The Poetics by Aristotle (android based ebook reader txt) 📖

person who says or does it, the person to whom he

says or does it, the time, the means, and the motive of the

agent—whether he does it to attain a greate.g.od, or to avoid a

greater evil.)

 

III. Other criticisms one must meet by considering the language of the

poet: (1) by the assumption of a strange word in a passage like

oureas men proton, where by oureas Homer may perhaps mean not

mules but sentinels. And in saying of Dolon, _hos p e toi eidos men

heen kakos_, his meaning may perhaps be, not that Dolon’s body was

deformed, but that his face was ugly, as eneidos is the Cretan word

for handsome-faced. So, too, goroteron de keraie may mean not ‘mix

the wine stronger’, as though for topers, but ‘mix it quicker’. (2)

Other expressions in Homer may be explained as metaphorical; e.g. in

halloi men ra theoi te kai aneres eudon (hapantes) pannux as

compared with what he tells us at the same time, _e toi hot hes pedion

to Troikon hathreseien, aulon suriggon *te homadon*_ the word

hapantes ‘all’, is metaphorically put for ‘many’, since ‘all’ is a

species of ‘many ‘. So also his oie d’ ammoros is metaphorical, the

best known standing ‘alone’. (3) A change, as Hippias suggested, in

the mode of reading a word will solve the difficulty in _didomen de

oi_, and to men ou kataputhetai hombro. (4) Other difficulties may

be solved by another punctuation; e.g. in Empedocles, _aipsa de thnet

ephyonto, ta prin mathon athanata xora te prin kekreto_. Or (5) by the

assumption of an equivocal term, as in parocheken de pleo nux, where

pleo i.e.uivocal. Or (6) by an appeal to the custom of language.

Wine-and-water we call ‘wine’; and it is on the same principle that

Homer speaks of a knemis neoteuktou kassiteroio, a ‘greave of

new-wrought tin.’ A worker in iron we call a ‘brazier’; and it is on

the same principle that Ganymede is described as the ‘wine-server’ of

Zeus, though the Gods do not drink wine. This latter, however, may be

an instance of metaphor. But whenever also a word seems to imply some

contradiction, it is necessary to reflect how many ways there may be

of understanding it in the passage in question; e.g. in Homer’s _te r’

hesxeto xalkeon hegxos_ one should consider the possible senses of

‘was stopped there’—whether by taking it in this sense or in that one

will best avoid the fault of which Glaucon speaks: ‘They start with

some improbable presumption; and having so decreed it themselves,

proceed to draw inferences, and censure the poet as though he had

actually said whatever they happen to believe, if his statement

conflicts with their own notion of things.’ This is how Homer’s

silence about Icarius has been treated. Starting with, the notion of

his having been a Lacedaemonian, the critics think it strange for

Telemachus not to have met him when he went to Lacedaemon. Whereas the

fact may have been as the Cephallenians say, that the wife of Ulysses

was of a Cephallenian family, and that her father’s name was Icadius,

not Icarius. So that it is probably a mistake of the critics that has

given rise to the Problem.

 

Speaking generally, one has to justify (1) the Impossible by reference

to the requirements of poetry, or to the better, or to opinion. For

the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to an

unconvincing possibility; and if men such as Zeuxis depicted be

impossible, the answer is that it is better they should be like that,

as the artist ought to improve on his model. (2) The Improbable one

has to justify either by showing it to be in accordance with opinion,

or by urging that at times it is not improbable; for there is a

probability of things happening also against probability. (3) The

contradictions found in the poet’s language one should first test as

one does an opponent’s confutation in a dialectical argument, so as to

see whether he means the same thing, in the same relation, and in the

same sense, before admitting that he has contradicted either something

he has said himself or what a man of sound sense assumes as true. But

there is no possible apology for improbability of Plot or depravity of

character, when they are not necessary and no use is made of them,

like the improbability in the appearance of Aegeus in Medea and the

baseness of Menelaus in Orestes.

 

The objections, then, of critics start with faults of five kinds: the

allegation is always that something i.e.ther (1) impossible, (2)

improbable, (3) corrupting, (4) contradictory, or (5) against

technical correctness. The answers to these objections must be sought

under one or other of the above-mentioned heads, which are twelve in

number.

26

The question may be raised whether the epic or the tragic is the

higher form of imitation. It may be argued that, if the less vulgar is

the higher, and the less vulgar is always that which addresses the

better public, an art addressing any and every one is of a very vulgar

order. It is a belief that their public cannot see the meaning, unless

they add something themselves, that causes the perpetual movements of

the performers—bad flute-players, for instance, rolling about, if

quoit-throwing is to be represented, and pulling at the conductor, if

Scylla is the subject of the piece. Tragedy, then, is said to be an

art of this order—to be in fact just what the later actors were in

the eyes of their predecessors; for Myrmiscus used to call Callippides

‘the ape’, because he thought he so overacted his parts; and a similar

view was taken of Pindarus also. All Tragedy, however, is said to

stand to the Epic as the newer to the older school of actors. The one,

accordingly, is said to address a cultivated ‘audience, which does not

need the accompaniment of gesture; the other, an uncultivated one. If,

therefore, Tragedy is a vulgar art, it must clearly be lower than the

Epic.

 

The answer to this is twofold. In the first place, one may urge (1)

that the censure does not touch the art of the dramatic poet, but only

that of his interpreter; for it is quite possible to overdo the

gesturing even in an epic recital, as did Sosistratus, and in a

singing contest, as did Mnasitheus of Opus. (2) That one should not

condemn all movement, unless one means to condemn even the dance, but

only that of ignoble people—which is the point of the criticism

passed on Callippides and in the present day on others, that their

women are not like gentlewomen. (3) That Tragedy may produce its

effect even without movement or action in just the same way as Epic

poetry; for from the mere reading of a play its quality may be seen.

So that, if it be superior in all other respects, thi.e.ement of

inferiority is not a necessary part of it.

 

In the second place, one must remember (1) that Tragedy has everything

that the Epic has (even the epic metre being admissible), together

with a not inconsiderable addition in the shape of the Music (a very

real factor in the pleasure of the drama) and the Spectacle. (2) That

its reality of presentation is felt in the play as read, as well as in

the play as acted. (3) That the tragic imitation requires less space

for the attainment of its end; which is a great advantage, since the

more concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one with a large

admixture of time to dilute it—consider the Oedipus of Sophocles,

for instance, and the effect of expanding it into the number of lines

of the Iliad. (4) That there is less unity in the imitation of the

epic poets, as is proved by the fact that any one work of theirs

supplies matter for several tragedies; the result being that, if they

take what is really a single story, it seems curt when briefly told,

and thin and waterish when on the scale of length usual with their

verse. In saying that there is less unity in an epic, I mean an epic

made up of a plurality of actions, in the same way as the Iliad and

Odyssey have many such parts, each one of them in itself of some

magnitude; yet the structure of the two Homeric poems is as perfect as

can be, and the action in them is as nearly as possible one action.

If, then, Tragedy is superior in these respects, and also besides

these, in its poeti.e.fect (since the two forms of poetry should give

us, not any or every pleasure, but the very special kind we have

mentioned), it is clear that, as attaining the poeti.e.fect better

than the Epic, it will be the higher form of art.

 

So much for Tragedy and Epic poetry—for these two arts in general and

their species; the number and nature of their constituent parts; the

causes of success and failure in them; the Objections of the critics,

and the Solutions in answer to them.

 

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