Aristotle's Poetics: Comprehensive Analysis and Reference Guide
General Principles of Poetry and Modes of Imitation
Definition of Poetry and Its Species
Epic poetry, Tragedy, Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and music of the flute and lyre are all, in their general conception, modes of imitation (mimesis).
These arts differ from one another in three distinct respects:
The medium of imitation.
The objects of imitation.
The manner or mode of imitation.
The Medium of Imitation
Representation in the arts is produced by rhythm, language, or 'harmony' (melody/tune), either singly or combined.
Flute and Lyre Music: Employ 'harmony' and rhythm alone (as does the shepherd's pipe).
Dancing: Employs rhythm alone without 'harmony', imitating character, emotion, and action through rhythmical movement.
Prose and Unaccompanied Verse: Employs language alone (either in prose or in verse, combining different metres or using a single kind).
This form of art lacked a common unifying name, encompassing both Socratic dialogues and the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus, as well as verse in iambic or elegiac metres.
Meter alone does not make a poet; custom improperly applies the title 'poet' to medical or natural science treatises written in verse (e.g., Homer and Empedocles share only metre, making Homer a poet and Empedocles a physicist).
Even if a writer combines all metres—such as Chaeremon in his Centaur (a medley composed of metres of all kinds)—he is still classified as a poet.
Combined vs. Alternated Mediums:
Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry, Tragedy, and Comedy employ all three means: rhythm, tune, and metre.
Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry employ these means simultaneously in combination.
Tragedy and Comedy employ these means alternately (now one, now another).
The Objects of Imitation
The objects represented are men in action, who must be morally of a higher or a lower type (goodness and badness being the primary marks of moral difference).
Men are represented in one of three ways:
Better than in real life (nobler/higher type).
Worse than in real life (less noble/lower type).
As they are true to life.
Analogies in Painting:
Polygnotus depicted men as nobler than they are.
Pauson depicted men as less noble.
Dionysius painted men true to life.
Literary Examples:
Higher Type: Homer makes men better than they are; Sophocles represents higher types.
True to Life: Cleophon portrays men as they are; Dionysius in painting.
Lower Type: Hegemon the Thasian (inventor of parodies) and Nicochares (author of the Deiliad) make men worse than they are.
Dithyrambs and Nomes: Timotheus and Philoxenus differed in representing their Cyclopes.
Dramatic Division: Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.
The Manner of Imitation
Given the same medium and the same objects, a poet may imitate in three distinct manners:
Pure Narrative: Speaking in one's own person, unchanged.
Narrative with Persona: Assuming another character/personality (as Homer does).
Direct Action: Presenting all characters as living, moving, and acting before the audience.
Classificatory Overlaps:
Sophocles resembles Homer because both imitate higher types of character.
Sophocles resembles Aristophanes because both imitate persons acting and doing.
Etymology and History of 'Drama':
The word 'drama' is derived from action, as these poems represent persons acting.
The Dorians claim the invention of both Tragedy and Comedy:
Comedy: Claimed by Megarians of Greece proper (originating under their democracy) and Megarians of Sicily (pointing to Epicharmus, who lived much earlier than Chionides and Magnes).
Tragedy: Claimed by certain Dorians of the Peloponnese.
Linguistic Arguments of Dorians:
Outlying villages are called
{kappa omega mu alpha iota}by Dorians, but{delta eta mu iota}by Athenians.Dorians argue Comedians were named not from
{kappa omega mu 'alpha zeta epsilon iota nu}('to revel'), but because they wandered from village to village (kappa alpha tau alpha / kappa omega mu alpha sigma) when contemptuously excluded from cities.The Dorian word for 'doing' is
{delta rho alpha nu}, whereas the Athenian word is{pi rho alpha tau tau epsilon iota nu}.
Origin, Development, and Branches of Poetry
Two Natural Causes of Poetry
Instinct of Imitation:
Implanted in human nature from childhood.
Humans are the most imitative of living creatures and acquire their earliest knowledge through imitation.
Universal pleasure is felt in representations and likenesses.
Objects that cause pain when viewed in reality (such as ignoble animals or dead bodies) give delight when reproduced with minute fidelity.
Reason: Learning gives the liveliest pleasure to all human beings (not merely to philosophers), though their capacity for learning may be limited.
Contemplating a likeness allows the viewer to infer and say, "Ah, that is he"; if the original has never been seen, the pleasure arises from execution, colouring, or another technical cause.
