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350 BC
POETICS
by Aristotle
Translated by S. H. Butcher
POETICS|1
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 color
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 meters 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 meter. People do, indeed, add the word 'maker'
or 'poet' to the name of the meter, 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 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 meter, 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 meters, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur,
which is a medley composed of meters 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 meter. Such are Dithyrambic and
Nomic poetry, and also Tragedy and Comedy; but between them originally
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
POETICS|2
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.
POETICS|3
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
komai, by the Athenians demoi: and they assume that comedians were
so named not from komazein, 'to revel,' but because they wandered from
village to village (kata komas), being excluded contemptuously from
the city. They add also that the Dorian word for 'doing' is dran,
and the Athenian, prattein.
This may suffice as to the number and nature of the various modes of
imitation.
POETICS|4
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 coloring, or some such other cause.
Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the
instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters 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 meter 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 dramatizing 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
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.
POETICS|5
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, generalized 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 meter and is narrative in form. They
differ, again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavors, 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.
POETICS|6
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 media 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.
