Poetics by Aristotle (reading rainbow books .TXT) 📕

of his subject, yet is felt to be the most tragic of the poets.

In the second rank comes the kind of tragedy which some place first. Like

the Odyssey, it has a double thread of plot, and also an opposite

catastrophe for the good and for the bad. It is accounted the best

because of the weakness of the spectators; for the poet is guided in what

he writes by the wishes of his audience. The pleasure, however, thence

derived is not the true tragic pleasure. It is proper rather to Comedy,

where those who, in the piece, are the deadliest enemies–like Orestes

and Aegisthus—quit the stage as friends at the close, and no one slays

or is slain.

Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also

result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way,

and indicates a superior poet. For the plot ought to be so constructed

that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will

thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place. This is the

impression we should receive from hearing the story of the Oedipus. But

to produce this effect by the mere spectacle is a less artistic method,

and dependent on extraneous aids. Those who employ spectacular means to

create a sense not of the terrible but only of the monstrous, are

strangers to the purpose of Tragedy; for we must not demand of Tragedy

any and every kind of pleasure, but only that which is proper to it. And

since the pleasure which the poet should afford is that which comes from

pity and fear through imitation, it is evident that this quality must be

impressed upon the incidents.

Let us then determine what are the circumstances which strike us as

terrible or pitiful.

Actions capable of this effect must happen between persons who are either

friends or enemies or indifferent to one another. If an enemy kills an

enemy, there is nothing to excite pity either in the act or the

intention, —except so far as the suffering in itself is pitiful. So

again with indifferent persons. But when the tragic incident occurs

between those who are near or dear to one another—if, for example, a

brother kills, or intends to kill, a brother, a son his father, a mother

her son, a son his mother, or any other deed of the kind is done–these

are the situations to be looked for by the poet. He may not indeed

destroy the framework of the received legends—the fact, for instance,

that Clytemnestra was slain by Orestes and Eriphyle by Alcmaeon but he

ought to show invention of his own, and skilfully handle the traditional

material. Let us explain more clearly what is meant by skilful handling.

The action may be done consciously and with knowledge of the persons, in

the manner of the older poets. It is thus too that Euripides makes Medea

slay her children. Or, again, the deed of horror may be done, but done in

ignorance, and the tie of kinship or friendship be discovered afterwards.

The Oedipus of Sophocles is an example. Here, indeed, the incident is

outside the drama proper; but cases occur where it falls within the

action of the play: one may cite the Alcmaeon of Astydamas, or Telegonus

in the Wounded Odysseus. Again, there is a third case,—<to be about to

act with knowledge of the persons and then not to act. The fourth case

is> when some one is about to do an irreparable deed through ignorance,

and makes the discovery before it is done. These are the only possible

ways. For the deed must either be done or not done,—and that wittingly

or unwittingly. But of all these ways, to be about to act knowing the

persons, and then not to act, is the worst. It is shocking without being

tragic, for no disaster follows. It is, therefore, never, or very rarely,

found in poetry. One instance, however, is in the Antigone, where Haemon

threatens to kill Creon. The next and better way is that the deed should

be perpetrated. Still better, that it should be perpetrated in ignorance,

and the discovery made afterwards. There is then nothing to shock us,

while the discovery produces a startling effect. The last case is the

best, as when in the Cresphontes Merope is about to slay her son, but,

recognising who he is, spares his life. So in the Iphigenia, the sister

recognises the brother just in time. Again in the Helle, the son

recognises the mother when on the point of giving her up. This, then, is

why a few families only, as has been already observed, furnish the

subjects of tragedy. It was not art, but happy chance, that led the poets

in search of subjects to impress the tragic quality upon their plots.

They are compelled, therefore, to have recourse to those houses whose

history contains moving incidents like these.

Enough has now been said concerning the structure of the incidents, and

the right kind of plot.

In respect of Character there are four things to be aimed at. First, and

most important, it must be good. Now any speech or action that manifests

moral purpose of any kind will be expressive of character: the character

will be good if the purpose is good. This rule is relative to each 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. The second thing

to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour; but valour in a

woman, or unscrupulous cleverness, is inappropriate. Thirdly, character

must be true to life: for this is a distinct thing from goodness and

propriety, as here described. The fourth point is consistency: for though

the subject of the imitation, who suggested the type, be inconsistent,

still he must be consistently inconsistent. As an example of motiveless

degradation of character, we have Menelaus in the Orestes: of character

indecorous and inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in the Scylla, and

the speech of Melanippe: of inconsistency, the Iphigenia at Aulis,—for

Iphigenia the suppliant in no way resembles her later self.