Instinct for Harmony and Rhythm:
Harmony and rhythm are innate; metres are natural sections of rhythm.
Historical Divergence of Poetry
Poetry split into two distinct paths according to the individual character of the writers:
Graver Spirits: Imitated noble actions and the deeds of good men. They composed hymns to the gods and praises of famous men (panegyrics), evolving into heroic poets and later Tragedians.
Trivial Spirits: Imitated the actions of meaner persons, composing satires and lampoons, evolving into iambic poets and later Comedians.
Development of Satire and Metre:
No satirical poem prior to Homer can be cited, though many likely existed.
Homer's Margites is the earliest cited example of the satirical style, introducing the appropriate measure.
The measure was termed the iambic or lampooning measure because people used it to lampoon one another.
Homer's Pivotal Role:
Pre-eminent in serious poetry because he combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation (Iliad and Odyssey).
Laid down the main lines of Comedy by dramatizing the ludicrous instead of writing personal satire; Margites bears the same relation to Comedy as the Iliad and Odyssey bear to Tragedy.
Evolution of Tragedy
Originated as mere improvisation among the leaders of the Dithyramb.
Advanced step-by-step as each new element appeared until it found its natural form and stopped.
Structural Innovations:
Aeschylus: Introduced a second actor, diminished the role of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to spoken dialogue.
Sophocles: Raised the number of actors to three and introduced scene-painting.
Plot and Style Evolution:
Discarded short plots in favor of works of greater compass.
Discarded grotesque satyric diction for the stately manner of Tragedy.
Metre changed from the trochaic tetrameter (originally used when poetry was satyric and linked to dancing) to the iambic measure.
The iambic measure is the most colloquial of all measures; conversational speech naturally falls into iambics, rarely into hexameters (which occur only when dropping colloquial intonation).
Evolution of Comedy
Originated with the leaders of phallic songs (which remain in use in many cities).
Definition of the Ludicrous:
Comedy is an imitation of characters of a lower type, where the Ludicrous is a subdivision of the ugly.
The Ludicrous consists of some defect or ugliness that is non-painful and non-destructive (e.g., the comic mask is ugly and distorted without implying pain).
Historical Obscurity:
Early changes in Comedy were unrecorded because it was not taken seriously.
The Archon granted a comic chorus to a poet late in its development; performers were previously unremunerated volunteers.
Specific innovators of masks, prologues, or actor counts remain unknown.
Comic plots originated in Sicily; Crates was the first Athenian writer to abandon the iambic/lampooning form and generalize his themes and plots.
Epic Poetry vs. Tragedy: Agreement and Differences
Points of Agreement:
Both are verse imitations of characters of a higher type.
All constituent elements of an Epic poem are found in Tragedy.
Points of Difference:
Metre: Epic uses a single, uniform metre; Tragedy uses multiple metres.
Form: Epic is strictly narrative; Tragedy is dramatic/action-based.
Scale/Time Limit: Tragedy endeavours as far as possible to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun () or slightly exceed it; Epic action has no fixed limits of time.
Definition and Essential Parts of Tragedy
Formal Definition of Tragedy
"Tragedy 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."
Language Embellished: Language into which rhythm, 'harmony', and song enter.
Several Kinds in Separate Parts: Certain parts rendered through verse alone, others with the aid of song.
The Six Constituent Parts of Tragedy Every tragedy must possess six constituent parts, which determine its quality:
Plot (Arrangement of incidents) — Object of imitation
Character (Moral qualities attributed to agents) — Object of imitation
Thought (Faculty of proving/refuting or enunciating general truths) — Object of imitation
Diction (Metrical arrangement of words / verbal expression) — Medium of imitation
Song (Musical composition) — Medium of imitation
Spectacle (Stage presentation / scenic equipment) — Manner of imitation
Primacy of Plot
Plot is the first principle and the soul of a tragedy; Character holds second place.
Tragedy is an imitation not of men, but of an action and of life. Life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.
Character determines men's moral qualities, but their happiness or misery depends on their actions.
Dramatic action is not performed to represent character; character is included for the sake of the action.
A play cannot exist without action, but it can exist without character (seen in the works of most modern tragedians; in painting, Polygnotus delineates character well, while Zeuxis is devoid of ethical quality).
Stringing together well-written speeches of character and diction will not produce the essential tragic effect; a structured plot with incidents is required.
The most powerful emotional elements of Tragedy—Peripeteia (Reversal of the Situation) and Recognition—are integral parts of the plot.
