THE POETICS
OF ARISTOTLE
A TRANSLATION BY S. H. BUTCHER
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THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
VI
Of the poetry which imitates in hexameter verse, and of
Comedy, we will speak hereafter. Let us now discussTragedy,
resuming its formal definition, as resulting from what has
been already said.
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious,
complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished
with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds
being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action,
not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper
purgation of these emotions. By ‘language embellished,’ I
mean language into which rhythm, ‘harmony,’ and song enter.
By ‘the several kinds in separate parts,’ I mean, that some
parts are rendered through the medium of verse alone, others
again with the aid of song.
Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily
follows, in the first place, that Spectacular equipment will
be a part of Tragedy. Next, Song and Diction, for these are
the medium of imitation. By ‘Diction’ I mean the mere metrical
arrangement of the words: as for ‘Song,’ it is a term whose
sense every one understands.
Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action
implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive
qualities both of character and thought; for it is by
these that we qualify actions themselves, and these—thought
and character—are the two natural causes from which actions
spring, and on actions again all success or failure depends.
Hence, the Plot is the imitation of the action: for by plot I
here mean the arrangement of the incidents. By Character I
mean that in virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to
the agents.Thought is required wherever a statement is proved,
or, it may be, a general truth enunciated. EveryTragedy, therefore,
must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—
namely, Plot, Character, Diction,Thought, Spectacle, Song.
Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation, one
the manner, and three the objects of imitation. And these
complete the list. These elements have been employed, we
may say, by the poets to a man; in fact, every play contains
Spectacular elements as well as Character, Plot, Diction, Song,
andThought.
But most important of all is the structure of the incidents.
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THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
ForTragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and
of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of
action, not a quality. Now character determines men’s qualities,
but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse.
Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the
representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary
to the actions. Hence the incidents and the plot are the end of
a tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all. Again, without
action there cannot be a tragedy; there may be without character.
The tragedies of most of our modern poets fail in the
rendering of character; and of poets in general this is often
true. It is the same in painting; and here lies the difference
between Zeuxis and Polygnotus. Polygnotus delineates character
well: the style of Zeuxis is devoid of ethical quality. Again, if
you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and
well finished in point of diction and thought, you will not
produce thc essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play
which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and
artisticallyconstructedincidents.Besideswhich,themostpowerful
elements of emotional: interest in Tragedy Peripeteia or
Reversal of the Situation, and Recognition scenes—are parts of
the plot. A further proof is, that novices in the art attain to
finish: of diction and precision of portraiture before they can
construct the plot. It is the same with almost all the early poets.
The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the
soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place. A similar
fact is seen in painting. The most beautiful colours, laid on
confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline
of a portrait.Thus Tragedy is the imitation of an action,
and of the agents mainly with a view to the action.
Third in order is Thought,—that is, the faculty of saying
what is possible and pertinent in given circumstances. In the
case of oratory, this is the function of the Political art and of
the art of rhetoric: and so indeed the older poets make their
characters speak the language of civic life; the poets of our
time, the language of the rhetoricians. Character is that which
reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man
chooses or avoids. Speeches, therefore, which do not make
this manifest, or in which the speaker does not choose or
avoid anything whatever, are not expressive of character.
Thought, on the other hand, is found where something is
proved to be. or not to be, or a general maxim is enunciated.
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THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
Fourth among the elements enumerated comes Diction;
by which I mean, as has been already said, the expression of
the meaning in words; and its essence is the same both in
verse and prose.
Of the remaining elements Song holds the chief place among
the embellishments.
The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its
own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected
least with the art of poetry. For the power ofTragedy, we may
be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides,
the production of spectacular effects depends more on
the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet.
VII
These principles being established, let us now discuss the
proper structure of the Plot, since this is the first and most
important thing in Tragedy.
Now, according to our definition, Tragedy is an imitation
of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain
magnitude; for there may be a whole that is wanting in magnitude.
A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and
an end. A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything
by causal necessity, but after which something naturally
is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself
naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a
rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which
follows something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed
plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard,
but conform to these principles.
Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or
any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly
arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude;
for beauty depends on magnitude and order. Hence a
very small animal organism cannot be beautiful; for the view
of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost imperceptible
moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be
beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity
and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance
if there were one a thousand miles long. As, therefore, in the
case of animate bodies and organisms a certain magnitude is
necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in
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THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a
length which can be easily embraced by the memory. The
limit of length in relation to dramatic competition and sensuous
presentment, is no part of artistic theory. For had it
been the rule for a hundred tragedies to compete together,
the performance would have been regulated by the waterclock,—as
indeed we are told was formerly done. But the
limit as fixed by the nature of the drama itself is this: the
greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by
reason of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous.
