86

ARISTOTLE
3 8 4— 3 2 2 B.C . E.

Alongside his teacher PLATO, Aristotle is the great founding figü re of VVestem phi-
losophy and literary theory. Aristotle invented the scientific method of analysis and ,
in a wide- ranging series of treatises, codif ıed the divisions of knovvledge into disci -
plines and subdiscip ü nes that carry on to the present day, such âs physics , ohemistry,
zoology, biology, botany, psychology, politics, logic , and epistertlology. Unlike Plato,
who uses the dialogue to dramatize paths of thinking in a converSational literary fotm ,
Aristotle relies in his extant vvorks on categorization and logical differentiation in a
straightforvvard propositional manner , He focuses on the distinctive qualities of any
given object of study, vvhether of plants or of poems , systematically describing their
specific features and construction.
Plato and other ancient vvriters often commented on literary works, but Aristotle
inaugurated the systematic and distinctive discipline of literary criticism and theory
with the Poet İ cs . It is perhaps the most influential vvork in the history of criticism and
theory, shaping future considerations of genre, prosody, style, structure , and form.
Its modern impact began in the Renaissance, vvhen it vvas rediscOvered from frag
mentary manuscript sources and taken as a rulebook for literary composition. Its
-
descriptions of formal unity influenced seventeenth-century Europeâ n vvriters, such
as the French drâ matist PIERRE CORNETLLE , and eighteenth-century writers reviving
its precepts as “neoclassicfsm , ” In twentieth - century literary theory the Poetics was
foundational for formalist methods, vvhich apply objective modes of analysis to lin -
gulstic artifacts and d İscem the structural attrİbutes of literary vvorks; it influenced a
vvide array of critics, ranging from the Russian formalists (like BORIS EICHENBAUM )
. >

^
and the American Nevv Critics ( like WILLIAM k WIMSATT JR and MOI ROE C BEARD .
SLEY ) to the archetypal critics ( notably NORTHROP FRYE ) and the French structuralists
-
( like TZVETAN TODOROV) .
Aristotle’s Rhetoric suggests a different avenue for the study of literat ü re. Rather
than seeı ng literary vvorks in terms of their distinctive features and internal construc
tion , it opens for consideration their affective and political dimensions as forms of
-
public speech. Because of its focus on types of pub î ic speaking, the Rhetoric *s influ -
ence on literary study has been less direct than that of the Poeticsy but its emphasis
on audience response undergirds subsequent theoretical approaches concerned vvith
the reader, interpretation , and the political effects of literat ü re. Although Aristotle
himself does not favor one avenue of investigation över another, his distinction
betvveen poetics and rhetoric reflects a perennial division in literary theory: the split
betvveen theories concerned vvith the internal properties of literat ü re and those con -
cerned vvith Iiterature’s external effects, especially on readers and society.
Aristotle vvas born in Stagira in northern Greece, vvhich vvas under the rule of
Macedonia. His father, Nicomachus, vvas the personal physician to and a friend of
Amyntus II, the king of Macedonia. Scholars speculate that his father’s practice as a
physician inculcated in Aristotle a pragmatic interest in biology and the natural vvorld ,
and Aristotle's ties to the Macedon ı an court affected his subsequent career. In 367
B.C. E. Aristotle vvent to study at Plato’s Academy in Athens , vvhere he distinguished
himself as one of Plato’s best students and eventually became a teacher himself . In
347, around the time of P î ato’s death , Aristotle left Athens; he traveled first to Assos
in Asia Min ö r, vvhere he taught in a colony of Platonists for three years, and then to
the island of Lesbos, vvhere he did the biological research that grounded his later
scientific treatises. In 344 or 343, Amyntas’s son , King Philip , inv ı ted Aristotle to
tutor his heir , Alexander (later knovvn as Alexander the Great ) , vvho vvas then about
thirteen years old. VVhile he had contact vvith and received the patronage of Alexander
until his death , Aristotle concluded his tutoring in 340, after vvhich he probably lived
 ARISTOTLE / 87

in Macedonia or Stagira , perhaps then completing the Rhetoric . In 335 , when Alex-
ander acceded to the throne and departed for his campaigns in Asia , Aristotle returned
to Athens and began his ovvn school at the Lyceum. He taught poetics , rhetoric ,
politics, ethics, and metaphysics , and probably at this time vvorked on his famous
treatises, including the Politics, the Nicotnacheatt Ethicsy and the Poetics . After the
death of AIexander in 323, when public sentiment against Macedonia was rising,
Aristotle left Athens to live in Chalcis on the island of Euboea , where he died in 322.
For Aristotle the life of the philosopher was not reclusive and scholarly but unfolded
in the midst of public affairs.
—
Only about a fıfth of Aristotle’s prodigious 1 50 reported works survive transmit -
ted , usually imperfectly, through manuscript copies in the Middle Ages. His treatises
are knovvn as “esoteric ” works, because they were not copied by scribes to be distrib-
uted but were available only in libraries for study by others; some seem to be lecture
notes or study guides rather than polished works. This accounts for their compressed
style and sometimes abrupt transitions, frequent repetitions , and shorthand refer-
ences to other vvorks or vvriters. It also makes the works particularly difficult to date,
since they vvere probably composed and revised ö ver a period of time. The Poetics ,
very likely gathered from a set of incomplete notes , survived only in a few faulty copies.
Scholars speculate that we have only half the original text and that the missing second
half dealt with comedy.
Aristotle's early vvritings, now known only by the reports of ancient writers, vvere
vvritten in the form of dialogues, obviously shovving the influence of Plato. His more
mature vvorks, hovvever, depart from his teacher's model in a number of significant
.
vvays Stylistically, he replaces the literary approach vvith systematic expositions of
particular subjects, more in the form of teehnieal manuals than dramatic accounts.
Methodologically, Aristotle operates through analysis » vvhich in İ ts root sense entails
examining objects by studying their component parts , and through differentiation and
classlfication. For instance , in biology Aristotle starts vvith the most general cate -
——
gory living organisms; he then examines them according to vvhat differentiates
them as plants , animals, and so on ; further classifies them into particular species;
and catalogues their distinetive traits. Philosophically, Aristotle grounds his research
on a more pragmatic basis than Plato, looking at nature and the objects of the real
vvorld . In so doing, he tacitly rejects Plato’s fundamental concept of transcendent
ldeas or Forms that gövem and generate reality. In his ovvn terms , Aristotle often
vvorks from induetion , dravving his general conclusions from the particular objects he
observes, vvhereas Plato usually vvorks from deduetion , dravving particular conclusions
from his general metaphysical concept of being.
The Poetics demonstrates Aristotle 's analytical method , vvhich here paraljç js that
of his examinations of biology or zoology. Aristotle turns to the various categories of
human artifacts, differentiating those made in language and eventually focusing on
poetry and especially on the species-specific traits of epic and tragedy. He assumes a
distinetion betvveen the vvide elass of objects that are humanly made and those that
—
are naturally produeed betvveen , say, a chair and a tree. (The Greek vvord for a
“ poetry," poiesisy is itself based on the verb “ to make.") In treating poetry as a craft ,
Aristotle differs from Plato, vvho discusses poetry in terms of inspiration and the
—
emotive transport of the poet a strain that continues in nineteenth -century Roman -
ticism , exemplified by WILL1AM WORDSWORTH 's definition of poetry as “ the sponta -
neous overflovv of emotion . ” Aristotle limits his study of poetry to its observable kinds
and its formal construction , more or less ignoring questions about its affeetive origins,
vvhich he regards as falling under the auspices of other pursuits, such as psychology
or rhetoric.
Dravving on a vvide range of literary examples , especially Sophocles’ celebrated
tragedy Oedipus Rexy Aristotle adduces six salient parts of tragedy, in order of their
—
importance plot , character , thought , diction , music, and speetaele. He spends the
most time on the First , specifying the key features of good plots. Central to Aristotle
88 / ARISTOTLE

is imitation (tnimSsis), and he judges the best plots to have verisimilitude: they must
.
be plausible (even if impossible) He also stresses a logically connected order (an
appropriate starting point , elaboration , and a dramatic end or resolution ) , centered
on one unified action rather than depicting multiple, divergent, or unnecessary
actions. The best kind of resolution is one that shovvs a reversal ( peripeteia ) of position
for the main character, as well as the character’s recognition (attagnörisis ) of his or
.
her fate Aristotle reasons that the characters in tragedy should come from high posi -
tions, othervvise their tragic circumstances would not be remarkable; he also pre -
scribes that their fates be linked to their own error ( hamartia, literally “ missing the
mark,” though frequently translated as “flavv ” ) , rather than from some accident or
.
wickedness Aristotle concludes somewhat technically by classifying parts of speech
( in his discussion of dictfon ) , sketching Solutions to problems of interpretation , and
comparing the genres of tragedy and epic,
Though rooted in the literat ü re of its time (and focusing especially on a form of
drama quite different from ours ) , the extant Poetics has continued to povverfully influ
.
ence criticism Aristotle’s systematic categorization of genus and species and his com -
-
parison of tragedy and epic underlie ali genre theory. Notably, they undergird modern
considerations of the historical movement from epic to the novel, such as those of
GYÖ RGY LUKACS and MIKHAİ L BAKHTIN . Perhaps most decisively, Aristotle’s systematic
description of plot and its component parts ground contemporary narrative theory,
in particular the technical f ı eld of narratology.
His scientific examinati<în of poetry has been championed by the Nevv Critics Wim
satt and CLEANTH BROOKS as “Aristotle’s answer ” to Plato, responding both to Plato’s
-
view of poetry as a degraded imitation twice removed from the reality of eternal Ideas
or Forms and to his suspicion of poetry as stirring emotions in a way that is dangerous
for society. Instead of directly disagreeing with Plato, Aristotle implicitly validates
.
poetry by examining it as a legitimate branch of study Countering Plato’s notion of
poetry as degraded imitation , Aristotle sees poetry as a source of universal knovvledge
of human behavior: unlike history, vvhich produces knovvledge only of specific situ -
ations, poetry describes the actions of characters who might be any humans More .
över , he claims that good poetry has a positive emotional effect on its audience, vvhich
-
. —
he calls katharsis perhaps the most important and variously interpreted word in the
Poetics Some commentators have interpreted the term in a medical sense, as a pur -
gative that flushes out the audience’s unvvieldy emotion ; others see it in terms of
.
moral purification More recently, critics have equated catharsis vvith ethical and
intellectual clarification .
In other treatises, Aristotle analyzes natural objects in terms of four component

—— —
“causes ,” schematized as material , formal, efficient, and final. If we apply this rubric to
poetry, the material cause of a poem would be its raw material language ; the formal
cause, the shape of the resulting object the poem ; its efficient cause, vvhat makes it
the poet ; and the final cause, the end use its effects on an audience, emotionally as
—
well as educationally and politically. Al though Aristotle alludes to audience response in
his discussion of catharsis, in the Poetics he is most concerned vvith the material and for-
mal causes of poetry. This concentrated focus has strongly marked modern literary erit -
icisinin otably that of the Nevv Critics, vvho explic î tly disallovv considerations of the
.
audience as “the affective fallacy,” in the phrase of Wimsatt and Beardsley Hovvever,
Aristotle is by no means so dismissive. Instead, he treats considerations of the audi -
— —
ence the final cause ^as a different line of research , taken up in his Rhetoric
We have come to understand rhetoric as the study of figures of speech , follovving
.
the medieval and Renaissance traditions ( and the modern practice of vvriters like PAUL
DE MAN ), but Aristotle defines it more broadly as the ability to see the available means
of persuasion . In typical Aristotelian fashion, the Rhetoric begins in book 1 by differ-
entiating three elements of persuasion in public speech: the arguments a speaker
uses; the Sthos or character of the speaker; and the disposition of the audience.
Additionally, it differentiates three species of public speeches: deliberative, vvhich deal
 ARISTOTLE / 89

with future events, as in politics; judicial, vvhich concern past events, as in lavvcourts;
and epideictic, which are concerned with the present as they praise or blame a person ,
as in a eulogy or declamatory attack. Aristotle stresses the importance of argument
in part to challenge the then prevalent teachings of the sophists, such as GORGIAS in
an earlier generation , who he believed used rhetoric irresponsibly, lacking concern
for valid reasoning.
However, Aristotle also acknowledges the elements of persuasion outside the realm
of reasoning, paying particular attentlon to the emotions that speeches induce in their
audiences , In book 2 , Aristotle adduces the first systematic study of affect , differen -
tiating emotions such as anger, calmness, fear, confidence, shame, pity, indignation ,
envy, and emulation. In book 3, paralleling his examinat ıon of diction in the Poetics ,
Aristotle concludes with a discussion of lexis (variously translated as "style,” “vvord
choice,” or “form of expression ”) Perhaps the most important term in the Rhetoric
-— — -
*

is telos the final cause, end, objective, or goal of persuasion effected through emo
.
tion and style as well as argument The Rhetoric highlights the public ends of language
rather than its formal properties,
Although its influence has not been as sustained or decisive as that of the Poetics ,
-
the Rhetoric proposes what the tvventieth ceritury philosopher MARTIN HE İ DEGGER
called the first vvork of hermeneutics; that is, it considers how response is a factor in
interpretation. In its delineations of emotions, it presages the aesthetic tradition ,
whose concern is the affective dimensions of literary works, and it provides a ground -
-
ing for reader response theory, vvhich centers on subjective audience interaction
.
rather than the objective features of the vvork itself Perhaps most significantly, it
suggests the historical and political significance of literat ü re in its role as public
discourse.
Whether acknovvledged or not, Aristotle’s seminal distinction betvveen poetics and
rhetoric has been crucial in contemporary debates över the proper object of literary
eriticisin. Against the tendeney fostered by the New Critics and later the deconstruc -
tive critics who advocated a narrovv linguistic study of literat ü re, recent decades have
vvitnessed a “rhetorical tum" tovv â rd methods favoring attention to the personal, his
torical, and social effects of literary texts. Some object that such approaches address
-
topics outside the purvievv of literary study. That is, they urge a strict poetic view,
arguing that literary criticism should focus on the distinetive attributes of literary
.
vvorks But when we take account of his Rhetoric alongside the Poetics, we see that
Aristotle does not disallovv these other topics; he opens literary study to a consider-
ation of its pedagogical and social ends as well as its distinetive formal properties.