Novices achieve finish of diction and character portraiture far earlier than they master plot construction.
Analogy with Painting: Beautiful colours laid on confusedly give less pleasure than a simple chalk outline of a portrait.
Definitions of the Remaining Elements
Thought: The faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given circumstances. Belongs to the Political art and Rhetoric. Older poets made characters speak the language of civic life; modern poets make them speak the language of rhetoricians.
Character: That which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a person chooses or avoids in circumstances where choice is not obvious.
Diction: Expression of meaning in words; identical in verse and prose.
Song: Holds chief place among artistic embellishments.
Spectacle: Emotional attraction, but the least artistic element and least connected to poetry. The power of tragedy is felt apart from representation and actors; stage effects depend more on the stage machinist than the poet.
Principles of Plot Structure, Magnitude, and Unity
Structure of a Complete Whole
A tragic plot must be an imitation of an action that is complete, whole, and of a certain magnitude.
A Whole consists of a beginning, a middle, and an end:
Beginning: That which does not follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be.
Middle: That which follows something as another thing follows it.
End: That which naturally follows something else (by necessity or as a general rule), but has nothing following it.
Magnitude and Beauty
Beauty depends on two conditions: order and magnitude.
An organism or object cannot be beautiful if it is:
Extremely Small: The view becomes confused as it is perceived in an imperceptible moment of time.
Vast in Size: As with an organism long, the eye cannot embrace it at once, losing unity and completeness.
Plot Length Requirement: Must be easily embraced by memory, just as an organism must be easily embraced by the eye.
Artistic Limit of Length: The proper magnitude allows a sequence of events, conforming to probability or necessity, to progress naturally from bad fortune to good, or from good fortune to bad.
Unity of Plot
Unity does not consist in having a single hero; infinite incidents happen to one man that cannot be reduced to unity.
Errors made by poets who composed a Heracleid or Theseid: They assumed that because Heracles was one man, his story must possess unity.
Homer's Mastery: In the Odyssey, he excluded unconnected incidents (such as Odysseus' wound on Parnassus or his feigned madness at the mustering of the host) and built both the Odyssey and Iliad around a single action.
Structural Union Rule: If any part of a plot is removed or displaced, the whole must be disjointed and disturbed. A part whose presence or absence makes no visible difference is not an organic part of the whole.
Poetry vs. History and Universality
The poet's function is to relate not what has happened, but what may happen according to the law of probability or necessity.
Prose vs. Verse distinction: Transcribing Herodotus into verse would remain a work of history; history relates particular facts, whereas poetry expresses universal truths.
Universal Truth: How a person of a given type will speak or act on occasion, according to probability or necessity.
Particular Truth: What a specific individual (e.g., Alcibiades) did or suffered.
Name Assignment in Drama:
Comedy: Constructs a probable plot first, then inserts characteristic names (unlike lampooners).
Tragedy: Keeps real historical names because what is possible is credible; what has happened is manifestly possible. However, some successful tragedies have only one or two known names, or are entirely fictitious (e.g., Agathon's Antheus).
Epeisodic Plots and Tragic Wonder
Epeisodic Plot: The worst plot form, in which episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence.
Bad poets write epeisodic plots by fault; good poets do so to satisfy actors in competitive show-pieces, stretching plots beyond their capacity.
Tragic Wonder (Surprise): Pity and fear are heightened when events occur surprisingly, yet as cause and effect.
Coincidences are most striking when they appear designed (e.g., the statue of Mitys at Argos falling upon his murderer at a festival and killing him).
Plot Classification, Elements, and Quantitative Parts
Simple and Complex Plots
Simple Action: An action that is single and continuous, where the change of fortune occurs without Reversal of the Situation and without Recognition.
Complex Action: An action where the change of fortune is accompanied by Reversal of the Situation, Recognition, or both.
Reversal and Recognition must spring directly out of the internal structure of the plot (propter hoc, caused by previous events, rather than merely post hoc, following in time).
Three Key Plot Elements
Reversal of the Situation (Peripeteia): A change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject to probability or necessity.
Example 1: In Oedipus, the messenger arrives to cheer Oedipus and free him from fears regarding his mother, but by revealing Oedipus' true identity, produces the opposite effect.
Example 2: In Lynceus, Lynceus is led to execution and Danaus goes to slay him, but previous events result in Danaus being killed and Lynceus saved.
Recognition (Anagnorisis): A change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between characters destined for good or bad fortune.
The finest recognition is coincident with a Reversal of the Situation (e.g., Oedipus).