And to define the matter roughly, we may say that the proper
magnitude is comprised within such limits, that the sequence
of events, according to the law of probability or necessity,
will admit of a change from bad fortune to good, or from
good fortune to bad.
VIII
Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in
the Unity of the hero. For infinitely various are the incidents
in one man’s life which cannot be reduced to unity; and so,
too, there are many actions of one man out of which we cannot
make one action. Hence, the error, as it appears, of all
poets who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other
poems of the kind. They imagine that as Heracles was one
man, the story of Heracles must also be a unity. But Homer,
as in all else he is of surpassing merit, here too—whether from
art or natural genius—seems to have happily discerned the
truth. In composing the Odyssey he did not include all the
adventures of Odysseus—such as his wound on Parnassus, or
his feigned madness at the mustering of the host—incidents
between which there was no necessary or probable connection:
but he made the Odyssey, and likewise the Iliad, to centre
round an action that in our sense of the word is one. As
therefore, in the other imitative arts, the imitation is one when
the object imitated is one, so the plot, being an imitation of
an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural
union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is
displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.
For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible
difference, is not an organic part of the whole.
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THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
IX
It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is
not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but
what may happen,—what is possible according to the law of
probability or necessity.The poet and the historian differ not
by writing in verse or in prose.The work of Herodotus might
be put into verse, and it would still be a species of history,
with metre no less than without it.The true difference is that
one relates what has happened, the other what may happen.
Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing
than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history
the particular. By the universal, I mean how a person of a
certain type will on occasion speak or act, according to the
law of probability or necessity; and it is this universality at
which poetry aims in the names she attaches to the personages.The
particular is—for example—what Alcibiades did or
suffered. In Comedy this is already apparent: for here the poet
first constructs the plot on the lines of probability, and then
inserts characteristic names;—unlike the lampooners who
write about particular individuals. But tragedians still keep to
real names, the reason being that what is possible is credible:
what has not happened we do not at once feel sure to be
possible: but what has happened is manifestly possible: otherwise
it would not have happened. Still there are even some
tragedies in which there are only one or two well known
names, the rest being fictitious. In others, none are well known,
as in Agathon’s Antheus, where incidents and names alike are
fictitious, and yet they give none the less pleasure. We must
not, therefore, at all costs keep to the received legends, which
are the usual subjects of Tragedy. Indeed, it would be absurd
to attempt it; for even subjects that are known are known
only to a few, and yet give pleasure to all. It clearly follows
that the poet or ‘maker’ should be the maker of plots rather
than of verses; since he is a poet because he imitates, and what
he imitates are actions. And even if he chances to take an historical
subject, he is none the less a poet; for there is no reason
why some events that have actually happened should not conform
to the law of the probable and possible, and in virtue of
that quality in them he is their poet or maker.
Of all plots and actions the epeisodic are the worst. I call a
plot ‘epeisodic’ in which the episodes or acts succeed one an-
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THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
other without probable or necessary sequence. Bad poets compose
such pieces by their own fault, good poets, to please the
players; for, as they write show pieces for competition, they
stretch the plot beyond its capacity, and are often forced to
break the natural continuity.
But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete
action, but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is
best produced when the events come on us by sunrise; and
the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow
as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will thee be greater
than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even
coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design.
We may instance the statue of Mitys at Argos, which fell
upon his murderer while he was a spectator at a festival, and
killed him. Such events seem not to be due to mere chance.
Plots, therefore, constructed on these principles are necessarily
the best.
X
Plots are either Simple or Complex, for the actions in real
life, of which the plots are an imitation, obviously show a
similar distinction. An action which is one and continuous in
the sense above defined, I call Simple, when the change of
fortune takes place without Reversal of the Situation and without
Recognition.
A Complex action is one in which the change is accompanied
by such Reversal, or by Recognition, or by both. These
last should arise from the internal structure of the plot, so
that what follows should be the necessary or probable result
of the preceding action. It makes all the difference whether
any given event is a case of propter hoc or post hoc.
XI
Reversal of the Situation is a change by which the action
veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability
or necessity.Thus in the Oedipus, the messenger comes
to cheer Oedipus and free him from his alarms about his