BIBL İ OGRAPHY
There are a vast number of editions and translations of Aristotle’s vvorks, from the
medieval period to the present. Our text of the Poetics comes from “Poetics" I, tvith
the “Tractatus Coislinianus,” A Hypothetical Reconstruction of “Poetics” II , and the
Fragments of the “On the Poets /’ admirably translated and annotated by Richard Janko
( 1986 ), vvhich is based on the Standard edition of Rudolf Kassel, Aristotelis “ De Arte
Poetica Liber” ( 1965 ). Our seleetion from the Rhetoric is taken from the definitive
-
present day English version , Aristotle “On R h e t o r i c A Theory of Civtc Discourse ,
translated and annotated by George A. Kennedy ( 1991 ) , vvhich also ineludes useful
commentary. It dravvs on an amalgam of Greek texts, ineluding Aristotelis “Ars Rhe -
torica,” edited by W. David Ross ( 1959 ); Aristote , “ Rh6 torique ," edited by M 6d 6 ric
. —
Dufour and Andr6 Wartelle ( 3 vols , 1960 73) ; and Aristotelis “ Ars Rhetorica," edited
by Rudolf Kassel (1976). The Complete Worhs of Aristotle , edited by Jonathan Barnes
( 2 vols., 1984 ) , contains the best compendium of Aristotle’s vvorks İ n English . The
Basic Works of Aristotle , edited by Riclıard McKeon ( 1941 ), vvho vvas the leading
—
American expositor of Aristotle through the mid tvventieth century, is an earlier but
stili useful compendium .
90 / ARISTOTLE

Jonathan Barnes’s Aristotle ( 1982 ) is a brief , accessible overview of Aristotle’s life

and works * iri a crotoded field , Abraham Edel’s Aristotle and His Philosophy ( 1982 )
and John M . Rist ’s Mind of Aristotle ( 1989 ) stand out as good basic introduetions to
.
Aristotle’s biography and works The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle , edited by
Barnes ( 1995 ) , contains chapters on important phases of Aristotle’s philosophical
project , including a survey of his life and work by Barnes.
On the Poetics , Stephen Hallhvell’s Aristotle’s “Poetics” ( 1986 ) is the authoritative
contemporary interpretation . Gerald F. Else , Aristotle’s “ Poetics”: The Argument
( 1957 ) , provides a detailed commentary on the text , and his Plato and Aristotle on
Poetry ( 1986 ) is a useful comparative study. D. W. Lucas’s Aristotle “ Poetics” ( 1968)
offers significant commentary as well as the Kassel edition of the Greek text. Martha
—
Nussbaum 's Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Philosophy ( 1986 ) con -
tains an influential modification of the argument about catharsis. Aristotle’s “ Poetics”
and English Literatüre: A Gollection of Critical Essays , edited by Elder Olson ( 1965 ),
gathers views from the eighteerith century through the 1960s, highlighting the work
of the Chicago Critics , or "Neo-Aristotelians,” who promoted a formal method in
—
literary study during the mid twentieth century. Its last chapter, “ Rhetoric and Poetic
in the Philosophy of Aristotle,” by Richard McKeon , a Chicago Critic ,. offers an illu -
minating discrimination of poetic and rhetorical approaches. McKeon’s "Literary
Criticism and the Concept of Imitation in Antiquity,” in Critics and Criticism: Essays
.
in Method ( ed. R S. Crane, 1952) , is an important text on imitation. Essays on Aris -
totle’s “ Poetics ,” edited by Am6lie Oksenberg Rorty ( 1992), is an excellent contem -
porary collection by philosophers and scholars of Aristotle, clarifying conceptssuch
as mimesis, catharsis , and comedy.
On the Rhetoric , W. M. A. GrimaldPs Aristotle, “ Rhetoric”: A Commentary ( 1980)
is a useful exposition . Essays on Aristotle’s “ Rhetoric” ( 1996 ), edited by Am 61ie Oks-
enberg Rorty as a companion to her vol ü me on the Poetics , provides an fexcellent
*

range of contemporary interpretations and reevaluations of the text. Alexander Neha -

mas’s “ Pity and Fear in the Rhetoric and Poetics ” in Aristotle’s “ Rhetoric”: Philosoph
ical Essays ( ed. David J. Furley and Nehamasj 1994 ), cogently compares Aristotle’s
-
treatment of emotion in both texts and , in a provocative argument, claims that cathar -
sis refers to the internal resolution of a tragic plot itself rather than to the response
of the a ü dience.
The “ Poetics” of Aristotle and the “Tractatus Coislinianus”: A Bibliography from about
900 till 1 9 9 6 , compiled by Omert J. Schrier ( 1998) , testifies to the massive literat ü re
relating to the Poetics. Aristotle’s “ Rhetoric”: Five Centuries of Philological Research,
compiled by Keith V. Erickson ( 1975 ), covers the many studies of the Rhetoric . The
Cambridge Companion to Aristotle contains an excellent bibliography on ali of Aris-
totle’s work, with individual sections on the Poetics and Rhetoric . Both Janko’s edition
of the Poetics and Kennedy’s of the Rhetoric include selective bibliographies on their
respective texts. The Rorty collections on the Poetics and Rhetoric a İso include good
selective bibliographies.

Poetics 1
[ 1 , 1447a] Our topic is poetry in itself and its kinds, and what potential each
has; how plots should be constructed if the composition is to turn out well;

1. Translated by Richard Janko, who sometlmes

* .•• • . the Bekker mı mbers used elmost universally in cit -
adds clarifying vvords or phrases in square brackets ing Aristotle's vvorks; they refer to the page num ?
and includes the Greek in parentheses. Also in bers and columns of an 183 1 edition by Immanueİ
square brackets in the text are the traditlonalchap
ter divisions inserted by Renaissance editors and
- Bekker .
 PO ET İ c s / 91

also, from how many parts it is [constituted ], and of vvhat şort they are; and
likevvise ali other aspects of the same enquiry. Let us first begin , following
the natura ] [order], from first [ principles].
Epic and tragic composition , and indeed comedy, dithyrambic composi -
tion ,2 and most sorts of music for wind and stringed instruments are a ü ,
[considered ] as a whole , representations.3 They differ from one another in
three ways, by using for the representation ( i ) different media , ( ii ) different
objects, or ( iii ) a manner that is different and not the same.
Some people use colours and forms for representations, making images of
many objects (some by art , and some by practice ) , and others do so vvith
sound ; so too ali the arts we mentioned produce a representation using
rhythm , speech and melody, but use these either separately or mixed . E.g.,
the art of [ playing] the oboe and Iyre , and any other arts that have the same
-
potential (e.g. that of [ playing] the pan pipes ) , use melody and rhythm alone ,
but the art of dancers [ uses] rhythm by itself without melody; for they too
can represent characters, sufferings and actions, by means of rhythms given
form.
But the art of representation that uses unaccompanied words or verses
[ 1447 b] ( vvhether it mixes these together or uses one single class of verse-
form ) has to the present day no name. For we have no common name for
the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues ,4 and vvould
not have one even if someone vvere to compose the representation in [ iambic]
trimeters, elegiacs 5 or some other such verse. But people attach the vvord
“poet ” to the verse-form, and name some “elegiac poets” and other "epic
poets , ” terming them poets not according to [ vvhether they compose a ] rep-
resentation but indiscriminately, according to [ their use of ] verse. Thus if
someone brings out a work of medicine or natural Science in verse, they
normally cali him a poet ; but there is nothing in common betvveen Homer
and Empedocles6 except the verse-form. For this reason it is right to cali the
former a poet , but the latter a natural scientist rather than a poet. Likevvise,
if someone produced a representation by intermingling ali the verse-forms,
just as Chaeremon 7 composed his Cett î aur (a recitation vvhich mixes ali the
verse-forms ), he must stili be termed a poet. This, then , is hovv vve should
define these matters.
Some arts use ali the media vve have mentioned ( i.e. rhythm , song and
verse ) , Iike the composition of dithyrambic poems * that of nomes ,8 and trag-
edy and comedy; they differ because the former use ali the media at the same
time, the latter [ use them only] in certain parts So these are vvhat I mean.
2. Greek choral poetry nriginally sung in honor of rtıeter of eme , and whöse second Iine replaces the
Dionysus, the god of wine vvorshipped in an 3d and 6tn foot vvfth one long syllable. "iambic
ecstatic cult. trimeters ”: the verse form of most dialogue and set
.
3 From the Greek ntimSsis , translated as “ repre- speeches in tragedfcs (a 3-foot Iine based on the
sentation ” or “imitatinn .” -
pattern short Iong) .
4 . The philosophical works of PLATO ( ca . 427 ca .
. —
327 u.c. E ) , vvhich are written as dialogues featur-
6 . Pre -Socrat İ c Greek natural philosopher ( ca .
—
493 433 B. C. E.) , vvho wrote in epic meter ( dactylic
— .
ing his teacher, Socrates ( 469 399 B.C. E ), and
.
onc or more interlocutors “ Mimes ”: imitative per -
hexameter ) . Homer (ca. 8th c. B.C.E. ), Greek epic
poet to whom is attributed the Iliad and the Odys-
formances usually featuring short scenes from sey; the ancient Greeks also credited him vvith a
daily life. Sophron of Syracusc ( 5 th c. B.C.E.) vvrote number of lost shorter epics,; ineluding the comic
mimes in rhythmic prose ; his son Xenarchus also Magrites.
wrote mimes. 7. Greek traged İan ( mid -4 th c. B.C.E. ) .
5 . A verse form consisting of couplets vvhose first 8. Originally, melodies ( for lyre or fl ü te ) created
Iine is in dactylic hcxameter ( i. e., a 6 -foot Iine to accompany epic texts; later, choral composi -
bnscd on the syliabic pattern long-short - short ) , the tions.
92 / ARISTOTLE

by the differences between the arts in the media by which they produce the
representation.
[ 2, 1448a ] Since those who represent people in action , these people are
.
necessarily either good or inferior For characters almost alvvays follow from
these [qualities] alone; everyone differs in character because of vice and
virtue. So they are either ( i ) better than we are , or ( ii ) worse , or ( iii ) such [as
we are ] , just as the painters [ represent them ] ; for Polygnotus used to make
images of superior persons, Pauson of worse ones, and Dionysius9 of those
like [ us].
Clearly each of the [ kinds of ] representation we mentioned will contain
these differences, and will vary by representing objects which vary in this
manner. For these divergences can arise in dancing and in playing the oboe
and lyre. They can also arise in speeches and unaccompanied verse: e.g. ( i )
Homer [ represents] better persons * (ii) Cleophon [ represents] ones like [ us] ,
and ( iii) Hegemon of Thasos, who was the first to compose parodies, and
Nicochares 1 who composed the Deiliad , [ represent ] worse ones. [They can
arise ] likevvise in dithyrambs and nomes: for just as Timotheus and Philox-
enus [ represented ] Cyclopes,2 [so] one may represent [ people in different
ways]. Tragedy too is distinguished from comedy by precisely this difference ;
comedy prefers to represent people who are worse than those who exist ,
tragedy people who are better.
[ 3] Again , a third difference among these [ kinds] is the manner in which
one can represent each of these things. For one can use the same media to
represent the very same things, 9ometimes (a ) by narrating (either (i ) becom -
ing another [person ], as Homer does, or (ii ) remaining the same person and
not c hangi ng ) , or ( b ) by representing everyone as in action and activity.
Representation, then, has these three points of difference, as we said at
the beginning, its media, its objects and its manner* Consequentlyj in one
respect Sophocles is the same ş ort of representational artist as Homer, in
that both represent good people , but in another he is like Aristophanes, 3
since both represent men in action and doing [ things ].
This is why, some say, their vvorks are called “dramas, ” because they rep-
resent men “doing” (dröntas ). For this reason too the Dorians4 lay claim to
both tragedy and comedy. The Megarians5 here allege that comedy arose
during the time of their democracy , and the Megarians in Sicily claim it; for
Ephicharmus vvas from there, though he was not much prior to Chionides
and Magnes.6 Some of the Dorians in the Peloponnese lay claim to tragedy.
They produce the names [of comedy and drama] as an indication [of their
origins]: they say that they cali villages kötnai but the Athenians cali them
detnoi , on the assumption that comedians were so called not from their rev -

.
9 Painter from Colophon . Polygnotus ( ca. 500
.
ca . 440 B.C.E ) , one of the first great Greekpainters
Pauson ( late 5 th c. B.C.E . ), Athenian caricaturist
—.
.
. ..
Greek tragedian .
.
. — .
B.C E ) Sophocles ( ca 496 406 B C. E. ) , great

—.
4 A people ( probably öriginally from southvvest
1 . Athenian comic poet ( aetive ca . 390 B .C. E ), . Macedonia ) that Invaded Greece ca. 1100 1000
vvhose Deiliad ( deilos means “covvardly ”) parodied .
B .C E., reaching south into the Peloponnese
. .
heroic epic. Cleophon ( 4 th c B.C.E ) , Athenian 5 . Residents of a Dorlan city on the Isthmus of
. .
tragic poet. Hegemon ( 5 th c B.C. E ), poet vvhose Corinth ( west of Athens ); it vvas a democracy in
parodies won competitions in Athens. the 6 th century B.C.E .
.
2. Mythical one -eyed giants Timotheus of .
6 Aristotle names three early comic poets: Epi -
...
Miletus ( ca . 450- ca; 360 B C E ) and Philoxenus . ..
charmus vvas Sicilian (aetive earlv 5 th c B C E.)
.
of Cythera ( ca . 435-ca . 380 B C.E.) vvere both and vvrote in Doric Greek, whlle Chionides ( aetive
Greek dithyrambic poets . . .. .
ca 485 B.C E ) and Magnes (aetive ca 470 B.C E ) ..
3. Greatest poet of Greek Old Comedy ( 450 385 — were Athenlan .
 P o ETI c s / 93

elling ( kotnazein ) y but because they wandered around the villages, ejected in
disgrace from the town. [ 1448b] They also say that they term “doing” dran >
but that the Athenians term it prattein.
Anyvvay, as for the points of difference in representation , and how many
and vvhat they are, let this account suffice.
[4] Two causes seem to have generated the art of poetry as a vvhole, and
these are natural ones.
( i ) Representation is natural to human beings from childhood . They differ
from the other animals in this: man tends most tovvards representation and
learns his first lessons through representation.
Also ( ii ) everyone delights in representations. An indication of this is what
happens in fact: we delight in looking at the most detailed images of things
vvhich in themselves we see with pain , e.g. the shapes of the most despised
vvild animals even when dead. The cause of this is that learning is most
pleasâ nt , not only for philosophers but for öthers Iikewise ( but they share in
it to a small extent ). For this reason they delight in seeing images, because
it comes about that they learn as they observe, and infer what each thing is ,
e.g. that this person [ represents ] that one. For if one has not seen the thing
[ that is represented ] bef öre, [its image] will not produce pleasure as a rep-
resentation, but because of its accomplishment , colour, or some other such
cause .
Since by nature vve are given to representation , melody and rhythm ( that
verses are parts of rhythms is obvious ), from the beginning those by nature
most disposed tovvards these generated pöetry from their improvisations,
developing it Iittle by little. Poetry was split up according to their particular
..
characters; the grander people represented fine actions, i e those of fine
persons * the more ordinary people represented those of inferior ones, at first
composing invectives, just as the others composed hymns and praise poems - .
We do not knovv of any compositlon of this şort by anyone before Homer,
but there vvere jprobâ bly many [ who composed invectives]. Beginning with
.
Homer [such compositions] do exist * e .g. his Margites ete In these the iambic
.
verseTorm arrived too, as is appropriate This is why it is noVv called “iambic ”,
because they used to lampoon (iatnbizein ) each other in this verse form.
Thus some of the ancients became composers of heroic poems, others of
-
lampoons . •