Recognition may involve inanimate objects, or determine whether an act was committed, but recognition of persons is most essential to plot.
May be single (one person recognized by another who is already known) or mutual (e.g., in Iphigenia, Iphigenia is revealed to Orestes by a letter, but Orestes requires a separate act of recognition to be known to Iphigenia).
Scene of Suffering (Pathos): A destructive or painful action, such as explicit deaths on stage, bodily agony, and wounds.
Quantitative Parts of Tragedy The structural divisions of a tragedy are:
Prologue: The entire part preceding the Parode of the Chorus.
Episode: The entire part between complete choric songs.
Exode: The entire part that has no choric song after it.
Choric Part:
Parode: The first undivided utterance of the Chorus.
Stasimon: A choric ode without anapaests or trochaic tetrameters.
Commos: A joint lamentation between the Chorus and actors.
Tragic Action, the Tragic Hero, and Emotional Impact
Character of the Tragic Hero
A perfect tragedy must be arranged on a complex plan and evoke pity and fear.
Three Plot Structures to Avoid:
A virtuous man moving from prosperity to adversity: Does not evoke pity or fear; it merely shocks.
A bad man moving from adversity to prosperity: Alien to tragedy; satisfies no moral sense, pity, or fear.
An utter villain falling from prosperity to adversity: Satisfies moral sense, but evokes neither pity (aroused by unmerited misfortune) nor fear (aroused by misfortune of one like ourselves).
The Ideal Tragic Hero:
A character between these extremes: A man not pre-eminently good and just, whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty (Hamartia).
Must be a person of great renown and prosperity (e.g., Oedipus, Thyestes, or illustrious men from similar families).
Structure Requirements:
Plot must have a single issue, changing from good to bad fortune.
Tragedies built on the history of a few families produce the best tragic effects (e.g., stories of Alcmaeon, Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus).
Euripides is rightly praised for ending many plays unhappily; despite flaws in general management, he is the most tragic of poets.
Second-Rank Tragic Plot: Plots with a double thread of action and opposite outcomes for the good and bad (like the Odyssey). This rank satisfies the weakness of theatre audiences, but belongs properly to Comedy.
Mechanics of Generating Pity and Fear
Pity and fear can be generated by Spectacle, but are better derived from the inner structure of the plot.
Categories of Action Between Persons:
Enemies: An enemy killing an enemy produces no pity, except for the suffering itself.
Indifferent Persons: Kills produce no tragic pity.
Friends/Kin (Near and Dear): Tragic incidents occurring between kin (e.g., brother killing brother, son killing father, mother killing son) are the proper situations for tragedy.
Four Modes of Handling Tragic Deeds:
Conscious Act with Knowledge: The deed is done knowingly (older poets; Medea slaying her children in Euripides).
Act Done in Ignorance: The horror is committed blindly, and kinship is discovered afterward (Oedipus by Sophocles; Alcmaeon by Astydamas; Telegonus in Wounded Odysseus).
Intentional Act Refrained From: Intending the deed with full knowledge, then failing to act. Worst mode: Shocking without being tragic, as no disaster follows (e.g., Haemon threatening Creon in Antigone).
Ignorant Intent Arrested by Discovery: Intending an irreparable deed in ignorance, but discovering the truth before execution. Best mode (e.g., Merope recognizing her son in Cresphontes; Iphigenia recognizing her brother; the son recognizing his mother in Helle).
Characterization and Recognition Mechanics
Four Requirements for Character
Goodness: Character is good if the underlying moral purpose shown in speech or action is good. Goodness exists in every class (a woman may be good, and a slave good, though a woman is an inferior being and a slave worthless).
Propriety: Character traits must fit the class (e.g., manly valour is appropriate for a man, but inappropriate or indecorous for a woman).
Trueness to Life: Distinct from general goodness and propriety.
Consistency: Character must remain consistent throughout. If the subject imitated was inconsistent, he must be consistently inconsistent.
Examples of Character Defects in Drama:
Motiveless degradation: Menelaus in Orestes.
Inappropriate/Indecorous character: The lament of Odysseus in Scylla, and the speech of Melanippe.
Inconsistency: Iphigenia at Aulis (Iphigenia the suppliant does not resemble her later self).
Rules of Plot and Deus ex Machina
Character speech and action must follow necessity or probability.
Unravelling (denouement) of the plot must arise from the plot itself, not via Deus ex Machina.
