Poetics by Aristotle (reading rainbow books .TXT) 📕

proper, the metaphorical, the ornamental.

Concerning Tragedy and imitation by means of action this may suffice.

As to that poetic imitation which is narrative in form and employs a

single metre, the plot manifestly ought, as in a tragedy, to be

constructed on dramatic principles. It should have for its subject a

single action, whole and complete, with a beginning, a middle, and an

end. It will thus resemble a living organism in all its unity, and

produce the pleasure proper to it. It will differ in structure from

historical compositions, which of necessity present not a single action,

but a single period, and all that happened within that period to one

person or to many, little connected together as the events may be. For as

the sea-fight at Salamis and the battle with the Carthaginians in Sicily

took place at the same time, but did not tend to any one result, so in

the sequence of events, one thing sometimes follows another, and yet no

single result is thereby produced. Such is the practice, we may say, of

most poets. Here again, then, as has been already observed, the

transcendent excellence of Homer is manifest. He never attempts to make

the whole war of Troy the subject of his poem, though that war had a

beginning and an end. It would have been too vast a theme, and not easily

embraced in a single view. If, again, he had kept it within moderate

limits, it must have been over-complicated by the variety of the

incidents. As it is, he detaches a single portion, and admits as episodes

many events from the general story of the war—such as the Catalogue of

the ships and others—thus diversifying the poem. All other poets take a

single hero, a single period, or an action single indeed, but with a

multiplicity of parts. Thus did the author of the Cypria and of the

Little Iliad. For this reason the Iliad and the Odyssey each furnish the

subject of one tragedy, or, at most, of two; while the Cypria supplies

materials for many, and the Little Iliad for eight—the Award of the

Arms, the Philoctetes, the Neoptolemus, the Eurypylus, the Mendicant

Odysseus, the Laconian Women, the Fall of Ilium, the Departure of the

Fleet.

Again, Epic poetry must have as many kinds as Tragedy: it must be simple,

or complex, or ‘ethical,’ or ‘pathetic.’ The parts also, with the

exception of song and spectacle, are the same; for it requires Reversals

of the Situation, Recognitions, and Scenes of Suffering. Moreover, the

thoughts and the diction must be artistic. In all these respects Homer is

our earliest and sufficient model. Indeed each of his poems has a twofold

character. The Iliad is at once simple and ‘pathetic,’ and the Odyssey

complex (for Recognition scenes run through it), and at the same time

‘ethical.’ Moreover, in diction and thought they are supreme.

Epic poetry differs from Tragedy in the scale on which it is constructed,

and in its metre. As regards scale or length, we have already laid down

an adequate limit:—the beginning and the end must be capable of being

brought within a single view. This condition will be satisfied by poems

on a smaller scale than the old epics, and answering in length to the

group of tragedies presented at a single sitting.

Epic poetry has, however, a great—a special—capacity for enlarging its

dimensions, and we can see the reason. In Tragedy we cannot imitate

several lines of actions carried on at one and the same time; we must

confine ourselves to the action on the stage and the part taken by the

players. But in Epic poetry, owing to the narrative form, many events

simultaneously transacted can be presented; and these, if relevant to the

subject, add mass and dignity to the poem. The Epic has here an

advantage, and one that conduces to grandeur of effect, to diverting the

mind of the hearer, and relieving the story with varying episodes. For

sameness of incident soon produces satiety, and makes tragedies fail on

the stage.

As for the metre, the heroic measure has proved its fitness by the test

of experience. If a narrative poem in any other metre or in many metres

were now composed, it would be found incongruous. For of all measures the

heroic is the stateliest and the most massive; and hence it most readily

admits rare words and metaphors, which is another point in which the

narrative form of imitation stands alone. On the other hand, the iambic

and the trochaic tetrameter are stirring measures, the latter being akin

to dancing, the former expressive of action. Still more absurd would it

be to mix together different metres, as was done by Chaeremon. Hence no

one has ever composed a poem on a great scale in any other than heroic

verse. Nature herself, as we have said, teaches the choice of the proper

measure.

Homer, admirable in all respects, has the special merit of being the only

poet who rightly appreciates the part he should take himself. The poet

should speak as little as possible in his own person, for it is not this

that makes him an imitator. Other poets appear themselves upon

the scene throughout, and imitate but little and rarely. Homer, after a

few prefatory words, at once brings in a man, or woman, or other

personage; none of them wanting in characteristic qualities, but each

with a character of his own.