Just as Homer was the greatest composer of serious poetry ( not that he
aione composed well, but because he alone composed dramatic representa -
tions ) , so too he was first to indicate the form of comedy, by dramatising not
.
an invective but the laughable For , his Margites stands in the same relation
.
to comedies as do the Iliad and Odyssey to tragedies [ 1449a ] When tragedy
and comedy appeared , people vvere attracted to each [kind of ] composition
according to their own particular natures. Some became composers of com -
edies instead of lampoons, but others presented tragedies instead of epics,
because comedy and tragedy are greater and more honourable in their forms
than are lampoon and epic. To consider vvhether tragedy is novv fully [ devel -
oped ] in its elements or not , as judged both in and of itself and in relation
to its audiences, is a different topic.
Anyvvay, arising from an improvisatory beginning ( both tragedy and com -
—
edy tragedy from the leaders of the dithyramb, and comedy from the leaders
of the phallic processions vvhich even novv continue as a custom in many of
94 / ARISTOTLE

our cities ) , [ tragedy] grew little by little , as [ the poets] developed vvhatever
[ nevv part ] of it had appeared; and , passing through many changes, fragedy
came to a halt , since it had attained its own nature.
( i ) Aeschylus7 was first to increase the riumber of its actors from one to
two ; he reduced the [songs] of the chorus, and made speech play the main
role. Sophocles [ brought in] three actors and scenery. : •

( ii ) Again , as for its magnitude , [ starting] from trivial plots and laughable
diction , because it had changed from a satyric [composition ],8 [ tragedy only]
became grand at a late date. its verse-form altered from the tettameter9 to
iambic verse. For at first [ poets] used the tetrameter, because the cdmposi-
tion was satyric and mainly danced; but when [Spoken ] diction came in ,
- .
nature itself found the proper verse form The iambic is the verse most suited
to speech ; and indication of this is that in [everyday] speech with each other
vve use mostly iambic [ rhythms] , but rarely hexameters, and [only] when we
depart from the intonations of [everyday ] speech .
( iii ) Again » as for the number of its episodes, 1 and how each of its other
[ parts] is said to have been elaborated , let them pass as described; it would
probably be a majör undertaking to go through their particulars .
[ 5 ] Gomedy is, as we said , a representatıon of people who are rather infe -
—
rior not , hovvever, vvith respect t ö every [ kind of ] vice , but the laughable is
[only] a part of vvhat is ugly. For the laughable is a şort of error and ugliness
that is not painful and destructive, just as, evidently, a laughable mask is
something ugly and distorted vvithöut pain.
The transformations of tragedy, and [the poets] who brought them about ,
have not been forgotten ; but comedy was disregatded . from the beginnin ğ»
.
because it was not taken serio ü sly [ 1449b] For the magistrate granted a
—
chorus of comic performers at a late date they had been volunteers The
record of those termed its poets begins from [a time] when comedy already
.
possessed some of its forms. It is unknown who introduced masks, prologues,
a multiplicity of actors, ete. As for the composing of plots, Epicharmus and
Phormis 2 [introduced it ]. In the beginning it came fröm Sicilyj and , , of the
poets at Athens, Crates3 was the first to relinquish the form of the lampoon
and compose generalised stories, i.e plots. .
Epic poetry follows tragedy insofar as it is a representation of serious peo -
ple which uses speech in verse; but they differ in that [epic] has a single
verse-form , and is narrative. Again , vvith respect to length, tragedy attempts
as far as possible to keep within one revolution of the sun or [only] to exceed
this a little, but epic is unbounded in time; it does differ in this respect, even
though [ the poets] at first composed in the same vvay in tragedieş as in epics .
As for their parts, some are the same, others are particular to tragedy For .
this reason , whoever knows about good and inferior tragedieş knovvs about

7. The earliest öf the 3 great Greek tragedtans sionally used for dialogue in tragedie 9, this fast-
—
( 525 456 B.C.E.) .
8. That İs , iike the satyr plays that formed part of
moving linevvas thought less stately thâ rt iambic
meter. The choruses in tragedieş; used other
the spring festival of Dionysus in early- 5th-century meters .
. .
B C E . Athtns. Each of the poets competing wrote 1. The seetions of a tragedy that are positioned
three tragedieş and one satvr play; the latter pre
sented grotesque versions ot ancient iegends, vvith
- betvveen two chom 9es
.
.
2 Syracusan vvriter of comedy, apparently a con -

and vvearing a phâ llus ).

- -
the chorus dressed as satyrs ( half man , half goat , temporary of Epicharmus.
.
3. Athenian comic poet (aetive ca 450-ca 430 .
9 . That is, trochaic tetrameter ( a 4-foot line based . ..
B C. E )
on the syllabic pattern long-short ); though occa -
 P o ETI cs / 95

epics too. Tragedy possesses ali [ the parts ] that epic has, but those that it
possesses are not ali in epic .
[ 6 ] We will discuss representational art in hexameters, and comedy, later.
Novv let us discuss tragedy, taking up the definition of its essence that results
from vvhat we have said .
Tragedy is a representation of a serious , complete action vvhich has mag-
nitude , in embellished speech , with each of its elements [ used ] separately in
the [various] parts [ of the play ] ; [ represented ] by people acting and not by
narration ; accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis* of such
emotions.
By “embellished speech , ” I mean that vvhich has rhythm and melody, i.e .
song; by “vvith its elements separately,” I mean that some [ parts of it ] are
accomplished only by means of spoken verses, and others again by means of
song.
Since people acting produce the representation , first ( i ) the ornament of
spectacle vvill necessarily be a part of tragedy; and then ( ii ) song and ( iii )
diction , for these are the media in vvhich they produce the representation .
By “diction ” I mean the construction of the [spoken ] verses itself ; by “song”
I mean that of vvhich the meaning is entirely obvious.
Since [ tragedy] is a representation of an action , and is enacted by people
acting, these people are necessarily of a certain şort according to their char -
acter and their reasoning. For it is because of these that vve say that actions
are of a certain şort , [ 1450a ] and it is according to people's actions that they
ali succeed or fail. So ( iv ) the plot is the representation of the action ; by
.
“ plot ” here, I mean the construction of the incidents By (v ) the “characters, ”
I mean that according to vvhich vve say that the people in action are of a
certain şort. By (vi ) “ reasoning, ” I mean the vvay in vvhich they use speech
to demonstrate something or indeed to make some general statement ,
So tragedy as a vvhole necessarily has six parts, according to vvhich tragedy
is of a certain şort. These are plot , characters, diction , reasoning, spectacle
and song. The media in vvhich [ the poets ] make the representation comprise
.
two parts [ i.e diction and song], the manner in vvhich they make the rep -
resentation , one [ i.e. spectacle ] , and the objects vvhich they represent , three
[ i.e. plot , character and reasoning] ; there are no others except these. Not a
fevv of them, one might say, use these elements; for they may have inst-ances
of spectacle, character, plot , diction , song and reasoning likevvise.
But the most important of these is the structurp of the incidents. For (i )
tragedy is a representation not of human beings but of action and life Hap . -
piness and unhappiness lie in action , and the end [of life ] is a ş ort of action ,
not a quality; people are of a certain şort according to their characters , but
.
happy or the opposite according to their actions So [ the actors] do not act
in order to represent the characters, but they include the characters for the
.
sake of their actions Consequently the incidents, i.e. the plot, are the end
of tragedy, and the end is most important of ali *
( ii ) Again, vvithout action a tragedy cannot exist , but vvithout characters it
may. For the tragedies of most recent [ poets ] lack character, and in general
there are many such poets. E .g. too among the painters, hovv Zeuxis5 relates

mcanin g;
-
4. A much debated Greek term , related to a verb
“ to cleanse ” or “ purify"; usuaily left
also mean "clarification.”
5 . Greek painter from Heraciea in Southern Italy;
un transTated and understood as “ purgation ,” it can he was in Athens ca . 400 B.c. E.
96 / ARISTOTLE

-—
contains no character at ali.
-
to Polygnotus Pölygnotus is a good character painter, but Zeuxis' painting
•
' I

-
( iii ) Again , if [a poet ] puts in sequence speeches fiili of character, vvell
composed in diction and reasoning, he will not achieve vvhat vvas [agreed to
be] the function of tragedy; a tragedy that employs these less adequately, but
.
has a plot ( i.e structure of incidents ) , will âchieve İ t much more : .
( iv ) In addition , the most important thirtgs vvith vvhich a tfagedy enthralls
—
[ us] ate parts of plot reversals and recdgnitions .
( v ) A further indication is that peöple vvho try their ha îıd at composing
can be proficient in the diction and characters before they are able to struc-
.
ture the incidents; e.g too almost ali the early poets. 1
So plot is the örigin and as it were the soul of tragedy, and the characters
are secondary. It is very similar [1450b] İ ri the case of paitı ting too: if some*

one daubed [a surface ] with the finest pigments indiscriminately, he would

not give the same enjoyment as if he had sketched an image in black and
.
white Tragedy is a representation of an acti ö n , and for the sake of the action
above ali [a representation] of the peö ple who are acting .
Reasoning cö mes third , i.e. being able to şâ y vvhat is possible and appro-
priate, which is its function in the case of the speeches of civic life and
.
rhetoric The old [ poetS] made peö ple speak like citizens, but the recent ones
.
make them speak like rhetoricians Character is that which reveals decision,
of whatevet şort ; this is vvhy those speeches in which the speaker decides or
.
avoids nothing at ali do not have character Reasoning, on the öther hand ,
is that with which peöple dem önstrate that soitıething is ot is not , or make
some universal statement .
Diction is fourth , By “diction ” I mean , as we said earlier, communication
by means of langıiage, which has the same potential in the case of both verse
and [prose] Speeches .
Of the remaining [ parts], song is the niost important of the embellish -
.
ments Spectacle is something enthralling, but is very artless and least par*
ticular to the art of poetic composition. The potential of tragedy exists even
vvithout a performance and actors; besides, the designer’s art is more essen
tial for the accomplishment of spectacular [effects] than is the poets \
-
[ 7 ] Now that these definitions have been given , let us next discuss what
şort of structıire of the incidents there should be, since this is the first â tı d
.
most important [ part ] of tragedy We have laid down that tragedy is the
representation of a complete i .e. vvhole action which has some magnitude
( for there can be a vvhole vvith no magnitude ). A vvhole is that vvhich has a
beginning, a middle and a concl üsion. A beginning is that vvhich itself does
not of necessity follovv something else, but after vvhich there nat ü rally is, or
comes into being, something else. A concl ü sion , conversely, is that vvhich
itself nat ü rally follovvs something else, either of neCessity or for the most
.
part , but has nothing else after it A middle is that vvhich itself nat ü rally
-
follovvs something else, and has something else after it. Well constructed
plots, then, should neither begin from a raridom point nor conclude at a
random point, but should use the elements vVe haVe mentioned [i.e begin ^- .
ning, middle and concl üsion ] *
Further, to be fine both an animal and every thing vvhich is constructed
from some [ parts] should not only have these [ parts] in order, but also pos -
sess a magnitude that is not random . For fineness lies in magnitude and
 POETICS / 97

order. For this reason a fine animal can be neither very small , for observation
becomes confused vvhen it approaches an imperceptible instant of time; nor
[can it be ] very large, for [ 1451 a ] obserVation cannot happen at the same
time, but its unity and vvholeness vanish from the observers' view, e.g. if
there were an animal a thousand rniles long. Consequently, just as in the
case of bodies and of animals these should have magnitude , but [ only] a
magnitude that is easily seen as a vvhole , so too in the case of plots these
should have length, but [only] a length that is easily memorable.
As for the limit on their length , one limit relates to performances and the
perception [of them ], not to the art [ itself ]. If the performance of a hundred
tragedies were required [at one tragic Cömpetition ], they vvould be performed
“against the clock, ” as the saying göes! But as for the limit according to the
nature of the thing [itself ], the larger the plöt is , the firter it is because of its
magnitude, $o long as the vvhole is stili clear. To give a simple definition , in
whatever magnitude a change from misfortune to good fortune, or from good
fortune to misfortune, can come about by a sequence of events in accordance
—
with probability or necessity this is an adequate definition of its magnitude.
[8] A plot is not unified , as some suppose, if it concerns one single person.
An indefinitely large nUmber of things happens to One person , in some of
which there ,is no unity. So too the actions of one person are many, but do
not turtı into a single action; For this reason , it seems, ali those poets who
composed a Heracî eid, a Thesetd6 or similar poems are in error They suppose .
that, because Heracles was a single persort , his story too must be a single
story. But, just as Homer is superior in Other respects, it seems that he saw
this clearly as well (whether by art or by nature ). In cö mposing the Odyssey,
he did not put into his poem everything that happened to Odysseus,7 e.g. that
he was wounded on Pâ rnassus and prbtended to be insane during recruit -
ment; vvhether one of these things happened did not make it necessary or
.
probable that the other vvould happen But he constructed the Odyssey
aroUnd a single action of the kind we are discussing, and the Iliad similarly.
Therefore, just as in the other representatiottal arts a single representation
is of a single [ thitıg], so too the plot, since it is a representation of action ,
ought to represent a single action , and a whole one at that; and its parts ( the
incidents ) ought to be so constructed that, when some part is transposed or
removed , the vvhole is disrUpted and disturbed. Something vvhich , vVHether
it is present or not present , explains nothing [else ] , is no part of the vvhole.
[9 ] It is also obvious from vvhat vve have said that it is the function of a
poet to relate not things that have happened , but things that may happen ,
.
i e. that are possible in accordance vvith probability or necessity. For [ 1451 b]
the historian and the poet do not differ according to vvhether they vvrite in
—
verse or vvithout verse the vvritings of Hferodotus8 could be put into verse ,
but they vvould be no less a şort of history in verse than they are vvithout
verses. But the difference is that the former relates things that have hap -
pened the latter things that may happen; For this reason poetry is a more
^
philosophical and more serious thing than history; poetry tends to speak of