Deus ex Machina is permitted only for events external to the drama (antecedent or subsequent events beyond human knowledge that require divine revelation).
Nothing irrational must exist within the action of a play (if unavoidable, it must lie outside the play, as with Oedipus' ignorance of Laius' death).
Poets should follow portrait painters: reproduce distinctive features, but make the subject truer and more beautiful (ennobling flaws, as Achilles is portrayed by Agathon and Homer).
Six Kinds of Recognition (Anagnorisis)
By Signs or Tokens (Least artistic):
Congenital: 'The spear which the earth-born race bear on their bodies', or stars introduced by Carcinus in Thyestes.
Acquired Bodily Marks: Scars (e.g., Odysseus recognized by his scar, handled better in the Bath Scene than when used as formal proof to swineherds).
Acquired External Tokens: Necklaces, or the ark in Tyro.
Invented Arbitrarily by the Poet (Lacks art): Orestes in Iphigenia explicitly declaring he is Orestes; the 'voice of the shuttle' in Sophocles' Tereus.
Dependence on Memory: Emotion awakened by an object (e.g., Dicaeogenes' Cyprians, where the hero sight-weeps at a picture; 'Lay of Alcinous', where Odysseus weeps upon hearing the lyre).
Process of Reasoning: Inference drawn by a character (e.g., Choephori: "Some one resembling me has come; no one resembles me but Orestes; therefore Orestes has come"; Polyidus' Iphigenia; Theodectes' Tydeus; the Phineidae).
Composite / False Inference: Sophisticated misdirection involving audience or character expectation (e.g., Odysseus Disguised as a Messenger).
Natural Incidents (Best kind): Discovery arises naturally out of the plot's incidents (Oedipus by Sophocles; Iphigenia, where sending a letter is entirely natural). Dispenses with artificial tokens.
Composition Rules, Complication, and Types of Tragedy
Practical Rules for Tragic Composition
Visualizing the Stage: The poet must place the scene before his eyes to spot inconsistencies (e.g., Carcinus failed because he overlooked Amphiaraus leaving the temple, offending theatre audiences).
Emotional Identification: The poet should body forth his scenes with appropriate gestures. A writer who feels emotion is most persuasive; one who is agitated storms, and one who is angry rages. Hence, poetry requires a happy gift of nature or a strain of madness.
Sketching the Outline: The poet should outline the general plot framework first, then fill in episodes and expand.
Example (General Outline of Iphigenia): A girl is sacrificed, disappears mysteriously, and is transported to a country where strangers are sacrificed to a goddess. She is appointed priestess. Years later, her brother arrives (prompted by an oracle outside the plot). He is seized, and when about to be sacrificed, reveals his identity (via Euripides or Polyidus), saving his life.
Episodes must be relevant and concise in drama (though they extend Epic length).
Complication and Unravelling
Every tragedy consists of two structural divisions:
Complication: Extends from the beginning of the action to the exact turning-point where fortune changes.
Unravelling (Denouement): Extends from the beginning of the change of fortune to the end of the play.
Extraneous incidents are often combined with the plot to form the Complication.
Four Kinds of Tragedy
Complex: Depends entirely on Reversal of the Situation and Recognition.
Pathetic: Driven entirely by passion (e.g., tragedies on Ajax and Ixion).
Ethical: Driven by moral character (e.g., Phthiotides and Peleus).
Simple: Lacks complex reversals; excludes spectacle (e.g., Phorcides, Prometheus, and scenes laid in Hades).
Structural Cautions
Do not convert an Epic structure (a plot with multiple actions/stories) into a single Tragedy (e.g., attempting to dramatize the entire story of the Iliad).
Dramatizing the entire Fall of Troy fails on stage (unlike Euripides, who selects single portions, or Aeschylus' treatment of Niobe; Agathon failed from this defect).
Agathon's Paradox: "It is probable that many things should happen contrary to probability" (allowing clever rogues like Sisyphus to be outwitted, or brave villains defeated).
Role of the Chorus: The Chorus must be regarded as one of the actors, integrated into the whole action in the manner of Sophocles (not Euripides). Later poets write choric songs that act as detached interludes, a practice begun by Agathon.
Thought, Diction, and Linguistic Structure
Thought (Dianoia)
Thought covers every effect produced by speech, detailed in the Rhetoric.
Includes: Proof and refutation; excitation of feelings (pity, fear, anger); and suggesting importance or unimportance.
Dramatic incidents must produce emotional impact without verbal exposition, whereas speech effects must be explicitly produced by the speaker.
