Poetics
A >>
Aristotle >> Poetics
THE POETICS OF 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; though at first the same freedom was admitted
in Tragedy as in Epic poetry.
Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar to
Tragedy, whoever, therefore, knows what is good or bad Tragedy, knows
also about Epic poetry. All the elements of an Epic poem are found in
Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found in the Epic
poem.
VI
Of the poetry which imitates in hexameter verse, and of Comedy, we will
speak hereafter. Let us now discuss Tragedy, resuming its formal
definition, as resulting from what has been already said.
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 action, not of narrative; through pity and fear
effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. By 'language
embellished,' I mean language into which rhythm, 'harmony,' and song
enter. By 'the several kinds in separate parts,' I mean, that some parts
are rendered through the medium of verse alone, others again with the aid
of song.
Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily follows,
in the first place, that Spectacular equipment will be a part of Tragedy.
Next, Song and Diction, for these are the medium of imitation. By
'Diction' I mean the mere metrical arrangement of the words: as for
'Song,' it is a term whose sense every one understands.
Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies
personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities
both of character and thought; for it is by these that we qualify actions
themselves, and these--thought and character--are the two natural causes
from which actions spring, and on actions again all success or failure
depends. Hence, the Plot is the imitation of the action: for by plot I
here mean the arrangement of the incidents. By Character I mean that in
virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents. Thought is
required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth
enunciated. Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts
determine its quality--namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought,
Spectacle, Song. Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation, one
the manner, and three the objects of imitation. And these complete the
list. These elements have been employed, we may say, by the poets to a
man; in fact, every play contains Spectacular elements as well as
Character, Plot, Diction, Song, and Thought.
But most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For Tragedy
is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life
consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. Now
character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that
they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a
view to the representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary
to the actions. Hence the incidents and the plot are the end of a
tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all. Again, without action
there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without character. The tragedies
of most of our modern poets fail in the rendering of character; and of
poets in general this is often true. It is the same in painting; and here
lies the difference between Zeuxis and Polygnotus. Polygnotus delineates
character well: the style of Zeuxis is devoid of ethical quality. Again,
if you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and
well finished in point of diction and thought, you will not produce the
essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however
deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed
incidents. Besides which, the most powerful elements of emotional:
interest in Tragedy Peripeteia or Reversal of the Situation, and
Recognition scenes--are parts of the plot. A further proof is, that
novices in the art attain to finish: of diction and precision of
portraiture before they can construct the plot. It is the same with
almost all the early poets.
The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a
tragedy: Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in
painting. The most beautiful colours, laid on confusedly, will not give
as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait. Thus Tragedy is the
imitation of an action, and of the agents mainly with a view to the
action.
Third in order is Thought,--that is, the faculty of saying what is
possible and pertinent in given circumstances. In the case of oratory,
this is the function of the Political art and of the art of rhetoric: and
so indeed the older poets make their characters speak the language of
civic life; the poets of our time, the language of the rhetoricians.
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of
things a man chooses or avoids. Speeches, therefore, which do not make
this manifest, or in which the speaker does not choose or avoid anything
whatever, are not expressive of character. Thought, on the other hand, is
found where something is proved to be. or not to be, or a general maxim
is enunciated.
Fourth among the elements enumerated comes Diction; by which I mean, as
has been already said, the expression of the meaning in words; and its
essence is the same both in verse and prose.
Of the remaining elements Song holds the chief place among the
embellishments.
The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of
all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art
of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart
from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular
effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of
the poet.
VII
These principles being established, let us now discuss the proper
structure of the Plot, since this is the first and most important thing
in Tragedy.
Now, according to our definition, Tragedy is an imitation of an action
that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude; for there may be
a whole that is wanting in magnitude. A whole is that which has a
beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does not
itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something
naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which
itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a
rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows
something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed plot,
therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these
principles.
Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole
composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts,
but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude
and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot be beautiful; for
the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost
imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be
beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and
sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there
were one a thousand miles long. As, therefore, in the case of animate
bodies and organisms a certain magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude
which may be easily embraced in one view; so in the plot, a certain
length is necessary, and a length which can be easily embraced by the
memory. The limit of length in relation to dramatic competition and
sensuous presentment, is no part of artistic theory. For had it been the
rule for a hundred tragedies to compete together, the performance would
have been regulated by the water-clock,--as indeed we are told was
formerly done. But the limit as fixed by the nature of the drama itself
is this: the greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by
reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous. And to define
the matter roughly, we may say that the proper magnitude is comprised
within such limits, that the sequence of events, according to the law of
probability or necessity, will admit of a change from bad fortune to
good, or from good fortune to bad.
VIII
Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in the Unity of
the hero. For infinitely various are the incidents in one man's life
which cannot be reduced to unity; and so, too, there are many actions of
one man out of which we cannot make one action. Hence, the error, as it
appears, of all poets who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other
poems of the kind. They imagine that as Heracles was one man, the story
of Heracles must also be a unity. But Homer, as in all else he is of
surpassing merit, here too--whether from art or natural genius--seems to
have happily discerned the truth. In composing the Odyssey he did not
include all the adventures of Odysseus--such as his wound on Parnassus,
or his feigned madness at the mustering of the host--incidents between
which there was no necessary or probable connection: but he made the
Odyssey, and likewise the Iliad, to centre round an action that in our
sense of the word is one. As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the
imitation is one when the object imitated is one, so the plot, being an
imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the
structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is
displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed. For a
thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference, is not an
organic part of the whole.
IX
It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the
function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen,--
what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. The
poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose. The
work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still be a
species of history, with metre no less than without it. The true
difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may
happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing
than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the
particular. By the universal, I mean how a person of a certain type will
on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or
necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the names
she attaches to the personages. The particular is--for example--what
Alcibiades did or suffered. In Comedy this is already apparent: for here
the poet first constructs the plot on the lines of probability, and then
inserts characteristic names;--unlike the lampooners who write about
particular individuals. But tragedians still keep to real names, the
reason being that what is possible is credible: what has not happened we
do not at once feel sure to be possible: but what has happened is
manifestly possible: otherwise it would not have happened. Still there
are even some tragedies in which there are only one or two well known
names, the rest being fictitious. In others, none are well known, as in
Agathon's Antheus, where incidents and names alike are fictitious, and
yet they give none the less pleasure. We must not, therefore, at all
costs keep to the received legends, which are the usual subjects of
Tragedy. Indeed, it would be absurd to attempt it; for even subjects that
are known are known only to a few, and yet give pleasure to all. It
clearly follows that the poet or 'maker' should be the maker of plots
rather than of verses; since he is a poet because he imitates, and what
he imitates are actions. And even if he chances to take an historical
subject, he is none the less a poet; for there is no reason why some
events that have actually happened should not conform to the law of the
probable and possible, and in virtue of that quality in them he is their
poet or maker.