.
. —
6 . In ancfent Greece, there were several epic Her-
acleids and Theieids poems depicting, respec
tively, the heroes Herac les and Theseus.
7 . The wily klng of Ithaca whose efforts to retum
-
cled in the Odyssey
—
8. Greek historian (ca. 484 425 B.C. E .) , chiefly of
the Persian Wars; sometimes called “ the father öf
history.”
home to Greece after the Trojan War are chroni-
98 / ARISTOTLE

universals, history of particulars. A universal is the şort of thing that a certain

kind of person may well say or do in accordance vvith probability ,or neces -
—
sity this is what poetry aims at , although it assigns names [ to the people]
A particular is what Alcibiades 9 did or what he suffered; ‘
.
In the case of comedy this has already become clear When [comie poets] .
have composed a plot according to probability, only then do they supply the
names at random ; they do not , like the composers of lampoons, compose
[ poems ] about particular individuals. In the case of tragedy [the poets] keep
to actual names. The reason is that vvhat is possible is believable; we do not

—
believe that what has never happened is possible , but things vvhich have
happened are obviö usly possible tbey would not have happened , if they
were impossible. Nonetheless, even among tragedies some have only one or
two well-known names, and the rest made up; and some have not one, e g ..
Agathon’s 1 Antheus. In this [drama ] the incidents and the names alike are
.
made up, and it is no less delightful Consequently one must not seek to
keep entirely to the traditional stories vvhich tragedies are about. In fact it is
-
ridiculous to seek to do so, since even the vvell knovvn [incidents ] are knovvn
only to a fevv people, but even so everyone enjoys them .
So it is clear from these arguments that a poet must be a composer of
plots rather than of verses, insofar as he is a poet according to representation,
.
and represents actions So even if it turns out that he is representing things
that happened, he is no less a poet ; for there is nothing to prevent some of
the things that have happened from being the şort of things that may happen
.
according to probability, i e. that are possible, vvhich is vvhy he can make a
poetic composition about them. :

Among simple plots and actions, episodic [ tragedies] are the vvorst, By
“episodic ” I mean a plot in vvhich there is neither probability nor necessity
that the episodes follovv one another. Such [ tragedies] are composed by infe -
rior poets because of themselves, but by good ones because of the actors .
For in composing competition - pieces , they extend the plot beyond its poten -
tial and [ 1452a] are often compelled to distort the sequence .
The representation is not only of a complete action but also of terrifying
.
and pitiable [incidents] These arise to a very great or a considerable extent
vvhen they happen contrary to expectation but because of one another For .
they vvill be more amazing in this vvay than if [they happened ] on their ovvn ,
i . e. at random, since the most amazing even among random events are those
vvhich appear to have happened as it vvere on purpose, e.g. the vvay the statue
of Mitys at Argos2 killed the man vvho vvas the cause of Mitys * death , by
.
falling on him as he looked at it Such things do not seem to happen at
random. Consequently plots of this kind are necessarily finer .
[ 10] Among plots, some are simple and some are complex; for the actions,
of vvhich plots are representations, are evidently of these kinds. By “simple,”
I mean an action vvhich is, as vve have defined it, continuous in its course
and single, vvhere the transformation comes about vvithout reversal or rec
ognition. By “complex, ” I mean an action as a result of vvhich the transfor-
-
mation is accompanied by a recognition , a reversal or both. These should

9 . Athenian poHtidan and general ( ca. 450 404

. ..
B.C E ) :
— 2. The providentlal punishment of the murderer
of Mitys of Argos happened some time before or
.
1 . Innovative Athenian tragedian ( d ca . 401 around 3 4 B.C. E. [ translator’s note].
^
.
B . C. E . ); less than 40 lines of his svorks remain
 Po E T I c s / 99

arise from the actual structure of the plot , so it happens that they arise either
by necessity or by probability as a result of the preceding events. It makes a
great difference vvhether these [ events] happen because of those or [only ]
after those.
[ 1 1 ] A reversal is a change of the actions to their opposite, as we said , and
that , as we a re arguing, in accordance with probability or necessity E.g. in .
the Oedipus, 3 the man who comes to bring delight to Oedipus, and to rid
him of his terror about his mother, does the opposite by revealing vvho Oed -
ipus is; and in the Lynceus, 4 Lynceus is being led to his death , and Danaus
follovvs to kili him , but it comes about as a resujt of the preceding actions
that Danaus is killed and Lynceus is rescued .
A recognition , as the vvord itself indicates, is a change from ignorance to
knovvledge , and so to either friendship or enmity, among people defined in
.
relation to good fortune or misfortune A recognition is finest vvhen it hap-
pens at the same time as a reversal , as does the one in the Oedipus There .
are indeed other [ kinds of ] recognition . For it can happen in the manner
stated regarding inanimate objects and random events; and one can recog -
nise vvhether someone has done something or not done it But the şort that .
.
most belongs to the plot , i.e most belongs to the action , is that vvhich we
have mentioned : for such a recognition and reversal [ 1452b] vvill contain
pity or terror ( tragedy is considered to be a representation of actions of this
şort ) , and in addition misfortune and good fortune vvill come about in the
case of such events .
Since recognition is a recognition of people, some recögnitions are by one
person only of the other, vvhen the identity of one of them is clear; but
sometimes there must be a recognition of both persons E g Iphigeneia is . ..
recognised by Orestes 5 as a result of her sending the letter, but it requires
another recognition for him [ to be recognised ] by Iphigeneia . These, then ,
reversal and recognition , are tvvo parts of plot. A third is suffering. Of these,
.
vve have discussed reversal and recognition Suffering is a destructive or
painful action , e .g. deaths in full vievv , agonies, vvoundings ete.
[ 12 ] Regarding the parts of tragedy, vve stated earlier vvhich ones sho üld
.
be used as elements The quantitative parts, i.e. the separate parts into vvhich
it is divided , are as follovvs: ( i ) prologue, ( ii ) episode , ( iii ) exit and ( iv ) choral
[ part ] , vvith this divided into ( a ) processional and ( b ) stationary [song] tt
are shared by ali [ dramas] , and [ songs sung] from the stage, i.e. dirges
ö&e — —
these are particular [ to some ] .
( i ) A prologue is a vvhole part of a tragedy that is before the processional
[ song] of the chorus.
( ii ) An episode is a vvhole part of a tragedy that is betvveen vvhole choral
songs.
( iii ) An exit is a vvhole part of a tragedy after vvhich there is no song of the
chorus.
.
3. Oedipus Hex (ca . 430 B.C fi. ) , -— 4. Los t tragedy by the orator and tragic poet Theo -
—
by Sophocles a
pluy to which Aristotle frcquently refers as a model deetes ( ca. 375 334 B.C.E.), about the daughters
.
for his definit ı on of tragedy Unknovvingly , Ocdi - of King Danaus of Argos, vvho ordered them to kili
pus kills his father, Laius; tukes his father 's pî oce their husbands (ali obeyed except Hypermestra ,
as king of Thcbes; and marries his mother, Jocasta. whose husband was Lynceus ).
5. In Iphigeneia in Tauris (ca. 413 B.C. E . ), by
—
When he learns that he has not escaped the fate
foretold, he gouges out his eyes and ban ı shes hlm- .
Euripides (ca . 485 ca . 406 B.C E.), theyoungestof
self , bence undergoing a reversal from king to out - the 3 great Greek tragedians. .
cast.
100 / ARISTOTLE

( iv ) Of the choral [ part ] , ( a ) a processional is the first whole utterance of

the chorus; ( b ) a stationary song is a song of the chorus vvithout anapaestic6
trochaic verse; and ( c ) a dirge is a lament shared by the chorus and [ those]
on stage.
Regarding the parts of tragedy, we stated earlier which ones should be
.
used [as elements}; the qu â ntitative ones , i e the separate parts into which
it is divided , are these .
[13] After what we have just been saying, we must perhaps discuss next
what [ poets] should aim at and what they should beware of in constructing
. -
plots, i .e how tragedy will achieve its function. Since the construction of
the finest tragedy should be not simple but comp!ex, and moreover it should
represent terrifying and pitiable events (for this is particular to representation
of this şort ) , first, clearly, it should not show ( i ) decent men undergoing a
change from good fortune to misfortune; for this is neither terrifying nor
pitiable, but shocking. Nor [should it show] ( ii) wicked men [passing] from
misfortune to good fortune . This is most untragic of ali, as it has nothing of
what it should ; for it is neither morally satisfying nor pitiable nor terrifying.
[ 1453a ] Nor, again, [should it show] ( iii ) a thoroughly villainous person fail*
ing from good fortune into misfortune: such a structure can contain moral
satisfaction , but not plty or terror, for the former is [felt] for a person unde ^ -
serving of his misfortune, and the lattef for a person like [ourselves ] , Con-
sequently the outcome wil! be neither pitiable nor terrifying.
There remains, then, the person intermediate between these. Such a per-
son is one who neither is superior [ to üs] in virtue and justice , nor undergoes
a change to misfortune because öf vice and wickedness, but because of some
error, and who is one of those peoplevvith a great reputatiori and a good
fortune, e.g. Oedipus, Thyestes 7 and distin ğuished men from similar families.
Necessarily, then , a plot that is fine is single rather than ( as some say ) double,
and involves a change not from misfortune to good fortune, but conversely,
from good fortune to misfortune , not because of wickedness but because of
a great error by a person like the one mentioned, or by a better person rather
than a worse öne .
An indication [that this is so] is what is coming about. At first the poets
recounted stories at random , but now the finest tragedies are constr ü cted
around a fevv households, e .g. about Alcmeon, Oedipus * Orestes, Meleager,
Thyestes, Telephus and the others , who happen to have had dreadful things
done to them, or to have done them , 8 So the tragedy which is finest according
to the [ principles of the] art results from this structure. For this reason , people
make the same error when they bringagainst Euripides the charge that he does
this in his tragedies, and maıiy of his [ tragedies] end in misfortune; for this, as
we said , is correct. A very important indication [ that this is so is the follovving] .

6. Based on a foot of the syllabic pattern short- survive. Alcmaeon and Orestes kili their mothers,
-
short long (sometimes known as march ı ng meter
because of its regularity ).
Eriphylc and Clytemnestra, to avenge their fathers’
deaths and are drlven mad by the Furies ( female
7 . Like Oedipus, a popular subject for Greek trag-
edy, though none survive ; his story has numero ü s
demons who punish kin -murderers ); Meleagerkills
his uncles, and as a result his mother kills him ; and
vanants. He unknovvingly ate the f î esh of his own - ,
Telephus, fated to kili his great uncles is exposed
sons , served by his brother Atreus; and following by his grandfather (a tragedy by Euripides told of
the advice of an oracle, he committed incest with Telephus's vvound, received from Acn İİles as the
his daughter to beget the son who vvould avenge Greeks vvere preparing to sail for Troy, that vvould
him. not heal ). •
8. Fevv of the tragedies involving these characters
 POETICS / 101

On stage, i.e. in performarVce , tragedies of this sort , if they are done correctly,
are obviously the most tragic, and althoUgh Euripides manages badly in other
respects, he is obviously the most tragic of poets .
The second [ - best ] structure is that which some say is first , the [ tragedy]
vvhich has a double structure like the Ody$$ey > and which ends in opposite
ways for the better and worse [ perSons ]. This [structure ] Would seem to be
v first because of the vveakness of the audiences ; the poets folloW the specta -

tors , composing to s ü it their vvishes . But this is not the pleasure [that comes ]
from tragedy, but is more particular to comedy. There the bitterest enemies
in the story, e.g. Orestes and Aegisthus,9 exit as friends at the conclusion ,
and nobody kills anyone else *
[ 14, 1453b] That which is terrifying and pitiable can arise from spectacle,
but it can also arise from the structure of the incidents itself ; this is superior
and belongs to a better poet. For the plot should be constructed in such a
vvay that , even without seeing it , someone vvho hears about the incidents will
shudder and feel pity at the outcome, as someone may feel upon hearing the
.
plot of the Oediptıs To produce this by means of spectacle is less artful and
.
requires lavish pröduction Those [ poets ] vvho use spectacle to produce what
is only monstrous and not terrifying have nothing in common vvith tragedy*
For we should not seek every [kind of ] pleasure from tragedy, but [ö nly] the
.
sort vvhich is particular to it Since the poet should use representation to
produce the pleasure [arising] from pity and terror, it is obvious that this
must be put into the incidents.
Let us consider, then, vvhat sorts of occurrence arouse dread or compas -
sion in us. These sorts of action against each another necessarily take place
betvveen friends * enemies or people vvho are neither If it is one enemy [vvho.
does the action ] to another, there is nothing pitiable, vvhether he does it or
is [only ] about to do it, except in the suffefing itself * Nor [is it pitiable ] if the
.
people are neither [friends nor enemies ] But vvhen suffering happen vvithin
..
friendly relationships, e g brother against brother, son against father, mother
against son or son against mother, vvhen someone kills someohe else, is about
—
to, or does sorrlething else of the same sort <-these are vvhat must be sought
after.
[The poet ] cannot undo the traditional stories, I mean e.g. that GJytae -
mestra is killed by Orestes or Eriphyle by Alcmeon ; but he should invent for
. .
himself , i e ; use the inherited [ stories ] , vvell Let me expî ain more clearly
what I mean by “vvell ” .
The action may arise ( i ) in the vvay the old [ poets ] made people act knovv -
ingly, i.e. in full knovvledge, just as Euripides too made Medea 1 kili her chil -
dren. Or ( ii ) they may be going to act, in full knovvledge, but not do it. Or
( iii ) they may act , but do the dreadful deed in ignorance , and then recognise
the friendly relationship later, as Sophocles’ Oedipus [does]. This is outside
the drama; but [ they may do the deed ] in the tragedy itself , as Astydamas *
Alcmeon or Telegonus in the Wounded Odysseus 2 [do]. Again , fourth beside