Modes of Utterance (Delivery)
Involves understanding commands, prayers, statements, threats, questions, answers, etc.
Belongs to the art of Delivery/acting, not poetry. Protagoras' critique of Homer—claiming that "Sing, goddess" is a command rather than a prayer—criticizes delivery, not poetic art.
Eight Linguistic Elements of Language
Letter: An indivisible sound that can form part of a group of sounds (excluding animal sounds).
Vowel: Audible without impact of tongue or lip.
Semi-vowel: Audible with impact (e.g., S and R).
Mute: Has no sound by itself with impact, but becomes audible when joined to a vowel (e.g., G and D).
Syllable: A non-significant sound composed of a mute and a vowel (e.g., GR without A, or GRA).
Connecting Word: A non-significant sound that neither hinders nor causes the union of multiple sounds into one significant sound (e.g.,
{alpha mu theta iota},{pi epsilon rho iota},{mu epsilon nu},{eta tau omicron iota},{delta epsilon}).Noun: A composite significant sound, not marking time, in which no part is individually significant (e.g., in Theodorus,
{delta omega rho omicron nu}does not retain its separate meaning 'gift').Verb: A composite significant sound marking time (e.g., 'man' does not connote time, but 'walks' or 'has walked' connotes present or past time).
Inflexion (Case): Variations of nouns or verbs expressing relations ('of', 'to'), number (singular/plural), or delivery modes (questions, commands).
Sentence or Phrase: A composite significant sound, some of whose parts are individually significant (may exist without verbs, e.g., 'the definition of man').
Unity of a Sentence: Achieved either by signifying a single object or by linking parts together (e.g., the Iliad is one by linking parts; the definition of man is one by signifying one thing).
Types of Words
Simple Words: Composed of non-significant elements (e.g.,
{gamma eta}).Compound Words: Composed of significant and non-significant elements, or multiple significant elements (can be double, triple, quadruple, or multiple, such as Massilian expressions: 'Hermo-caico-xanthus…').
Word Classifications:
Current/Proper: Words in general national use.
Strange/Rare: Words used in another country (e.g.,
{sigma iota gamma upsilon nu omicron nu}for 'lance' is current to Cyprians, but strange to Athenians).Metaphorical: Transference of an alien name.
Ornamental, Newly-coined (e.g.,
{epsilon rho nu upsilon gamma epsilon sigma}for 'horns';{alpha rho eta tau eta rho}for 'priest'), Lengthened, Contracted, Altered.
Four Types of Metaphor
From Genus to Species: "There lies my ship" (lying at anchor is a species of lying).
From Species to Genus: "Verily ten thousand noble deeds hath Odysseus wrought" (ten thousand is a species of large number).
From Species to Species: "With blade of bronze drew away the life" and "Cleft the water with the vessel of unyielding bronze" (where
{alpha rho upsilon rho alpha iota}'to draw away' and{tau alpha mu epsilon iota nu}'to cleave' are substituted for each other).By Analogy or Proportion: Occurs when term is to as term is to ().
Example 1: Cup () is to Dionysus () as Shield () is to Ares (). The cup may be called "the shield of Dionysus", and the shield "the cup of Ares".
Example 2: Old age () is to Life () as Evening () is to Day (). Evening is "the old age of the day", and old age is "the evening of life" or "life's setting sun".
Qualifying Metaphor: Applying an alien term and denying one of its proper attributes (e.g., calling a shield "the wineless cup").
Gender Rules of Nouns
Masculine: End in
{nu},{rho},{sigma}, or letters compounded with{sigma}(i.e.,{psi}and{xi}).Feminine: End in vowels that are always long (
{eta}and{omega}), or lengthened{alpha}.Neuter: End in short/variable vowels (
{iota},{upsilon}),{nu}, and{sigma}. (Only three nouns end in{iota}:{mu eta lambda iota},{kappa omicron mu mu iota},{pi epsilon pi epsilon rho iota}).
Poetic Style, Elevation, and Metaphorical Usage
Perfection of Poetic Style
Style must be clear without being mean.
Using only current/proper words creates total clarity, but results in meanness (e.g., the poetry of Cleophon and Sthenelus).
Using unusual words (strange words, metaphors, lengthened forms) raises style above the commonplace.
Excess Flaws:
A style composed entirely of metaphors becomes a riddle (expressing true facts through impossible word combinations, e.g., "A man I saw who on another man had glued the bronze by aid of fire").