As in the structure of the plot, so too in the portraiture of character,

the poet should always aim either at the necessary or the probable. Thus

a person of a given character should speak or act in a given way, by the

rule either of necessity or of probability; just as this event should

follow that by necessary or probable sequence. It is therefore evident

that the unravelling of the plot, no less than the complication, must

arise out of the plot itself, it must not be brought about by the ‘Deus

ex Machina’—as in the Medea, or in the Return of the Greeks in the

Iliad. The ‘Deus ex Machina’ should be employed only for events external

to the drama,—for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the

range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold;

for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things. Within the

action there must be nothing irrational. If the irrational cannot be

excluded, it should be outside the scope of the tragedy. Such is the

irrational element in the Oedipus of Sophocles.

Again, since Tragedy is an imitation of persons who are above the

common level, the example of good portrait-painters should be followed.

They, while reproducing the distinctive form of the original, make a

likeness which is true to life and yet more beautiful. So too the poet,

in representing men who are irascible or indolent, or have other defects

of character, should preserve the type and yet ennoble it. In this way

Achilles is portrayed by Agathon and Homer.

These then are rules the poet should observe. Nor should he neglect those

appeals to the senses, which, though not among the essentials, are the

concomitants of poetry; for here too there is much room for error. But of

this enough has been said in our published treatises.

What Recognition is has been already explained. We will now enumerate its

kinds.

First, the least artistic form, which, from poverty of wit, is most

commonly employed recognition by signs. Of these some are congenital,—

such as ‘the spear which the earth-born race bear on their bodies,’ or

the stars introduced by Carcinus in his Thyestes. Others are acquired

after birth; and of these some are bodily marks, as scars; some external

tokens, as necklaces, or the little ark in the Tyro by which the

discovery is effected. Even these admit of more or less skilful

treatment. Thus in the recognition of Odysseus by his scar, the discovery

is made in one way by the nurse, in another by the swineherds. The use of

tokens for the express purpose of proof —and, indeed, any formal proof

with or without tokens —is a less artistic mode of recognition. A better

kind is that which comes about by a turn of incident, as in the Bath

Scene in the Odyssey.

Next come the recognitions invented at will by the poet, and on that

account wanting in art. For example, Orestes in the Iphigenia reveals the

fact that he is Orestes. She, indeed, makes herself known by the letter;

but he, by speaking himself, and saying what the poet, not what the plot

requires. This, therefore, is nearly allied to the fault above

mentioned:—for Orestes might as well have brought tokens with him.

Another similar instance is the ‘voice of the shuttle’ in the Tereus of

Sophocles.

The third kind depends on memory when the sight of some object awakens a

feeling: as in the Cyprians of Dicaeogenes, where the hero breaks into

tears on seeing the picture; or again in the ‘Lay of Alcinous,’ where

Odysseus, hearing the minstrel play the lyre, recalls the past and weeps;

and hence the recognition.

The fourth kind is by process of reasoning. Thus in the Choephori: ‘Some

one resembling me has come: no one resembles me but Orestes: therefore

Orestes has come.’ Such too is the discovery made by Iphigenia in the

play of Polyidus the Sophist. It was a natural reflection for Orestes to

make, ‘So I too must die at the altar like my sister.’ So, again, in the

Tydeus of Theodectes, the father says, ‘I came to find my son, and I lose

my own life.’ So too in the Phineidae: the women, on seeing the place,

inferred their fate:—‘Here we are doomed to die, for here we were cast

forth.’ Again, there is a composite kind of recognition involving false

inference on the part of one of the characters, as in the Odysseus

Disguised as a Messenger. A said <that no one else was able to bend the

bow; … hence B (the disguised Odysseus) imagined that A would>

recognise the bow which, in fact, he had not seen; and to bring about a

recognition by this means that the expectation A would recognise the bow

is false inference.

But, of all recognitions, the best is that which arises from the

incidents themselves, where the startling discovery is made by natural

means. Such is that in the Oedipus of Sophocles, and in the Iphigenia;

for it was natural that Iphigenia should wish to dispatch a letter. These

recognitions alone dispense with the artificial aid of tokens or amulets.

Next come the recognitions by process of reasoning.

In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the

poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this

way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as if he were a

spectator