9. Clytemnestra’s Iover (and Agamemnon’s .

2 A lost play bySophocles İ n whichTe!egonus , the
cousln ) , whom (in the version told İ n Aeschylus’s son of Odysseus and Circe, fatally vvounds hisfather
Agameninon ) Orestes also kills. .
vvithout kmnving his identity Astydamas (active
.
1 A sorceress from Colchis. In Medea ( 431 ..
ca. 390 B.C E ) , a prolific Athenian tragedian ;
B.c. E.), to avenge herself on Jason > who has Aİ cntaeott ( and ali but a few lines of his vvorks ) is
deserted her for the daughter of a ldng, she kills lost.
his — and her —children.
102 / ARISTOTLE

these [vvays] is ( iv ) to be about to do something deadly in ignorance [of one’s

relationship], but to recognise it before doing so. Beside these there is no
other vvay; for the act is necessarily either done or not done, and those vvho
act either have knovvledge or do not.
Among these [vvays], ( i ) to be about to act in full knovvledge, but not do
it , is the vvorst . For this is shocking and also not tragic, as there is no suf -
fering. For this reason nobody composes in this vvay, [ 1445a] except rarely,
e.g. Haemon against Creon in the Antigone.3 ( ii ) To act is second [ vvorst ] , -
( iii ) To act in ignorance, but recognise [the relationship] aftervvards, is better .
This has nothing shocking in it, and the recognition is astonishirig. ( iv ) The
..
last [vvay] is the best. I mean e g the Cresphontes, vvhere Merope is about
to kili her son , but does not kili him and recognises him ; the İ phigeneia,
vvhere [it is the same for] the sıster and her brother; and the Helle ,4 vvhere
the son is about to hand över his mother but recognises her. This is vvhy, as
vve said a vvhile ago, tragedies are not about many famî lies. [The poets]
sought to produce this şort [of effect ] in their plots, and discovered hovv to
not by art but by chance; so they are obliged to concern themselves vvith
those households in vvhich such sufferings have happened.
As for the structure of the incidents, and vvhat şort of plots there should
be, let this suffice.
[ 1 5 ] Regarding characters, tjıere are four things at vvhich [the poet ] should
aim.
( i ) First and foremost , the characters should be good. [The tragedy] vvill
have character if , as vve said , the speech or the action makes obvio ü s a deci-
sion of vvhatever şort; it vvill have a good character, if it makes obvious a
.
good decision [Good character] can exist in every class [of person ]; for a
vvoman can be good , and a slave can , although the first of these [classes]
may be inferior and the second vvholly vvorthless.
( ii ) Second , [ they should be ] appropriate. It is possible to be manly in
character , but it is not appropriate for a vvoman to be so manly or clever.
.
( iii ) Third , [the character should be life- ] like This is different from making
the character good and appropriate in the vvay already stated.
( iv ) Fourth , [ the character should be] consistent . If the model for the
representation is somebody inconsistent , and such a character is intended ,
even so it should be consistently inconsistent .
An example of unnecessary villainy of character is the Menelaus in the
Orestes; of the unsuitable and inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in the
Scylhiy and the speech of Melanippe;5 and of the inconsistent , the İ phigeneia
at Aulis ( the girl vvho begs [for her life ] does not seem at ali like the later
iphigeneia).6
In the characters too, exactly as in the structure of the incidents, [ the

. .
3. By Sophocles (ca. 441 B C.E ). Haemon , vvho Scylla: a lost dithyramb by Timotheus, in which
loves Antigone, tries to kili his father ( Creon , king Odysseus weeps in an unmanly vvay for his crew
of Thebes ) , vvho ı s responsible for her suicide. members killed by the monster Scylla.
.
4 Nothing more is knovvn of this play. The Cres - .
fi . That is, Iphlgenia al Tauris Euripides’ play set
rthontes ( novv lost ) and Iphigenia in Tauris are both at Aulis (ca . 405 B.C.E.) depicts Iphigenia about to
by Euripides. be söcrificed by her father, Agame ıtinon, so that
5. İ n Melanippe the Wise , a lost play by Euripides;
the heroine apparently argues vvith a philosophical
sophistication İ nappropriate for a vvoman. Mene -
^
the C reeks may have fair vvinds as they Wall to Troy;
acc ö rding to one versİon of the myth , she vvas
saved by Artem İ s and transported Far avvay to
. .
laus in the Orestes; İ n Euripides’ play (408 B C.E ) , Tauris, vvhere she becomes nigh prlestess (and
Menelaus basely refuses to help his nephevv ; vvhere Orestes later comes).
 POETICS / 103

poet ] ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable , so that it is

either necessary or probable that a person of such and -such a şort say or do -
things of the same şort , and it is either necessary or probable that this [inci -
dent ] happen after that one.
It is obvious that the Solutions of plots too should come about as a result
of the plot itself , [ 1454 b] and not from a contrivance, as in the Medea and
in the passage about sailing home in the Iliad .7 A contrivance must be used
for matters outside the drama ither previous events which are beyond
human knowledge , or later ones that need to be foretold or annpunced. For
we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improb-
able in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g. that in
Sophocles' Oedipus.
Since tragedy is a representation of people who are better than we are,
[ the poet ] should emulate the good portrait - painters. In rendering people’s
-
particular shape , while making them [life ] like, they paint them as finer [ than
they are]. So too the poet , as he represents people who are angry , Iazy, or
have other such traits , should make them such in their characters, [ but ]
decent [ too]. E.g. Homer [ made] Achilles8 good as well as an example of
stubbornness. [The poet ] should guard against these things, as well as against
[causing] reactions contrary to those that necessarily follow from the art of
poetry. In fact one can often make errors in these; there is a sufficient
account of them in my published work.
[ 1 6 ] We stated earlier what recognition is . As for the kinds of recognition ,

—
( i ) the first is the least artful , which [poets] make most use of from lack of
resourcefulness recognition by signs. Of these, (a ) some are congenital ,
e.g. “the spear- head that the earth born bear , ” or [the birth marks like ] stars
- -
such as Carcinus9 [made up ] in his Thyestes. ( b ) Others are acquired. Of
these ( 1 ) some are on the body, e .g. scars, and ( 2 ) others are external , e.g.
necklaces, and e .g. [the recognition ] by means of the dinghy in the Tyro. 1
These can be used more or less well; e .g. Odysseus was recognised from
his scar in one way by the nurse, and in another by the swineherds.2 For the
Iatter recognitions, and ali similar ones, are less artful because of the [ means
of ] proof ; but those that result from a reversal, like that in the “ Bath -scene, ”
are better. ~r
( ii ) Second are those recognitions made up by the poet , which is why they
are not artful . E.g. in the Iphigeneia, how Orestes makes it knovvn that he is
Orestes; for Iphigeneia is recognised by means of the letter, but he himself
says what the poet wants, not what the plot does. For this reason , this rec-
ognition is not far from the error we [ just ] mentioned ; Orestes could have
brought some actual objects. Also “ the shuttle’s voice ” in Sophocles’ T<erews. 3

—
7 . In Iliad 8.155 81 , only the arbitrary interven
tion of the goddess Athena prevenls the Greeks
- lost Antigone.
1 . A lost play by Sophocles; Tyro’s sons are abon -
from giving up the fight at Troy and going home. doned in a small boat that leads to their later rec-
The Medea: after killing her children , Medea flies ognition . •
-
off in the chariot of the sun god Helios, hergrand -
.
2 . Odysseus is recognized artfully ( because inevi -
tnbiy) by his nurse when he shows them his scar
—
father; this "contrivance ” is the deus ex machina
8. The greatest warrior among the Greeks and the in the "bath scene ” ( Odyssey 19.386 475 ); but his
. declaration of his identity to the swineherds , when
—
ccntral character of the Iliad He dispî ays his
".stubbornness ” by long refusing to engage in the he shows them the scar as proof ( 21.205 25 ) , is
balllc because of his anger with Agomemnon , the manufactured by the poet.
tender of the Greek forces. 3. A lost play. Philomela telis her sister the story

The prcccding quotation may be from Euripides’

.
9. Prolif ı c Greek tragic poet ( enrly 4 th c. B.C t :.). of her rape by Tereus, who has torn out her tongue
to silence her , by weaving a picture of it.
104 / ARISTOTLE

(iii ) The third [ kind of recognition ] is by means of a memory, when some -

oine reacts to something he sees, [ 1455 a ] like the one in Dicaeogenes' Cyp -
riots where he bursts into tears upon seeing the painting, or the one in the
“Tale told to Alcinous”4 where Odysseus hears the lyre-player and weeps at
his memories, as a result of which they recognise him ;
( iv ) Fourth is recognition resulting from an inferehce, e.g. in the Libation
Bearers, on the grounds that “someone like [ Electra ] has cornej but there is
nobody like [ her] except Orestes; it is he, then , who has come ” 5 Or the .
recognition [ proposed by] the sophist Polyidus concerning Iphigeneia: it
wou!d be reasonable, he said , for Orestes to infer that “ his sister was sacri -
ficed * and it [ now] falls to him to be sacrificed himself ” Or in Theodectes’ .
Tydeus , on the grounds that “he came to find a son , but is to die himself ” .
Or the recognition in the Som of Phineus:6 when the women see the place
they infer their fate, on the grounds that “ they are fated to be killed there,
for [ the boys] were left to perish there ” .
There is also a combined recognition resulting from a false inference by
the audience, e.g. in Odysseus the False Messenger:7 fot the fact that [Odys-
seus could ] bend the bow,; but nobody else [could ] , is made up by the poet
and is a premise, and [ so is Odysseus’] sayirtg that he would recognise the
bow which he had not Veen ; but the way he is expected to make himself
knowri by the former means, but does so by thfe latter, is a [case of ] false
inference.
( v ) The best recognition of ali . is that vvhich results from the incidents
themselves, when our astonishment comes about by means of probable [inci-
dents ] , e.g. in Sophocles’ Oedipus and the Iphigeneia : it is probable that
.
Iphigeneia wou!d wish to dispatch a letter For such recogn ı tions alone are
- .
without made up [ incidents ] and necklaces Recognitions as a result of infer -
ence are second [- best ].
[ 17 ] In . constructing his plots and lising diction to : bring therri to
completion, [ the poet ] should put [ the events ] before his eyes âs much as he
can. Irt this way, seeing them very vividly as if he were actually preseni at
the actioris [ he represerits], he can discover what is suitable, and is least
.
likely to miss contradictions An indication of this is the [contradiction ] for
vvhich Carcinus was criticised. His Amphiaraus comes up out of a shrine;8
this vv ö uld have been missed by anyone not seeing it as a spectator. But [ the
play] failed on stage , as the spectators were upset about it .
As far as possible , [ the poet should ] also bring [his plots] to completion
with gestures. Given the same nature* those [ poets ] who experience the emo-
tions [ to be represented ] are most believable , i.e. he who is agitated or furious
[can represent ] agitation and anger most truthfully. For this reason , the art
of poetry belongs to the genius or the madman; of these, the first are adapt -
able, the second can step outside themselves .
As for his stories, both those [ already] made ü p and those he composes
himself , [ 1455 b] he should set them out as universals, and only then intro-
duce episodes , i.e. extend thetn. I mearı that he might investigate whâ t , ıS

4 . King of the Phaeacians and Odysseus'* hoşt in 168-234 . . . . .

— —
Iliad 7 12 ( for the telltale weeping, see 8.521 34 ).
. .
Dicaeogenes ( late 5 th c B G.E.) , a tninor Greek tra -
, . .
6. Lost as is Tydeus. Polyidus (early 4 th c B.C. E ),
perhaps the poet and critic Polyidus of Selymbria.
gedian . • .
7 A fost play by an unknovvn author.
5 . Aeschylus, Libation Bearers ( 458 ...
B C E ), Iines .
8 In a lost play .
 P O ET İ cs / 105

ü niversel in them in the following way, e.g. [ the story] of Iphigeneia: “a girl
has been sacrificed and disappears in a way unclear to the people who sac-
rificed her. She is set dovvn in another country, where there i$ a lavv that
foreigners must be sacrificed to the goddess; this is the priesthood she is
given. Some time later it tums o ut that the priestess' brother arrives; . .” .
The fact that the oracle commanded him to go there, for some reason that
is not a universal , and his purpose [in going] , are outside the plot “After he .
arrives , he is captured . When he is about to be sacrificed [by his sister ] , he
makes himself known [ to her] , ” either as Euripides or as Polyidus arranged
— —
it , “ by saying ^as would be probable that it was not only his sister’s fate to
be sacrificed , but his ovvn too. This leads to the rescue.” After this [ the poet ]
should now supply the names and introduce episodes. Take çare that the
episodes are particular [ to the story], e.g.; in Orestes' case his madness
through vvhich he is captured , and his rescue by means of the purification.
In dramas the episodes are brief , but epic is lengthened out vvith them .
The story of the Odyssey is not long: “ someone has been avv â y fröm home for
many years, with a god on the watch for him , and he is alone. Moreover
affairs at home are such that his vvealth is being consumed by [ his vvife’s]
suitors , and his son is being plotted against [ by them ] . He arrives after much
distress, makes himself knovvn to some people, and attacks. He is rescued ,
his enemies annihilated.” This is what is proper [ to the Odyssey]; its other
[ parts] are episodes.
[ 18] [ Part ] of every tragedy is the complication , and [ part ] is the sol ü tion .
The [incidents] outside [the tragedy] and often some of those inside it are
the complication , and the rest is the sol ü tion. By “complication , ” I mean the
[tragedy] from the beginning up to the final part from vvhich there is a trans -
formation towards good fortune or misfortune; by “solü tion /’ the [ tragedy]
from the beginning of the transformation :up to the end. E.g. in Theodefctes'
LynceuSy the prior incidents, the capture of the baby and then its parents '
explanatiö n is the complication , and the [ tragedy] from the demand for the
death penalty up to the end is the sol ü tion.
There are four kinds of tragedy ( for we said that its parts too are of the
same number ): ( i ) the complex tragedy, the whole of vvhich is reversal and
recognition; ( ii ) the tragedy of suffering* e.g. the [ tragedies called ] Ajax and
-
[1456a ] Ixion;9 ( iii ) the tragedy of char â cter, e.g. the Wofnen of Phthicri&ftd
the Peleus / ( iv ) the fourth [ kind ] is spectacle, e .g the Daughters of Phorcys ,
the ProiHetheus 2 and [ dramas set ] in Hades. Preferably [ the pbet] should
4

attempt to have ali [ the parts]; othervvise , the most important and the major-
ity of them , especially given the way people belittle poets novvadays. Since
there have been poets good at each part [ of tragedy], they demand that a
single [ poet ] surpass the particular good [quality] of each one; but it is not
right to cali a tragedy the same [as another ] or different according to anything