A style composed entirely of strange words becomes jargon.
Solution: A mix of unusual elements (which elevates style) with proper words (which maintains perspicuity).
Modifications and Critical Licenses
Lengthening, contracting, and altering words gives distinction while maintaining clarity through partial conformity.
Critics like Eucleides the elder wrongly ridiculed these licenses, claiming poetry was easy if one could lengthen syllables at will.
Moderate usage is required; obtrusive or improper placement becomes grotesque.
Demonstration of Word Choice Impact
Aeschylus vs. Euripides: Both wrote the same iambic line in their Philoctetes plays, but Euripides changed a single word, substituting the rare word
{Theta omicron iota nu alpha tau alpha iota}('feasts on') for the common{epsilon sigma theta iota epsilon iota}('feeds on'), making his line beautiful while Aeschylus' remained trivial.Ariphrades' Fallacy: Ariphrades mocked tragedians for using non-colloquial structures (e.g.,
{delta omega mu alpha tau omega nu / alpha pi omicron}instead of{alpha pi omicron / delta omega mu alpha tau omega nu}); in truth, these non-standard idioms are precisely what give distinction to poetic style.
Appropriateness of Word Types to Metres
Compound Words: Best suited for Dithyrambs.
Rare/Strange Words: Best suited for Heroic (Epic) poetry.
Metaphors: Best suited for Iambic verse (which closely reproduces conversational speech).
Mastery of Metaphor: The greatest poetic gift; cannot be taught by others. It is the supreme mark of genius, requiring an eye for resemblances.
Narrative Epic Poetry: Structure and Comparison
Dramatic Construction of Epic Plots
Epic narrative must be constructed on dramatic principles, centered on a single action that is whole and complete (with beginning, middle, and end), resembling a single living organism.
Epic vs. History Composition:
History presents not a single action, but a single period, recording all events within that timeframe regardless of how little connected they are (e.g., the sea-fight at Salamis and the battle with Carthaginians in Sicily occurred simultaneously without tending to a single result).
Homer's Superiority in Epic Structure:
Homer did not attempt to dramatize the entire Trojan War, even though it had a clear beginning and end, as it would have been too vast and unmanageable.
Instead, he selected a single portion and introduced many incidents as episodes (e.g., the Catalogue of Ships).
Contrast: Authors of the Cypria and Little Iliad took single heroes or broad periods; as a result, the Iliad and Odyssey furnish material for only one or two tragedies each, whereas the Little Iliad supplies eight: Award of the Arms, Philoctetes, Neoptolemus, Eurypylus, Mendicant Odysseus, Laconian Women, Fall of Ilium, and Departure of the Fleet.
Species, Scale, and Metre of Epic Poetry
Species: Must be Simple, Complex, Ethical, or Pathetic.
Parts: Requires Reversals, Recognitions, Scenes of Suffering, Thought, and Diction (excludes only Song and Spectacle).
Homer's Models:
The Iliad is simple and pathetic.
The Odyssey is complex (replete with recognition) and ethical.
Scale: Epic allows greater length than Tragedy; its limit requires that the beginning and end be brought within a single view.
Advantage of Narrative Scale:
Tragedy cannot represent simultaneous actions (limited to stage actors).
Epic narrative can present multiple simultaneous events, adding mass, grandeur, and diversity, which relieves satiety.
Epic Metre: Heroic measure (dactylic hexameter) is proven by experience to be the stateliest and most massive, readily admitting rare words and metaphors. Mixing metres (as Chaeremon did) is incongruous.
Homer's Narrative Stance and Illusion
The poet should speak as little as possible in his own person, as self-expression is not imitation.
Homer introduces a characterized personage immediately after brief prefatory words.
The Irrational and the Wonderful:
Tragedy requires the wonderful, but Epic poetry can include the irrational (the chief constituent of the wonderful) because the acting agents are not visually seen.
Example: The pursuit of Hector on stage would appear absurd (Greeks standing still while Achilles waves them back), but in Epic narrative, the absurdity goes unnoticed.
Art of Telling Lies Skilfully (The Fallacy):
Homers taught poets to frame false inferences.
If event existing causes event to exist, men falsely assume that if exists, must also exist. Thus, if is true, the mind falsely infers the truth of antecedent (e.g., the Bath Scene in the Odyssey).
Principle: A poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.
Plots must exclude irrational elements; if unavoidable, they must lie outside the play proper (e.g., Oedipus' ignorance of Laius' death in Oedipus; the Pythian games report in Electra).
