The following has been excerpted from Aristotle's Poetics. Included are Parts IV to XIII. Use this table to move to the sections of the Poetics you wish to read.
| IV | V | VI | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII |
Written ca. 350 B.C. Translated by S. H. Butcher
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.
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.
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.
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 fist. 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 colors, 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.
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
center 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.
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 meter 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 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 a 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.
Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot
'episodic' in which the episodes or acts succeed one another
without probable or necessary sequence. Bad poets compose such
pieces by their own fault, good poets, to please the players; for,
as they write show pieces for competition, they stretch the plot
beyond its capacity, and are often forced to break the natural
continuity.
But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action,
but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best
produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is
heightened when, at the same time, they follows as cause and
effect. The tragic wonder will then be greater than if they
happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are
most striking when they have an air of design. We may instance the
statue of Mitys at Argos, which fell upon his murderer while he
was a spectator at a festival, and killed him. Such events seem
not to be due to mere chance. Plots, therefore, constructed on
these principles are necessarily the best.
Plots are either Simple or Complex, for the actions in real life,
of which the plots are an imitation, obviously show a similar
distinction. An action which is one and continuous in the sense
above defined, I call Simple, when the change of fortune takes
place without Reversal of the Situation and without Recognition
A Complex action is one in which the change is accompanied by such
Reversal, or by Recognition, or by both. These last should arise
from the internal structure of the plot, so that what follows
should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding
action. It makes all the difference whether any given event is a
case of propter hoc or post hoc.
Reversal of the Situation is a change by which the action veers
round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability
or necessity. Thus in the Oedipus, the messenger comes to cheer
Oedipus and free him from his alarms about his mother, but by
revealing who he is, he produces the opposite effect. Again in the
Lynceus, Lynceus is being led away to his death, and Danaus goes
with him, meaning to slay him; but the outcome of the preceding
incidents is that Danaus is killed and Lynceus saved.
Recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to
knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by
the poet for good or bad fortune. The best form of recognition is
coincident with a Reversal of the Situation, as in the Oedipus.
There are indeed other forms. Even inanimate things of the most
trivial kind may in a sense be objects of recognition. Again, we
may recognize or discover whether a person has done a thing or
not. But the recognition which is most intimately connected with
the plot and action is, as we have said, the recognition of
persons. This recognition, combined with Reversal, will produce
either pity or fear; and actions producing these effects are those
which, by our definition, Tragedy represents. Moreover, it is upon
such situations that the issues of good or bad fortune will
depend. Recognition, then, being between persons, it may happen
that one person only is recognized by the other- when the latter
is already known- or it may be necessary that the recognition
should be on both sides. Thus Iphigenia is revealed to Orestes by
the sending of the letter; but another act of recognition is
required to make Orestes known to Iphigenia.
Two parts, then, of the Plot- Reversal of the Situation and
Recognition- turn upon surprises. A third part is the Scene of
Suffering. The Scene of Suffering is a destructive or painful
action, such as death on the stage, bodily agony, wounds, and the
like.
The parts of Tragedy which must be treated as elements of the
whole have been already mentioned. We now come to the quantitative
parts- the separate parts into which Tragedy is divided- namely,
Prologue, Episode, Exode, Choric song; this last being divided
into Parode and Stasimon. These are common to all plays: peculiar
to some are the songs of actors from the stage and the Commoi.
The Prologue is that entire part of a tragedy which precedes the
Parode of the Chorus. The Episode is that entire part of a tragedy
which is between complete choric songs. The Exode is that entire
part of a tragedy which has no choric song after it. Of the Choric
part the Parode is the first undivided utterance of the Chorus:
the Stasimon is a Choric ode without anapaests or trochaic
tetrameters: the Commos is a joint lamentation of Chorus and
actors. The parts of Tragedy which must be treated as elements of
the whole have been already mentioned. The quantitative parts- the
separate parts into which it is divided- are here enumerated.
As the sequel to what has already been said, we must proceed to
consider what the poet should aim at, and what he should avoid, in
constructing his plots; and by what means the specific effect of
Tragedy will be produced.
A perfect tragedy should, as we have seen, be arranged not on the
simple but on the complex plan. It should, moreover, imitate
actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive
mark of tragic imitation. It follows plainly, in the first place,
that the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of
a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity: for this
moves neither pity nor fear; it merely shocks us. Nor, again, that
of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity: for nothing can
be more alien to the spirit of Tragedy; it possesses no single
tragic quality; it neither satisfies the moral sense nor calls
forth pity or fear. Nor, again, should the downfall of the utter
villain be exhibited. A plot of this kind would, doubtless,
satisfy the moral sense, but it would inspire neither pity nor
fear; for pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the
misfortune of a man like ourselves. Such an event, therefore, will
be neither pitiful nor terrible. There remains, then, the
character between these two extremes- that of a man who is not
eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not
by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty. He must be one
who is highly renowned and prosperous- a personage like Oedipus,
Thyestes, or other illustrious men of such families.
A well-constructed plot should, therefore, be single in its issue,
rather than double as some maintain. The change of fortune should
be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad. It
should come about as the result not of vice, but of some great
error or frailty, in a character either such as we have described,
or better rather than worse. The practice of the stage bears out
our view. At first the poets recounted any legend that came in
their way. Now, the best tragedies are founded on the story of a
few houses- on the fortunes of Alcmaeon, Oedipus, Orestes,
Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, and those others who have done or
suffered something terrible. A tragedy, then, to be perfect
according to the rules of art should be of this construction.
Hence they are in error who censure Euripides just because he
follows this principle in his plays, many of which end unhappily.
It is, as we have said, the right ending. The best proof is that
on the stage and in dramatic competition, such plays, if well
worked out, are the most tragic in effect; and Euripides, faulty
though he may be in the general management 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.