9. No p!ay of this name survives. Ix î on was the first Sophocles and Euripides vvrote plays titled Peleus.
to murder kin and attempted to rape Hera, queen 2 . Perhaps Aeschylus's Prometheus Boutuf , vvhose
of the gods; as punishment for the second erime , herö speaks while bound to the roeks in the Cau -
he is chained foreverto a wheel in the underworld . CBSUSJ Daughters of Phorcys: perhdps by Aeschylus.
Ajaxt Sophocles' play (ca. 445 n.C.E.) telis the story Phorcys was a sea god , and his daughters were
of the Greek warrİor driven mad by Athena who monsters: the 3 Graeae, old women who shared
then commits suicide out of shame.
1. Both lost works revolve around the fami î y of
-
one tooth and one eye , and the 3 serpent haired
Gorgons , the sight of vvhom tumed humans to
Achilles, who was the son of Peleus and came from stone.
Phthia . Wonten of Phthia is by Sophocles; both
106 / ARISTOTLE

so much as the plot, that is, [ plots] with the same development and solution.
Many fpoets] develop [ the plot ] vvell and solve it badly, but one should har-
monise both [ parts] .
[The poet ] ought to remember what we have often said , and not compose
a tragedy with an epic strueture ( by an “epic ” structure, I mean one vvith
more th$n one plot ), e.g. if someone were to compose [a tragedy with ] the
.
whole plot of the Iliad For there , the parts receive suitable magnitude
because of the length [of the epic ]; but in dramas the result is far from one’s
expectation.
An indication [ that this is so is the follovving]: those [ tragedians] who
composed a Sack of Troy as a whole and not in part like Euripides, or a
Niobe 3 and not like Aeschylus, either fail or compete badly, since even Aga -
.
thon failed in this one respect In reversals and in simple incidents, they aim
to arouse the amazement which they desire; for this is tragic and morally
satisfying. This is possible when someone who is clever but villainous is
deceived , like Sisyphus,4 or someone who is brave but unjust is defeated.
This is even probable , as Agathon says; for it is probable that many things
will happen even against probability.-
[The poet ] should regard the chorus as one of the actors It should be a .
part of the whole , and contribute to the performance, not as in Euripides
but as in Sophocles. In the rest the sung [ parts] belong to the plot no more
than they belong to another tragedy. For this reason they sing interludes;
.
Agathon was first to begin this Yet what difference is there betvveen singing
interludes and trying to adapt a speech, or a whole episode, from one [drama ]
to another?
[19 ] We have discussed the other elements [of tragedy]; it remains to
discuss diction and reasoning. As for reasoning, what was said about it in
my Rhetoric 5 should be assumed ; for this is proper rather to that enquiry. Ali
[ the effects] that have to be produced by speech fail under reasoning. The
types of these are ( i ) demonstration and refutation, ( ii) the production of
emotions [ 1456 b] ( e.g. pity, terror, anger, ete.) , and again ( iii ) [arguments
about things’] importance or unimportance.
In the incidents too [ the poet ] clearly should use some of the same ele-
ments when he needs to make things [ e.g.] pitiable, dreadful , important or
probable, except that there is this difference, that these [effects] should be
apparent vvithout a production , but those dependent on speech should be
produced by the speaker and arise from speech . What vvould be the
speaker’s funetion , if the element were apparent even vvithout [ the use of ]
speech?
Among matters related to diction, one kind of investigation is the forms
of the diction. Knovvledge of this belongs to the art of delivery and to the
person vvith mastery in it. [ I mean ] e.g. vvhat is a comniand , vvhat is a vvish,
a statement, a threat , a question , an ansvver, ete. No criticism at ali made

.
3 There are no known epics concerning Niobe; nally for betraying Zeus’s secrets; he tries to roll a
stö ne över the top of a steep hill, but alway9 faili
Aeschylus’s Niobe is lost, Sack of Troy: a poem in
..
the epic eyele, hy Lesches of Mytiline ( ca 7 th c .
B.C.E . ) or Arctİ nus of Miletus (ca . 8 th c B.C. E.).
.
and must try again from the bottom Aeschylus,
Sophocles , and Euripides ali wrote plays on Sisy
. -
— -
Euripides treated some of the same events in his phut
Trojan Womett and Hecuba . .
S In a diacussion of typea of argument; lee Hhal
.
.
4 A siy trlckster who murdered travelers and ö nce orio 1356a 1358a
even chained the god of death, he İı punished eter -
 POETICS / 107

against the art of poetry , that is based on knovvledge or ignorance of these

[forms ] , actually deserves to be taken seriously. What error could anybody
consider there to be in “Sing, goddess, of the vvrath, ” which Protagoras6
criticises on the grounds that [ Homer] supposes he is making a vvish , but is
giving an order? ( For Protagoras says that telling someone to do something
or not do it is an order. ) For this reason let us leave this investigation aside ,
as it belongs to another art and not to that of poetry.
[ 20 ] The parts of diction in its entirety are as follovvs: ( i ) the element [ i.e.
letter ] , ( ii ) the syllable, ( iii ) the partide, ( iv ) the conjunction , (v ) the name
.
[ i.e noun or adjective ] , ( vi ) the verb, ( vii ) the inflection , (viii ) the utterance.
—-
( i ) The element is an indivisible sound not every [kincj of ] sound , but
one from vvhich it is natural for a composite sound to arise. For wild animals
too make indivisible sounds , none of vvhich I mean by an element. The types
of this [ kind of ] sound are ( a ) the vovvel , ( b ) the semi-vovvel and (c ) the
consonant .
( a ) A vovvel is that vvhich has an audible sound vvithout a contact [ betvveen
the parts of the mouth ]. ( b ) A semi-vovvel is that vvhich has an audible sound
.
vvith [such] a contact , e.g. s and r (c ) A consonant is that vvhich has no
audible sound in itself vvith [such ] a contact , but becomes audible together
vvith those elements that have a sound of some şort ; e.g g and d . .
The elements differ according to the forms of the mouth, the places [ in
the mouth vvhere they are produced ] , aspiration , non -aspirâ tion , length ,
shortness, and also high , lovv or intermediate pitch. One must investigate
the particulars of these matters in vvorks on versification.
( ii ) A syllable is a non-significant sound composed of a consonant and [an
element ] vvhich has sound. In fact gr vvithout â n a is a syllable, and [it is also
a syllable ] vvith an a , as in gra. But the investigation of the differences
betvveen these also belongs to the art of versification .
( iii ) A partide is (a ) a non -significant sound vvhich neither precludes,
[ 1457a ] nor brings about , the production of a single significant sound that
by nature is composed of several sounds [ i.e. an utterance], and vvhich it is •

not appropriate to place at the beginning of an utterance on its ovvn , e.g.

men, etoiy de . Or [ it is ] ( b ) a non -significant sound vvhich by nature pro-
duces, as a result of [ joining together] several sounds that are significant , *
a single significant sound [ i .e. an utterance ], e .g. "about, ” “concerning”
-
ete .
( iv ) A conjunction is a non -significant sound vvhich makes clear the begin -
ning of an utterance , its end or its dividing-point , and vvhich by nature is
placed both at the extremities and in the middle [of an utterance], e.g "or, ” .
“because, » « but.”
( v ) A name [ i.e. noun or adjective ] is a composite significant sound vvithout
[an indication of ] time, no part of vvhich is significant in itself . For in double
names we do not use [any part ] as being significant in and of itself: e.g. in
“Theodore ” [ i .e. “gift of god ” ] dore is not significant .
( vi ) A verb is a composite significant sound vvith [an indication of ] time,
no part of vvhich is significant in itself , just as in the case of names. For
“ human being” or “vvhite ” does not signify vvhen , but “vvalks ” or “ vvalked ”

-.
6 , Pre Socratic .
ph ü osopher ( 5 th c n .c. K . ) , who was one of the moat tuccessful of the iophists , oritinerant
tenehers “ Sin # . . .
the Arat vvords of the î liad
108 / ARISTOTLE

signifies this as vvell , present time in the first case , and past time in the
second.
( vii ) An inflection of a name or verb is either (a ) the inflection according
to the [ part ] that signifies “of him , ” “for him , ” ete., or ( b ) that according to
the [ part ] that signifies “one ” or “ many,” e.g. “ person ” or “persons,” or (c )
that according to the delivery, e.g. according to [ vvhether it is ] â question or
an order; for “did he vvalk? ” or “ vvalk!” is an inflection of the verb according
to these kinds .
( viii ) An utterance is a composite significant sö und , some parts of vvhich
.
signify something in themselves For not every utterance is composed of
.
verbs and names, e.g the definition of a human being, but there can be an
utterance without verbs. However, an utterance will always have a part that
..
signifies something [in itself ], e g “Cleon ” İ n “Cleon vvalks , ”
An utterance cari be single in two ways, either ( a ) by signifying one thing,
. ..
or ( b ) by a conjunction of several th ı ngs E g the î liad is one by a conjunction
[ of many things ], but the definition of a human being is one by signifying
one thing,
[ 21] The kinds of name are ( i ) single ( by “single, ” I mean that vvhich is
not composed from [parts] that are significant* e.g; “earth ” ), and ( ii ) double .
Of the double name, ( a) one [kind ] is composed of [a part ] that is significant
-
and [a part ] that is non Significant, except that , these [ parts] are not signifi
cant and non -significant in the [double ] name [itself ] ; ( b ) the other [ kind ] is
-
.
composed of . [ parts] that are significant There cari be a triple and a quad -
.
ruple name, even a multiple one; e.g most of the names of the people of
Marseilles, “Hermocaicoxanthus,7 who prays to Zeus.” [1457 b] Every name
is either ( i ) Standard , ( ii ) exotic, ( iii ) a metaphor, ( iv ) an ornament , ( v ) made
up, ( vi ) Iengthened / ( vii ) reduced or (viii ) altered .
-
By ( i ) “Standard , ” I mean a name vvhich a particular peöple uses; by ( ii )
“eXotic , ” I mean one vvhich other people uses. Consequently it is obvious
that it is possible for the same [ name ] to be both exotic and Standard , but
.
not for the same people For sigutıon ( “spear ” ) is Standard for the Cypriots , 8
but exotic for us; and “spear” is Standard for us, but exotic for the Cypriots .
( iii ) A “ metaphor” is the application [to something] of a name belonging
to something else, either ( a ) from the genus to the species, or ( b ) from the
species to the genus , or ( c ) from a species to [ another] species, or (d ) accord -
ing to analogy.
By ( a ), “from genus to species,” I mean e.g. “ here stands my ship ”: for [ the
.
species] lying at anehor is a [part of the genus] standing By ( b ) , “from species
to genus , ” I mean e.g. “ truly has Odysseus done ten th öusand deeds of
vvorth ”: for [the species] “ ten th öusand ” is [ part of the genus] “ many, ” and
.
[ Homer] uses it here instead of “a > Iot” By (c ) , “from species to species,” I
mean e.g. [ killing a man by] “draining out his life vvith bronze ” [ ı ;e. â
- -
vveapon], and [dravving vvater by ] “ cutting it vvith long edged bronze ” [i e a
bovvl ]: for here [ the poet ] calls cutting “draining” and draining “cutting”
..
.
.
Both are [species of the genus ] “ taking avvay ” By (d ) , “analogy, ” I mean vvhen
b is to a as d is to c ; f ör [ the poet then ] vvill say d .instead of b > or b instead
of d .
7 . A comical name compounded from the names seilles ( then called Massalia ) originated.
of three rivers ( Hermu $, CaYcus, and Xanthu's ) in 8. That is, those speaking the dialect of Greek
westem Asia Min ör, where the founders of Mar - used on the island of Cyprus.
 POETICS / I 09

