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<h2> ARISTOTLE ON THE ART OF POETRY </h2>
<h2> 1 </h2>
<p>Our subject being Poetry, I propose to speak not only of the art in
general but also of its species and their respective capacities; of the
structure of plot required for a good poem; of the number and nature of
the constituent parts of a poem; and likewise of any other matters in the
same line of inquiry. Let us follow the natural order and begin with the
primary facts.</p>
<p>Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and most
flute-playing and lyre-playing, are all, viewed as a whole, modes of
imitation. But at the same time they differ from one another in three
ways, either by a difference of kind in their means, or by differences in
the objects, or in the manner of their imitations.</p>
<p>I. Just as form and colour are used as means by some, who (whether by art
or constant practice) imitate and portray many things by their aid, and
the voice is used by others; so also in the above-mentioned group of arts,
the means with them as a whole are rhythm, language, and harmony—used,
however, either singly or in certain combinations. A combination of rhythm
and harmony alone is the means in flute-playing and lyre-playing, and any
other arts there may be of the same description, e.g. imitative piping.
Rhythm alone, without harmony, is the means in the dancer's imitations;
for even he, by the rhythms of his attitudes, may represent men's
characters, as well as what they do and suffer. There is further an art
which imitates by language alone, without harmony, in prose or in verse,
and if in verse, either in some one or in a plurality of metres. This form
of imitation is to this day without a name. We have no common name for a
mime of Sophron or Xenarchus and a Socratic Conversation; and we should
still be without one even if the imitation in the two instances were in
trimeters or elegiacs or some other kind of verse—though it is the
way with people to tack on 'poet' to the name of a metre, and talk of
elegiac-poets and epic-poets, thinking that they call them poets not by
reason of the imitative nature of their work, but indiscriminately by
reason of the metre they write in. Even if a theory of medicine or
physical philosophy be put forth in a metrical form, it is usual to
describe the writer in this way; Homer and Empedocles, however, have
really nothing in common apart from their metre; so that, if the one is to
be called a poet, the other should be termed a physicist rather than a
poet. We should be in the same position also, if the imitation in these
instances were in all the metres, like the <i>Centaur</i> (a rhapsody in a
medley of all metres) of Chaeremon; and Chaeremon one has to recognize as
a poet. So much, then, as to these arts. There are, lastly, certain other
arts, which combine all the means enumerated, rhythm, melody, and verse,
e.g. Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry, Tragedy and Comedy; with this
difference, however, that the three kinds of means are in some of them all
employed together, and in others brought in separately, one after the
other. These elements of difference in the above arts I term the means of
their imitation.</p>
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<h2> 2 </h2>
<p>II. The objects the imitator represents are actions, with agents who are
necessarily either good men or bad—the diversities of human
character being nearly always derivative from this primary distinction,
since the line between virtue and vice is one dividing the whole of
mankind. It follows, therefore, that the agents represented must be either
above our own level of goodness, or beneath it, or just such as we are in
the same way as, with the painters, the personages of Polygnotus are
better than we are, those of Pauson worse, and those of Dionysius just
like ourselves. It is clear that each of the above-mentioned arts will
admit of these differences, and that it will become a separate art by
representing objects with this point of difference. Even in dancing,
flute-playing, and lyre-playing such diversities are possible; and they
are also possible in the nameless art that uses language, prose or verse
without harmony, as its means; Homer's personages, for instance, are
better than we are; Cleophon's are on our own level; and those of Hegemon
of Thasos, the first writer of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the
<i>Diliad</i>, are beneath it. The same is true of the Dithyramb and the
Nome: the personages may be presented in them with the difference
exemplified in the... of... and Argas, and in the Cyclopses of Timotheus
and Philoxenus. This difference it is that distinguishes Tragedy and
Comedy also; the one would make its personages worse, and the other
better, than the men of the present day.</p>
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<h2> 3 </h2>
<p>III. A third difference in these arts is in the manner in which each kind
of object is represented. Given both the same means and the same kind of
object for imitation, one may either (1) speak at one moment in narrative
and at another in an assumed character, as Homer does; or (2) one may
remain the same throughout, without any such change; or (3) the imitators
may represent the whole story dramatically, as though they were actually
doing the things described.</p>
<p>As we said at the beginning, therefore, the differences in the imitation
of these arts come under three heads, their means, their objects, and
their manner.</p>
<p>So that as an imitator Sophocles will be on one side akin to Homer, both
portraying good men; and on another to Aristophanes, since both present
their personages as acting and doing. This in fact, according to some, is
the reason for plays being termed dramas, because in a play the personages
act the story. Hence too both Tragedy and Comedy are claimed by the
Dorians as their discoveries; Comedy by the Megarians—by those in
Greece as having arisen when Megara became a democracy, and by the
Sicilian Megarians on the ground that the poet Epicharmus was of their
country, and a good deal earlier than Chionides and Magnes; even Tragedy
also is claimed by certain of the Peloponnesian Dorians. In support of
this claim they point to the words 'comedy' and 'drama'. Their word for
the outlying hamlets, they say, is comae, whereas Athenians call them
demes—thus assuming that comedians got the name not from their <i>comoe</i>
or revels, but from their strolling from hamlet to hamlet, lack of
appreciation keeping them out of the city. Their word also for 'to act',
they say, is <i>dran</i>, whereas Athenians use <i>prattein</i>.</p>
<p>So much, then, as to the number and nature of the points of difference in
the imitation of these arts.</p>
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