the grotesque diction of the earlier satyric
form for the stately manner of Tragedy. The iambic measure then replaced
the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally employed when the poetry
was of the Satyric order, and had greater affinities with dancing. Once
dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure.
For the iambic is, of all measures, the most colloquial: we see it
in the fact that conversational speech runs into iambic lines more
frequently than into any other kind of verse; rarely into hexameters,
and only when we drop the colloquial intonation. The additions to
the number of 'episodes' or acts, and the other accessories of which
tradition; tells, must be taken as already described; for to discuss
them in detail would, doubtless, be a large undertaking.




V

Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type,
not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the Ludicrous being
merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect or ugliness
which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious example, the
comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain.

The successive changes through which Tragedy passed, and the authors
of these changes, are well known, whereas Comedy has had no history,
because it was not at first treated seriously. It was late before the
Archon granted a comic chorus to a poet; the performers were till then
voluntary. Comedy had already taken definite shape when comic poets,
distinctively so called, are heard of. Who furnished it with masks, or
prologues, or increased the number of actors,--these and other similar
details remain unknown. As for the plot, it came originally from
Sicily; but of Athenian writers Crates was the first who, abandoning the
'iambic' or lampooning form, generalised his themes and plots.

Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse
of characters of a higher type. They differ, in that Epic poetry admits
but one kind of metre, and is narrative in form. They differ, again,
in their length: for Tragedy endeavours, as far as possible, to confine
itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this
limit; whereas the Epic action has no limits of time. This, then, is
a second point of difference;