Sometimes too [ poets] add [ to the metaphor] the thing to vvhich the name
. .
relates, insteâd of what it means I mean e g. that the vvine bovvl stands to -
Dionysus as * the ; shield does to Ares:9 so [ the poet ] vvillcall a vvine - bovvl
“shield of Dionysus ” and a shield “wine ~ bovvl of Ares ” Again , as old age .
stands to life, so the evening stands to the day: so [ the poet ] will cali evening
“old age of the day, ” as Empedocles does , and old age “ the evening of life ”
or “ the sunset of life.”
Tilere may be rio current name for some of the things in the analogy, but
even so they will be expressed in the same way. E .g to scatter seed is to sovv , .
and to sçatter radiance from the sun has no name; but this has the same
.
relation to the sun as sowing does to the seed For this reason [ the poet] says
-
“sowing god wrought radiance.”
This manner of [ making a ] metaphor ca'n be used in another way too After .
terming somethin ğ by a nartı e that belongs to something else, one can deny
to it one of the things particu î ar to [ that other thing], e g if [a poet ] called ..
a shield not “wine-bowl of Ares ” but “vvine - bovvl vvithout vvine.”
( iv ) [An “ornament ” is *** ] J
-
( v ) A “ made up [ name ] ” is one vvhich isvvholly unused by people , but
vvhich the poet supplies himself. There woılld seem to be some such names,
.
e.g “branchers ” for “ horns ” or “prayerman ” for “ priest . ”
;
—
(vi ) (vii ) As for lengthened [ 1458a ] or shortened nameS, the former is one
vvhich, uses a longer vowel than the one particu î ar [ to it ] , or an inserted
.
jsyllable, The latter is one some [ part] of vvhich has been shortened A length - .
.
ened [name] is e.g polâos for poleös “of the city,” and Peleiadeö for Peleidou
.
“son of . Peleus”; a shortened [name] is e g, hri [for krithe ] “barleyv ” d ö [for
doma ] “mansion ” and , in “one seefilg comes from both [eyes], ” ops [for opsis ]
“seeing. ”
(viii ) An altered [name ] is vvhen [the poet ] leaves some of the appellation
[unaltered ], but makes up some of it, e. g. “ by her righter breast ” instead of
“right ” . .
Among names [in ] themselves, ( a ) some are masculine , ( b) some are fem *
. .
initıe and (c ) some are in betvveen [i e. neuter ] 2 ( a ) Masculine names are
those^ that end in n, r, s and the elements that are composed of s; there are
;

tvvo of these, ps and x [ i .e. ks ] . ( b) Feminine names are ( i ) those that end in
the vovve î s that are alvvays long, i.e , in e and ö, and ( ii ) those that end in a
among the vovvels that may be lengthened . Consequently the elements in
vvhich the masculine and feminine names end turn out to be equal in number
.
[i .e. three ] , for ps and x are composite No names end in a consonant , nor
.
in a short vovve î [ that is alvvays short ] There are only three names ending in
i, “ honey,” “gum ” and “pepper ” ( melt, kommiy peperi ) ; there are five ending
in u , “spear, ” “fleece, ” “ mustard , ” “khee” and “city” ( doru , pöu, tıapu, gonu,
.
astu) The [ names] that are in betvveen end in these elements [ a , i and u ] ,
and in n, [r] and s .
[ 22 ] The virtue of diction is to be clear and not commonplace. Diction
made up of Standard names is clearest, but is commonplace An example is .
the poetry of Cleophon and that of Sthenelus.3 Diction that uses unfamiliar

9. Greck god of war. 2. Some editors condemn this paragtaph ( wh İ ch

1 Aristptlc distinguishes between ornamental and contains much that İs not true ) as spurious.
Standard names, but his account here is missing in .
3 Pefhaps a trasic pofct whöSe styie waS mocked
ali surviving manuscripts. by Aristophanes [ translatör’4 note].
110 / ARISTOTLE

names is grand and altered from the everyday. By “ unfamiliar, ” I mean the
exotic [ name] , metaphor, lengthening and everything that is contrary to what
.
is Standard But if someone makes ali [ the names] of this şort , [ his poem ]
will be either a riddle or gibberish ^ If [it is composed ] of metaphbrs, it will
be a riddle; if of exotic [ nariies], gibberish . For it is the form of ek riddle to
use an impossible combinaf ıon [ of names ] in saying tHinşs that ar£ the case.
.
This cann öt be done with tHe combination of the other nattıes, but i£ possible
with metaphor, e.g. “ I saw a man glue bronze on a man with fire, ” ete Things .
.
[composed ] of exotic name are gibberish [The poet ], theh, should mixthese
. ^ ..
[ two kinds] in some way The first (e g the exotic name, metaphor , ornament
and the other kinds we mentioned ) will produce that vvhich is not everyday
and commonplace, and the ş tandard name vvill produce elâ rity,
Lengthenings, curtailments and alterations of names make no small con-
tribution [ 1458 b] towards makı ng the diction clear and not everyday These .
will produce what is not everyday, because of their variation from what is
Standard , as they are contrary t ö the norm , but clarity will come from what
they have in common with the norm , Consequently those who criticize this
manner of speech and ridicule the poet [for using it] arfe not correct to abuse
.
him. E g. old Euclides, to show that it is easy to compose if [a poet ] is allowed
to lengthen [ names] as much as he vvishes , composed as a lampoon in his
words “ I saw Epichares walking to Marathon ” and “ not mixing hellebore for
him.”4 To use this manner in some obvious way is laughable [The need for] .
due measure is shared by ali the types [of unfamiliar names]. For [a poet ]
who purposely uses metaphors, exotic [names], and the other kinds unsuit
ably, with a view to arousing la ı jghter, can accomplish the same [effect ].
-
How much what is appropriate is superior [ to what is inappropriate ] can
be observed , in the case of lengthened [names ], by inserting the [ştandard ]
.
names into the verse [instead ] In the case of exotic [ names ], as well as
metaphors and the other forms * someone who substitutes the Standard
.
names can see that what we are saying is true E .g. when Euripides composed
the same iambic verse as Aeschyl ü s, and substituted only one name, an exotic
name instead of the usual Standard one, his verse seems fine , but Aeschyl üs’
.
seems ordinary For Aeschyl ü s in his Philoctetes 5 composed the verse
“ the gangrene which eats at the flesh of my foot , ”
but Euripides substituted “feasts on ” for “ eats at.” Also , [in the verse ]
“now I am a paltry man, nothing worth and plain , ”*

suppose that someone substituted the Standard names to say

“now I am a little man , a feeble one and ugly. ”

Compare too
“setting down a squalid hassock and a paltry table, ”7

4. The two phrases are unrelated ; both contain Euripides survives ). Philoctetes, who used the bow
wor<Is with arbitrarily lengthened syllables. EucJ î>
and arrows of Heracles, sailed with the Greeks for
des: ident î ty unknown ; both an Athenian magis- Troy but was Ieft behind on an island because g
trate and a Megoran philosopher of that neme were wound on his foot , caused by snakebite, produced
aetive ca . 400 B.c. E. Epichares: a common name a horrible smell. He remained alone for lO. years,
in Athens. Marathon: a Iarge Attlc city on the until on the advice of an Oracle he and his bow
northeast coast. “ Hellebore ”: an herb thoughi t ö were brought to Troy.
be a cure for madness. 6. Odyssey 9.515.
5. A Iost play ( the Philoctetes of Sophocles but not 7. Odyssey 20.259.
 P O E TÎ C S / 111

with
“setting down a nasty hassock and a little table,”
or “the headlands bellovv ” with “the headlands yeli.”
Again , Ariphrades” ridiculed the tragedians on the grounds that they use
things which nobody would say in his [ everyday] speech , e.g. “vvithout the
palace ” and not “outside the palace , ” “of thee, ” “ mine own, ” [1459a ] “Achil -
les round ” and not “around Achilles, ” etc < Because ali such [names ] are not
among the Standard ones, they produce what is not everyday in the diction .
But Ariphrades was ignorant of this .
It is important to use each of the [kinds] mentioned suitably, both double
names and exotic ones, but the metaphorical [ kind ] is the most important
by far. This alone ( a ) cannot be acquired from someone else, and ( b ) is an
indication of genius. For to make metaphors well is to observe what is like
[ something else].
Among names, double ones are most appropriate for dithyrambs, exotic
ones for heroic [ verses] 9 and metaphors for iambic verses. In heroic verses
ali the [kinds] mentioned are useful. In iambic verses, because these repre-
sent [everyday] diction as far as possible , those [ kinds] of names are appro-
priate which one can use in [ prose ] speeches too. These are the Standard
name, metaphor and ornament .
As for tragedy, i.e. representation by means of acting, let this account
suff ıce us.
[ 23] As for the art of exposition and representation in verse, it is clear that ,
just as in tragedies, [the epic poet ] should construct plots that are dramatic
( i.e. [ plots] about a single vvhole action that is complete , with a beginning,
middle [ parts ] and end ) , so that it will produce the pleasure particular to it,
as a single whole animal does. The constructions [of of the ı ncidents] should
not be like histories; in these it is necessary to produce a description not of
a single action , but of a single time , with ali that happened during it to one
or more people; each [ event ] relates to the others at random. Just as the sea -
battle at Salamis and the battle against the Carthaginians in Sicily happened
at the same time, 1 but did not contribute to the same end , so too in sequential
[ periods of ] time one thing sometimes comes about after another, but from
these there comes about no single end. But this is what the majority, aknost ,
of [epic] poet do.
For this reason , as we said already, Homer appears marvellous compared
to the others, in that he did not undertake to put ı nto his composition even
the [Trojan ] war as a vvhole, although it has a beginning and an end. For the
plot vvould probably have been too big and not easily seen as a vvhole; or, if
it vvere moderate in magnitude, [ it vvould have been too ] complex in its variety
[of incidents]. As it is, selecting a single part [ of it ] , Homer has used many
.
of them as episodes, e.g he diversifies his composition vvith the “Catalogue
of Ships”2 and other episodes. The other [ poets] compose about a single man ,
a single time , or a single action that has many parts, e.g he vvho composed .
the [ 1459 b] Cypria and the Little Iliad .* Consequently one or at most tvvo
8. An unknovvn comic poet . the Carthaginians occurred on the same day in 480
.
9 That is, verses in the meter of epic ( dactylic ...
BC E
lı exameter ). 2. Jliad 2.484-759 .
.
1 According to Herodotus ( 7.166. 1 ) , the victory .
3 Poems in the epic cycle, of unknovvn authorship:
of the Greek fleet över the Persians at Sa İ am İ s and the Cypria related the origins of the Trojan War
the victory of the Sicilian Greeks led by Gelon över and the Little lltad events after the end of the lliad .
112 / ARISTOTLE

tragedies in each case are produced from the Iliad and the Odyssey; but many
[are produced ] from the Cypria , and from the Lİ ttle Iliad more than eight ,
e.g. the Judgment of Arms , Philoctetes , Neoptolemtıs , Eurypylus , Vagabond
'

agey Laconian VVomen, Sack of Troy, Embarkation, Sirton, and Trojan

-
XVomen. 4
[ 24 ] Again , epic must have the same kinds as tragedy, for [ it must be]
either ( i ) simple or ( ii ) complex, (iii ) an epic of character or ( iv ) one of suf -
fering. Its parts, except for song and spectacle, are the same; in fact it needs
reversals, recognitions and sufferings. Again , the reaSonings and diction
should be fine.
Homer is first and foremost in the use of ali of these. In fact each of his
—
poems is constructed in each of the two ways the Il İ ad is simple and full
of suffering, the Odyssey is comp!ex (for it is recognition right through ) and
full of character. In addition , he has surpassed ali [others] in diction and
reasoning .
Epic differs [from tragedy] in ( i ) the length of its [ plot-]structure , and ( ii )
its verse.
( i ) As for its length , the definition that we stated is sufficient ; it should be
possible to see at one view its beginning and end . This would be so, if the
structures were sınailer than the ancient ones, but reached [ the length of ]
the number of tragedies presented at a single hearing .
For extending its magnitude , epic has an [advantage] very particular [ to
it ]. In tragedy, it is not possible for many parts [ of the action ] to be pre -
sented as being done at the same time, but only the part of the actors on
.
—
the stage But in epic , because it is exposition , it is possible to put in many

—-
parts which are accomplished at the same time; with these provided they
are particular [to it ] the weight of the poem is increased . Consequently
epic has this advantage [över tragedy], both ( a ) for [giving it ] splendour,
and ( b) for diverting the listener and introducing episodes that are unlike
[one another]. For likeness [in episodes] is soon boring and makes trage -
dies fail.
( ii ) As for its verse-form , heroic verse has been found appropriate from
experience. If anyone produced an expository representation in some other
verse-form , or in many, it wö uld obviously be unsuitable. Heroic verse is the
-
stateliest and vveightiest of the verse forms. For this reason, it most readily
—
admits exotic names, metaphors and lengthenings for expository represen-
tation exceeds the other [ kinds ] in this too . But the iambic and tetrameter
[ 1460a ] verse-forms are [fast -] moving, as the first is related to action , and
the second to dance. It vvould be stili more odd if sömeone mixed them , as
.
Chaeremon did For this reason, nobody has composed a long structure in
any verse other than the heroic ; but , as we said , nature itself teaches [ poets]
to ch öose [ the verse-form ] that is appropriate to it.
Homer deserves acclaim for many things, but especially because he
alone among [epic] poets is vvell aware of what he himself should do. The
poet should say very little himself ; for this is not the vvay in vvhich [a poet ]
represents. The other [ epic poets] do the performing themselves right
through [ the poem], but represent fevv [ people speaking] and do so rarely.

.
4 Only Sophocles * Philoctetes and Euripides* Trojan Wotnen are extant; some editors doubt that Aristotle
.
is responsible for ali the titles in this llst
 POETICS / 113

But Homer, after a brief preamble , immediately brings on a man , a

—
woman , or some other [person ] and none of them characterless, but [ali ]
vvith character.
[The poet ] should put vvhat is amazing into his tragedies; but vvhat is
improbable, from vvhich amazement arises most, is more admissible in epic
because [ the audience] does not see the person in action. For the passage
about the pursuit of Hector 5 vvould obviously be laughable on the stage , with
the Greeks standing stili and not pursuing him , and Achilles forbidding them
to do so , but it passes unnoticed in the epic verses. What is amazing is
.
pleasant An indication [of this is that ) everyone narrates [stories] vvith addi-
tions , so as to please.
Homer above ali has taught the other [poets ] to teli untruths in the right
vvay, that is , [ by] a false inference. For if, vvhenever p exists or comes to be,
q exists or comes to be , people suppose that if the latter ( q ) exists, the former
( p ) also exists or comes to be . But this [ supposition ] is untrue. For this
reason , if the former ( p ) is untrue , but it follovvs from its existence that
something else ( q ) exists or comes to be, [ the poet ] should add it [ i.e q ] . >

Because vve knovv that this ( q ) is true, our soul falsely infers that the former
.
( p ) exists too An example of this is the passage in the “ Bath scene.”6 -
Impossible [incidents] that are believable should be preferred to possible
ones that are unbelievable, and stories should not be constructed from
improbable parts, but above ali should contain nothing improbable; other-
vvise, it should be outside the plot -structure, like Oedipus' not knovving hovv
.
Laius was killed But it should not be vvithin the drama , like the people vvho
narrate [ the accident at ] the Pythian games in the Electra, and the person
vvho comes to Mysia from Tegea vvithout speaking in the Mysians, 7 Conse -
quently it is ridiculous to say that the plot vvould have been ruirted [vvithout
the improbability] ; such plots should not be constructed in the first place.
But if one is set up, and it appears fairly logical, even an oddity can be
admitted. For even the improbabilities in the Odyssey över the putting ashore
[ of Odysseus ]8 vvould clearly not be tolerable, if an [ 1460 b] inferior poet
.
composed them But as it is, the poet makes the oddity disappear by using
his other good [qualities ] for embellishment. [The poet ] should take great
pains vvith the diction in the slack parts [of the poem ], i.e those vvith neither .
character nor reasoning. For in turn excessively resplendent diction obfccures
characters and reasoning.
[ 25 ] As for the questions that are raised [about epic poetry] and their
Solutions, it may become obvious to hovv many kinds they belong, and of
vvhat ş ort they are, if vve investigate them as follovvs.
( i ) Since a poet represents just like a painter or some other maker of
*
images, at any moment he is necessarily representing one of three things,
either ( a ) things as they vvefe or are, or ( b ) things as people say and think
[ they vvere or are], or ( c ) things as they should be .