The element of the wonderful is required in Tragedy. The irrational, on

which the wonderful depends for its chief effects, has wider scope in

Epic poetry, because there the person acting is not seen. Thus, the

pursuit of Hector would be ludicrous if placed upon the stage—the Greeks

standing still and not joining in the pursuit, and Achilles waving them

back. But in the Epic poem the absurdity passes unnoticed. Now the

wonderful is pleasing: as may be inferred from the fact that every one

tells a story with some addition of his own, knowing that his hearers

like it. It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of

telling lies skilfully. The secret of it lies in a fallacy, For, assuming

that if one thing is or becomes, a second is or becomes, men imagine

that, if the second is, the first likewise is or becomes. But this is a

false inference. Hence, where the first thing is untrue, it is quite

unnecessary, provided the second be true, to add that the first is or has

become. For the mind, knowing the second to be true, falsely infers the

truth of the first. There is an example of this in the Bath Scene of the

Odyssey.

Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to

improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of

irrational parts. Everything irrational should, if possible, be excluded;

or, at all events, it should lie outside the action of the play (as, in

the Oedipus, the hero’s ignorance as to the manner of Laius’ death); not

within the drama,—as in the Electra, the messenger’s account of the

Pythian games; or, as in the Mysians, the man who has come from Tegea to

Mysia and is still speechless. The plea that otherwise the plot would

have been ruined, is ridiculous; such a plot should not in the first

instance be constructed. But once the irrational has been introduced and

an air of likelihood imparted to it, we must accept it in spite of the

absurdity. Take even the irrational incidents in the Odyssey, where

Odysseus is left upon the shore of Ithaca. How intolerable even these

might have been would be apparent if an inferior poet were to treat the

subject. As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic charm with which

the poet invests it.

The diction should be elaborated in the pauses of the action, where there

is no expression of character or thought. For, conversely, character and

thought are merely obscured by a diction that is over brilliant.

With respect to critical difficulties and their solutions, the number and

nature of the sources from which they may be drawn may be thus exhibited.

The poet being an imitator, like a painter or any other artist, must of

necessity imitate one of three objects,—things as they were or are,

things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be.

The vehicle of expression is language,—either current terms or, it may

be, rare words or metaphors. There are also many modifications of

language, which we concede to the poets. Add to this, that the standard

of correctness is not the same in poetry and politics, any more than in

poetry and any other art. Within the art of poetry itself there are two

kinds of faults, those which touch its essence, and those which are

accidental. If a poet has chosen to imitate something, <but has imitated

it incorrectly> through want of capacity, the error is inherent in the

poetry. But if the failure is due to a wrong choice if he has represented

a horse as throwing out both his off legs at once, or introduced

technical inaccuracies in medicine, for example, or in any other art the

error is not essential to the poetry. These are the points of view from

which we should consider and answer the objections raised by the critics.

First as to matters which concern the poet’s own art. If he describes the

impossible, he is guilty of an error; but the error may be justified, if

the end of the art be thereby attained (the end being that already

mentioned), if, that is, the effect of this or any other part of the poem

is thus rendered more striking. A case in point is the pursuit of Hector.

If, however, the end might have been as well, or better, attained without

violating the special rules of the poetic art, the error is not

justified: for every kind of error should, if possible, be avoided.

Again, does the error touch the essentials of the poetic art, or some

accident of it? For example,—not to know that a hind has no horns is a

less serious matter than to paint it inartistically.

Further, if it be objected that the description is not true to fact, the

poet may perhaps reply,—‘But the objects are as they ought to be’: just

as Sophocles said that he drew men as they ought to be; Euripides, as

they are. In this way the objection may be met. If, however, the

representation be of neither kind, the poet may answer,—This is how men

say the thing is.’ This applies to tales about the gods. It may well be

that these stories are not higher than fact nor yet true to fact: they

are, very possibly, what Xenophanes says of them. But anyhow, ‘this is

what is said.’ Again, a description may be no better than the fact:

‘still, it was the fact’; as in the passage about the arms: ‘Upright upon

their butt-ends stood the spears.’ This was the custom then, as it now is

among the Illyrians.

Again, in examining whether what has been said or done by some one is

poetically right or not, we must not look merely to the particular act or

saying, and ask whether it is poetically good or bad. We must also

consider by whom it is said or done, to whom, when, by what means, or for

what end; whether, for instance, it be to secure a greater good, or avert

a greater evil.

Other difficulties may be resolved by due regard to the usage of

language. We may note a rare word, as in {omicron upsilon rho eta alpha

sigma mu epsilon nu