Critical Objections and Methodological Solutions
Three Objects of Imitation The poet must represent objects in one of three ways:
Things as they were or are (Fact).
Things as they are said or thought to be (Tradition / Received Opinion).
Things as they ought to be (Ideal).
Two Types of Errors in Poetry
Essential Error: Inherent in poetry; occurs when the poet fails through lack of capacity or artistic skill.
Accidental Error: Touches a technical error in another art (e.g., biology, medicine); not essential to poetic art (e.g., representing a horse throwing out both off legs at once, or not knowing that a hind has no horns).
Twelve Heads for Answering Critical Objections
Artistic Justification: Impossibilities are justified if they serve the end of poetry by making the effect more striking (e.g., the pursuit of Hector).
Avoidable Errors: If the end could be attained without violating poetic rules, the error is unjustified.
Ideal Representation: Met by saying "objects are depicted as they ought to be" (Sophocles drew men as they ought to be; Euripides as they are).
Received Opinion: Met by saying "this is what people say" (e.g., tales about the gods may not be higher than fact or true, as Xenophanes notes, but represent tradition).
Historical Custom: Met by appeal to past fact (e.g., "Upright upon their butt-ends stood the spears" was ancient custom, still practiced by Illyrians).
Contextual Analysis: Judging whether a line or action is right requires examining who said/did it, to whom, when, by what means, and for what end (e.g., securing a greater good or averting a greater evil).
Linguistic Usage / Rare Words: Objections resolved by recognizing rare terms (e.g.,
{omicron upsilon rho eta alpha sigma}used for 'sentinels' rather than 'mules'; Dolon being 'ill-favoured' referring to an ugly face rather than a deformed body, as Cretans use{epsilon upsilon epsilon iota delta epsilon sigma}for fair-faced).Metaphorical Interpretation: Expressions resolved as metaphors (e.g., "All gods and men were sleeping" uses 'all' metaphorically for 'many'; "alone she hath no part" uses 'alone' for 'best known').
Accent or Breathing: Solutions changing text reading (e.g., Hippias of Thasos resolved difficulties in lines via altered accentuation).
Punctuation Shifts: Resolving ambiguities by altering punctuation (e.g., passages in Empedocles).
Ambiguity of Meaning: Resolving words with multiple meanings (e.g.,
{pi lambda epsilon omega}).Customary Idiom: Recognizing language conventions (e.g., calling any mixed drink 'wine', hence Ganymede pouring wine to Zeus; calling iron-workers 'bronze-workers').
Five Main Categories of Critical Objections Critical objections charge that statements or depictions are:
Impossible.
Irrational.
Morally hurtful.
Contradictory.
Contrary to artistic correctness.
Comparative Evaluation of Tragedy and Epic Poetry
The Argument Against Tragedy
Critics argue Epic is the higher art because it appeals to a cultivated audience that does not require theatrical gesture, whereas Tragedy appeals to an inferior public.
Tragic actors are accused of over-gesticulation, assuming audiences cannot comprehend without movement (e.g., bad flute-players twirling during 'the quoit-throw' or jostling the leader in 'Scylla'; Mynniscus called Callippides an 'ape' for extravagant action, a view held of Pindarus).
Aristotle's Refutation and Defense of Tragedy
Histrionic vs. Poetic Fault: Censure attaches to acting (the histrionic art), not to the poetry itself. Over-gesticulation occurs in epic recitation (e.g., Sosistratus) and lyrical singing (e.g., Mnasitheus the Opuntian).
Proper Movement: Not all action or dancing is bad, only the representation of degraded subjects.
Independent Power: Tragedy achieves its effect without staging or actors; its tragic power is evident through mere reading.
Superiority of Dramatic Elements: Tragedy possesses all Epic elements (including metre) while adding Music and Spectacle, which produce vivid pleasure.
Concentrated Effect: Tragedy achieves its artistic end in a narrower limit. Concentrated impact is far more pleasurable than diluted effect spread over a long duration (e.g., expanding Sophocles' Oedipus to the length of the Iliad would destroy its power).
Superiority of Organic Unity: Epic narrative has less unity; any single Epic poem furnishes material for multiple tragedies. An Epic strictly confined to a single action appears truncated or watery.
Specific Function: Tragedy fulfils its specific artistic purpose (yielding its proper pleasure of pity and fear) better than Epic poetry.
Final Conclusion
Tragedy is the higher art form because it attains its specific artistic end more perfectly than Epic poetry.