5. î liad 22.131 207; Hector, eldest son of the

— 7. A play of Aeschylus or Sophocles; Tegea in the
k î ng of Troy and the greatest Trojan vvarrior , in İ - Peloponnese is far distâ nt from Mysia in northvvest
tially flees Achilles. .
Asla Min ö r Electra : Sophocles’ tragedy ( ca . 414
6 . That is, Penelope’s false inference , from the n .C.E. ) contains a false account (lines 680-763 ) of
disguised Odysseus ’s accurate description of some Orestes’ dcath İ n a chariot crash İ n the Pythian
clothing, that his ta îe of being a Cretan vvho met
her husband Odysseus is true ( Odyssey 19.165
250 ). — games, vvhich vvere founded centuries after the
events of the play.
.
8 Odyssey 13.116-25 .
114 / ARISTOTLE

( ii ) These things are expressed in diction in which there are exotic names,
metaphors and many modifications of diction ; we grant these to poets.
( iii ) In addition , there is not the same [Standard of ] correctness in the art
of civic life as in that of poetry, nor is there in any other art as in that of
poetry. Error in the art of poetry itself is of two sörtSj (a ) error in the art
itself , ( b ) error in it by coincidence. For if [ an artist ] decided to represent [a
horse correctly, but erred in the representation because of his] lack of ability,
the error belongs to the art itself ; but if he decided to represent it incorrectly,
and [ represented] the horse with both right legs throvvn forward , [ it is] an
error in the individual art ( e.g. one in medicine or another art of whatever
şort ) , not in the art of poetry itself .
Consequently one should consider and solve the criticisms that are among
the questions raised [starting] from these [ principles].
(i) First , some [criticisms should be solved ] with reference to the art itself.
[ If ] impossibilities have been produced , there is an error; but it is correct , if
it attains the end of the art itself . The end has been stated [already, i.e.] if
in this way it makes either that part [of the poem ], or another part , more
astonishing. An example is the pursuit of Hector.
Hovvever, if the end [of the art ] could have been brought about better or
no worse [ vvithout erring] according to the art concerned with these matters,
the error is not correct. For [the poet ] should , if possible, have made no
errors at ali.
(ii ) Again , to which şort does the error belong, tö those iii the art [itself ] ,
or [ to those in it ] by coincidence? The error is less, if [an artist] did not knovv
that a female deer has no horns, than if he painted without representing
[anything].
( iii ) In addition , if [ the poet ] is criticised for representing things that are
not true, perhaps he is representing them [as] they should be, e.g. as Sophr
ocles said that he himself pörtrayed people as they should be, but Euripides
portrayed them as they are-^there is the solution.
( iv ) If [ the solution ] is in neither of these ways, then [ it may be ] on the
grounds that people say [it is] so, e.g. the [stories] about the gods. These are
perhaps neither better [ told this way] hor true, but are possibly [ lies] [1461a ]
as Xenophanes9 thought ; yet people say [ it is ] so.
( v ) Some things are perhaps not better [than they should be ], but were so,
e.g. the passage about the vveapons:
“ their spears , [set ] upright on the butt -spike . .
This was the custom then , as it is among the Illyrians even novv .
( vi ) As for whether someone's saying or action is fine or not so fine , one
must consider not only vvhat vvas said or done itself , to see vvhether it is good
or inferior, but also the person 9aying or doing it , and to vvhom, at vvhat time,
..
by vvhat means and to vvhat end , e g vvhether it is to bring about a greater
good , or to avert a greater evil .
(vii ) Some [criticisms ] must be resolved by looking at the diction , e g . by ..
[assuming] an exotic name in “ the oureis first ”:2 perhaps [ Homer] means not
. —
9. Pre -Socratic philosopher and poet ( ca 570 ca
..
480 B.C E ) who denounced ı mmoral t â les of the
. 1
2
.
.
llûid 10.152 53.
-
Iliad 1.50 , where the Greek word our&as may
Greek gods. derive either from oreus ( mule) or ouros (sentinal ).
 P O ET İ c s / 115

“ mules ” but “sentinels.” As for Dolon 3 “ who was evil in form ,” [ Homer may
mean ] not that his body was misproportioned , but that his face was ugly; for
the Cretans cali someone fair of face “ welI-formed.” Also by “ mix it purer”
[ he may mean ] not “ [ mix the wine] stronger,” as if for drunkards , but “ mix
î t faster.”
( viii ) Some things are said with a metaphor, e.g. “ali gods and men slept
ali night long, ” but [ Homer] says at the same time “ but when he gazed at the
Trojan plain , [ he marvelled at ] the din of flutes and pipes ” “AH ” is said for .
.
“ many” with a metaphor; for "ali" is a Iot So too “[ this constellation ] alone
has no share [in the baths of Ocean]” is said with a metaphor; for what is
best knovvn is “alone.”
(ix) [Some questions should be solved ] with reference to the pronuncia -
tion , as Hippias of Thasaos 4 solved [the question of ] “but grant that he gain
his prayer” [instead of “we grant ”], and “part rotted by rain ” [instead of “ not
rotted ” ].
(x ) Some [should be solved ] by punctuation , e.g. Empedocles' “at ö nce
were things mortal born , that learnt before to be immortal , and things vvere
mixed , p ü re before.”
( xi ) Some [should be solved ] by [assuming] an ambiguity, [e g ] in “ more ..
of the night has gö ne , ” “ more ” is ambiguous.
(xii ) Some [should be solved ] with reference to a habit of diction. People
cali mixed [wine ] “ wine , ” whence [ Homer] composed “a greave of new-
wrought tin ” [i .e. of bronze, copper mixed Wİ th tin]; and they cali men who
work iron “bronze-smiths, ” whence his calling Ganymede 5 “wine-pourer of
Zeus, ” although [gods ] do not drink wine [ but nectar] This could also be .
[solved ] with reference to a metaphor .
Whenever any name would seem to signify something contradictory, one
should consider how many ways İ t may signify İ n the passage, e.g. in “ there
the brazen spear was held ” consider how many ways it can mean “was
stopped there, ” one way or another as best one may understand it , according
to the exact opposite of what [ 1461 b ] Glaucon 6 says.
Again , some people illogically make some prior assumption , and judging
it right themselves make inferences [from it ]. If there is a contradiction to
their own supposition , they eriticise [the poet ] as if he had said what they
think. This has happened in the case of Icarius. People suppose that Icarius
is a Lacedaemonian : so they think it odd that Telemachus 7 does not meet
him when he goes to Lacedaemon . But perhaps it is as the Cephallenians
say; they say that Odysseus took a vvife from among them, and that [ Penel -
.
ope’s father] was Icadius and not Icarius It is probable that the question
[ has arisen ] because of an error [ by Homer’s critics].
In general, ( i ) the impossibility should be explained with reference either
to ( a ) the composition , or to ( b ) [ making something] better [than it is], or to
.
( c ) opinion In relation to [ the needs of ] the composition , a believable impos -
AH the foî lowing examples in this passage come .
5 A beautiful young Trojan prince seized and car -
from the l î tad , sometimes abbreviating the origi - ried to Olympus by Zeus’s eagle; he became a
ııal. min ör Greek god.
3 . A Trojan scout killed by the Greeks ( Iltad 6. Perhaps the fnterpreter of Homer named by
—
10.3 14 457 ) .
4 . An unknovvn figü re ( possibly an tndividual who
Plato in lon 530d (see above ).
7. Odysseus’s son. Icarius: Peneiope’s father, from
..
tlicd in Athens in 404 B.C. E ) Sparta ( Lacedaemonia ).
116 / ARISTOTLE

sibility is preferable to an unbelievable possibility. For it may be impossible

that there are people like those ZeUxis painted , but [it is] better [so]. For [ the
artist ] should improve on his model.
( ii ) Improbabilities [should be explained ] with reference to what people
say; for one must solve them in this way, and on the grounds that sometimes
an improbability is no improbability: for it is probable that thing9 will happen
even against probability .
( iii ) Sayings that are contradictory should be considered just like refuta-
tions in arguments, as to whether it is the same thing [that is meant ], relates
to the same thing, or is said in the same way. Consequently [these] must be
solved with reference either to ( a) what [the poet ] himself says or to ( b ) what
a sensible person may assume.
Criticism of improbability and vvickedness is correct vvhen , vvith no neces-
sity at ali to do so, [the poet ] uses an improbability, as Euripides uses
Aegeus ,8 or villainy, as Euripides uses Menelaus in the Orestes.
—
So the criticisms that people make are of five kinds that things are impos-
sible , improbable , harmful , contradictory, or incorrect in terms of [another]
art. Solutions must be looked for among the items we have stated; there are
twelve of them.
[ 26] One may be p ü 2zled about which is better, epic or tragic represen -
tation. If the less vulgar representation is better, and the less vulgar is always
that which relates to better spectators, it is very clear that the one which
represents in ali respects is vulgar » Assuming that [the spectators] will not
react unless [each actor] adds something himself , they use a lot of move-
ment , like inferior oboe - players who whirl about if they have to represent a
discus, and drag the chorus-leader about if they are playing the Scylla So .
.
tragedy is [a representation ] of this şort Compare too how the earlier actors
regarded those who came after them , Mynniscus used to cali Callippides a
monkey, on the grounds that he went to great excesses, and the opinion about
Pindarus9 was similar. [ 1462a ] As the later actors stand to them, so the \yhole
art [of tragedy] stands to epic. So people say that epic relates to decent
spectators, who have no need of gestures, but the tragic [art ] relates to infe-
rior ones. Therefore, if it is vulgar, clearly it would be worse [than epic].
So let us discuss these matters. (i ) First, the charge is not against the art
of [ tragic] composition but against that of [ the actors’] delivery. For [visual ]
signs can be overworked even in reciting an epic, as Sosistratus did , and in
singing, as Mnasithesus of Opus1 did .
( ii ) Next , not ali movement is to be rejected , unless dance is to be too, but
[only] that of inferior [people ], such as that for which Callippides was erit*-
icised , and others now are , on the grounds that they represent women who
are not free born .
( iii ) Again , tragedy can produce its own [effect ] even without movement ,
as epic does. For it is obvious from reading it what şort [of tragedy ] it is. So
if tragedy is superior in ali other things, this at any rate does not necessarily
belong to it.

— . -
8. in Medea ( Iines 663 758) Aegeus, klngof Ath
ens, happens to pass through Corinth and see — .
( aetive ca. 460 420 B.C. E ) , an actor known for
roles in Aeschylus’s plays. Callippides ( aetive ca.
Medea ; he promlses her future asylum
. .
.
9 Presumably an actor Mynniscus of Chaeis
—
427 400 B.C.E.), a Greek actor.
1. Both unknown .
 RHETORIC, BOOK I, CHAPTER 2 / 1 1 7

( i ) Furthermore , [ tragedy is superior ] because it has everything that epic

has ; for it is even possible to use its verse [in tragedy] ,
( ii ) Again , it also has as tıo small part of it music and spectacles, by means
of vvhich its pleasures are constructed very vividly.
( iii ) Next, it has vividness in reading as well as in performance.
( iv ) Again, [it has the advantage ] that the end [1462b] of the representa -
.
tion is in a smaller length What is more concentrated is more pleasurable
than vvhat is diluted with a lot of time [in performance]. I mean, e g [ the ..
effect] if someone put Sophocles* Oedipus into as many epic verses as the
Iliad .
( v ) Again , the epic poets’ representation is less unified. An indication [of
this is ] that more than one tragedy comes from any [ epic] representation.
Consequently, if they compöse a unified plot , it appears either docked , if it
is briefly presented , or vvatery, if it accords with the length [appropriate to]
-
the verse form . [ By “less unified ”] , I mean, e .g. [ the effect ] if it is composed
of several [complete ] actions, just as the Iliad and the Odyssey have many
such parts, vvhich have magnitude even in themselves. Yet these poems are
as well constructed as [epics ] may be , and are, as far as possible, represen -
tations of a single action .
So if tragedy is superior in ali thfese vvays, and also in [achieving] the
function of the art ( for tragedy and epic should produce not a random plea -
sure, but the one we have mentioned ), it is obvious that it vvill be superior
to epic as it achieves its end more than epic does.
So regarding tragedy and epic, in themselves, their kinds and their parts,
as to hovv many there are and how they differ , and vvhat are the causes of
doing vvell or not [ in them ], and regarding questions raised and their Solu -
tions, let this account suffice.
ca . 330 B.C . E.

From Rhetoric 1
From Book I
FROM CHAPTER 2 '

Let rhetoric be [defined as] an ability, in each [ particular ] case, to see the
available means of persuasion . This is the function of no other art ;2 for each
of the others is. instructive and persuasive about its ovvn subject: for example,
medicine aboiit health and disease and geometry about the properties of
magnitudes and arithmetic about numbers and similarly in the case of the
other arts and Sciences. But rhetoric seems to be able to observe the per-
suasive about “ the given , ” so to speak, That, too, is vvhy vve say it does not
include technical knovvledge of any particular, defined genus [ of subjects].
Of the pisteis, 3 some are atechnic [“ nonartistic ”] , some entechnic [ “em -

.
1. Translated by Georgc A Kennedy, who some- ker.
times adds clariFying words or phrases in square 2. in Greek, techttg . Aristotle distinguishes be-
brackets. Also İ n square brackets in the text are the tvveen human arts, such as rhetoric or poetics, and
Bekker numbers used almost universally in citing Sciences, such as physics or Iogic, vvhich adduce
Aristotle’s works; they refer to the page numbers verifiable results.
and columns ofan 1831 edition by Immanuel Bek - 3. Proofs or means oF persuasion ( Greek ).